This time I had the chance to leave on Saturday. So, I went to Alcalá la Real, a town in the province of Jaén, fifty kms from Granada. I started teaching there at Safa school twenty three years ago. It was great to come back after a few years I hadn´t been there and meet some old friends.
On Sunday, I went to the stadium where I met John, who was already there and Dani, a friend who also teaches English at a secondary school. John told me that he had a cold and he wanted to run without any pressure so he didn´t take his watch. We talked about teaching English to children and teenagers and met a friend of John´s who has speech problems since he is in a certain degree deaf mute but a good runner who had taken part at Almuñécar race on the first of October. He gave John a leaflet about that 15 km race. John offered us to have a cup of coffee but I rejected since I preferred running with my stomach nearly empty as I had had just an apple for breakfast.
When it was nearly ten o´clock, we wished each other good luck and went to the start line. I decided to take it easy since I had had some ankle pain a few days ago while running over a kerb and I was five kilos fatter than last year. I met other runners who wanted to go at a 6:30 minute pace the kilometre. They were PE teachers at different secondary schools. Their names were Marián, Sergio and Goyo. Marián and Sergio told me that they hadn´t trained at all and Goyo had had an injury in a knee for several weeks, so he just did some cycling. Actually, the previous day, he didn´t know if he would take part. A friend of him gave him his race number since he was injured. I was enjoying a lot since I felt well and although I knew I wouldn´t get a PB, I felt comfortable. In km 5 we did 32´30´´. People cheered us and we thanked them or one of my mates played a joke on them asking if they had seen many people ahead and other things like that. We could see many people sitting in the terraces having breakfast and we could smell of churros or slices of toast. There was plenty of water and pieces of orange. Every 2.5 km after km 5 there was a drinking station and there were also several sponge stations. The temperature was nice, between 16º and 25º and it was sunny. We reached km 10 in 65 minutes.
After 11 kms , Sergio felt pain in his ankle and decided to slow down. Later, Marián felt tired and we decided to do one minute walking while climbing a long hill. Sergio reached us but later Marián and Sergio decided to go more slowly and Goyo and I continued at our pace talking about other races and sometimes overtaking a few runners. When we were arriving, I saw John on his way to the car. When we reached the stadium, Goyo took out his cap and asked the people in the stands to clap and cheer us. I saw Dani taking us a photo at the finish line. We finished in two hours 23 minutes but we felt very happy. We took some water, banana, the bag with the T-shirt and some things such as ball pens, a milkshake, and something else.
It was a different experience since I didn´t have the pressure to finish under two hours. I took it as a long run trying to enjoy the company and the beautiful city of Granada.
That's a great picture of the finish - everybody should finish a half marathon looking that happy!
When I saw you near the end you were both breathing hardish, but still talking...?
I think we were lucky that it was such a lovely day, since it had rained a bit on the days leading up to the run and has rained such a lot since (Sweder - we're talking torrential rain. Rivers running down the streets in some areas. That may be partly down to the fact the drainage systems in certain parts are in need of an updgrade...)
Personally I wish they'd take the route around some of the nicer parts of town - Granada is beautiful but that route isn't always. I know it'd probably be logistically impossible and would introduce some really tough hills (I'd like it to go up past the alhambra and onto the llano de perdiz), but the views would make it a really special half marathon.
Granada half marathon. 22nd October 2006
