All Change.

[Riazor Blue]

Not running in Madrid has left me with the feeling that there is unfinished business to attend to. It's as if I have been cheated. Right up until Saturday night I was thinking that maybe I would run. I knew that it was not wise to run and I had also given a commitment to the organizers to be a helper. I think that subconciously I ran 13 km at slightly faster than my half marathon pace on Friday to stop myself from doing something silly on Sunday.

It was good to meet up with Antonio. Nice to put a face to the writing. To Antonio, I should apologise for talking so much in my limited castellano and not enough in english. Working in the baggage store was an interesting experience as a very good work-out aswell. The army had set everything up the night before so at 8.00 on Sunday morning all we had to do was collect our volunteers bib and chose a tent. To work out which tent to leave one's bag, one had to look at the final digit of the race number. I chose number 7. There were four of us in the store and armed with plastic bags and 2 marker pens, we set about our task.

Given that there were about 12,000 runners we would have had a little less than 1,200 bags in our store. We opened at 8.00 with a trickle of runners. We worked out our system, which was to be rows for thousands plus an extra row for the ladies. We had two guys writing the numbers on the bags and two putting the bags in place. The system worked fairly well until the majority of the runners arrived at about 9.15. At this point we had a queue of about 100 runners all panicking that they would not have time to warm up. At this point it was a case of lobbing the bags wherever we could, in the general direction of their specified row.
There was a rather ugly incident when one runner, who was not wearing his number demanded that we take his bag, but rightly we refused, how could we identify that it was his for a start? Secondly, if he didn't have a race number, he was not part of the race. But this ended up in a very heated debate between this runner, his wife and the other three helpers in our store. I kept things moving on the bag front as best I could until the race organizers and security removed this runner, then things calmed down again.

We had cleared the bulk of our runners by 9.35, with a few stragglers quickly depositing their belongings before scurrying off in the direction of Cibeles Fountain and the start line. Once the race was underway my three compañeros wandered off to find a vantage point to watch a bit of the marathon. I looked at the tent, with bags scattered eveywhere and no space to walk, let alone retreive a bag. I don't know how, but the 4 veterans in tent 6 had everything neatly stacked, aisles wide enough to drive a bus down and were quietly relaxing with cofee and croissants.
In other tents, the occupants were busy rearranging the bags, trying to find some kind of order. An hour after the start, and with no sign of my crew, I decided that I'd have to somehow forge a few aisles in our sea of blue plastic bags. And by the time the first DNF arrived I had a six inch aisle between the hundreds and 1000's, again between 2000's and 3000's, 4's & 5's and so on.

By the time my team returned there was a trickle of non finishers arriving, each with a story of woe, some with injuries, sprains and pulled muscles, others who went off too fast and, as said many 'ran with their heart and not their head'. I made a point of asking each of our runners how they got on, commiserating with those who didn't finish, congratulating all those who did. I had to prompt my team to congratulate the finishers, I think they had forgotten that these guys had just run 42 kilometers in intolerably hot conditions. We had all sorts, returning to collect their bags, those who were knackered, with not an ounce of energy left to say anything, others who were extatic to have finished, others disappointed with their time, all sorts. Our system worked well and nobody had to wait more than a minute or so for their bag, there's nothing worse than having to wait in a queue for ages to collect your belongings.
At 3.45 we closed up shop, there were still 5 bags remaining, these runners were either in the dist cart, the first aid tent or had been transferred to hospital. Around 100 runners were tranferred to hospital, mainly with heat stroke, let's hope they are all OK now.

[El Gordo]

Well done Brian, good work.

So, remind us: what have you decided about your next challenge in place of Madrid?

[Riazor Blue]

Aah, that's the problem Andy. I have been looking for new challenges, thought I had found them but not sure again now.

The 1/2 mara this Sunday has been cancelled.
The one on 23rd will be changed to an 8k closer to home.

