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Week 3
Sunday. Today I had to do 12 miles. I decided to follow the same course of Almería half marathon but going along the sea front instead of Cabo de Gata avenue. At seven I had two bananas and later a cereal bar. Then, I left and went to the stating line leaving at 8:10 a.m. It was a bit cloudy. The temperature ranged between 10º Celsius at 9 am and 13º at 10 am. I did the first kilometre in 6 minutes. Then, I went to the sea front where I did my first walk break in minute 10. I´d decided to do a walk break after 9 minutes but I forgot the next one and I did it in minute 22. The other walk breaks were in minutes 32, 42, 52, 62, 82, 92, 102, 112, 122, 132, 142. I forgot to do the break in minute 72. Then, I went up Rambla Federico García Lorca getting to km 5 in 34 minutes and then I went down that broad avenue to get to Almadrabillas park in 55 minutes. There, I met Felipe, a teacher of English I´ve already mentioned in other posts, and asked him to go with me. We went on and met my brother, Jose, who was waiting for me at the sea front and came with us on bicycle. Felipe told us his trip to Burgos and Valladolid with his wife and three daughters at Easter holidays. They had a wonderful time visiting Atapuerca in Burgos where there are remains from the prehistoric culture. They also visited monuments such as Burgos cathedral, the monastery of Santo Domingo de Silos where Gregorian singing is done by the monks, towns and ate very good food and drank good wine from Ribera del Duero. He turned back after five kilometres because he was in a hurry to get some churros and take her mother to church. We continued along the sea front to the university getting to km 14 in 95 minutes and got back where the half marathon turns back in km 14.5. We came back along the sea front having a wonderful view with the sea on the left and Sierra de Gádor and Sierra de los Filabres on the right covered with a lot of snow. We crossed river Andarax with a lot of water from last days´ rain. After crossing the bridge, we got to km 18 in two hours six minutes and later km 20 in two hours 20. We got to the stadium in two hours 26 minutes but we continued to the starting line and completed two hours thirty minutes doing around twenty-one kilometres in all. I did some stretching and ate a cereal bar and drank some water as I had done in some walk breaks.
It is interesting to do the same course of a half marathon you´ve done before because you remember a lot of things that happened when you were taking part in it. It´s incredible how different things can be. When I took part at Almería half on 25th January, I´d never have dreamt of doing it alone without taking part in a competition, however, now after doing twenty miles last Sunday, it looked nearly a piece of cake. I didn´t feel too tired and I think that doing walk breaks makes me feel better and I don´t think I lose much time since I can make the time lost up by going faster when I start running again and when I´m going to stop for the walk break. Besides, I think that my muscles and joints suffer much less, so I can avoid injuries.
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