Definately I have a half on the 9th then another on 30th May, I'm still hoping for 1hour 25 for that one.

Then... there's a marathon on 6th June which is the Galicia championship, I cannot enter the championship as I'm not Galician, but can enter the marathon. Only thing is, it's a bit close to my 1h 25m half.

So... there's also a marathon close by on 4th July which many people recommend, and I fancy doing it. However, the same day they hold the Spanish half marathon championships in Orense (part of Galicia) and although I cannot enter the championship, I can enter half mara as a guest.

Which gives me a dilemma. Perhaps I run on 30th May as a training run, then enter the Galician marathon in Tui on 6th June and go for my fast half in the Spanish championship half.

Any suggestions would be welcome.

[Riazor Blue]

That's it then chaps. I have made a decision, my friends will obviously tell you that this is a rare thing indeed. July 4th. Torel de los Vedos. It's a small rural marathon which passes through 11 villages, part of the course is on the 'Camino de Santiago', it's more or less flat and there's a slap up dinner for the competitors and their partners afterwards. What more could one ask for from a marathon?

We'll see if I do another one this year or not, it is lots of training. If I do, it will be Lisboa in December.

Training going OK now. I have done 35 km this week with the long one tomorrow, which should push things along to a healthy 60km for the week.

I saw the Real Madrid team whilst running at lunch time, their autobus (I was going to say coach, but that is Carlos Quieroz) was just passing La Torre de Hercules, obviously doing the sites before the game tomorrow. That must be a strange job being the driver of the Madrid team bus. They fly everywhere, so the majority of the time he must be driving around Spain with an empty bus.

[El Gordo]

Good luck on the marathon, RB. You might want to pencil in London next year too....

The press is full of stuff today about Beckham on his way back to Blighty in the summer. To Chelsea, Arsenal or ManU in that order.

Good luck to Deportivo next week. I think they have a great chance. I've been supporting them recently, though Monaco are my current blue-eyed boys for beating Chelsea. Let's hope they fionish off the job next week. Monaco v Deportivo in the final would do me.

[Riazor Blue]

A good result for Deportivo last night, a nice 2-0 confidence booster against Real Madrid with a weakened team. There is a buzz in La Coruña at the moment. I went for a 25km jog along the promenade, harbour wall and the docks yesterday lunchtime and there were so many blue and white flags, scarves and all sorts. One construction company here has those concrete mixer lorries in blue and white stripes, there were seven of them driving in convoy between the stadium and the hotel where Madrid were having lunch, horns blazing. Let's see what will happen on tuesday.

The 25km yesterday was fine, no problems so I think I'm back to normal now. A cautionary tale though:

Yesterday I drank a litre of water before setting out, then a litre more during the run. When I returned I prepared half a litre of gatorade sports drink. Then with lunch another glass of water. Two cups of black coffee followed, then we has visitors. So a white coffee and a couple of small whiskies were consumed. Later I had two bottles od beer followed by another coffee. I watched the football, with the intention of going out to meet friends after the match.

When the game finished I stood up and had such cramps in my left thigh that I have never had before. These subsided, only to return 10 minutes later, really bad. Considering that yesterday was quite warm, especially at 12.00 when I went out to run, I did sweat buckets. I think I can say that the cramps were caused by a lack of salt and slight dehydration in the evening. After downing a litre of water and a very salty tuna sandwich I felt fine again and have not had any more cramps.

Of course the girlfriend is now worried that I'm doing too much exercise, and it's bad for me.

[Antonio247]

Hello, Brian

Congratulations on Depor victory on Real Madrid and on your wonderful recovery.

I´ve heard that Toral de los Vados marathon is very interesting with a nice atmosphere although the participation is low. Besides, the last kilometres are slightly downhill. At the beginning, there are a few slightly uphill, then many flat and the last ones slightly uphill.

Good luck tonight. I expect and hope Depor will beat Oporto.


Antonio