XX Medio maratón de Almería 20th Almería half marathon

[El Gordo]

All rather benign, fortunately; an acceptance that it won't ever happen for us, but that having a go would be an interesting diversion.

Ah, but it did happen, for both of you. Maybe not a specific goal, but there was certainly a lot of happening going on. Wist and rue yes, but also immense joy from time to time. And I gather there will be more to come, next January.

Yes, it did. Thanks. You're right.

As for January..... no wait. OutAlongTheRiver has suffered enough. This hijacking must stop. I'll continue this on the Almeria thread.

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COPIED FROM THE HIJACKED DISCUSSION AT: CLICK
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Where were we? Almeria...

Almeria?  Pffffahhhhh. I'm still definitely planning to go. But I relegated my hopes from 21K to 9K some time ago, after a deeply frustrating month of abstemiousness and rowing and painful plodding left me feeling no convincing improvement in any area -- girth, aerobic fitness, stamina, muscliness, or (worst of all) self belief. Maybe I'm just beyond salvation.

So I stepped down to the 9K, and even that is a long way from reality, bearing in mind that Almeria is one of those events where there's no 'fun run' approach. Truly, one of the worst running memories I have is seeing the plump girl at the very back of the Almeria field, doing something that was probably the most courageous things she'd ever done, having her fragile spirit being crushed beyond repair by the sniggering circus behind her. Hold on, I need to find it. Here it is (and it even mentions wistfulness):

Up and down La Rambla a couple of times. Along to the end of the extended, wind-blown Avenida Maritimo. This stretch is long but it has its compensations. For those of us living far from the sea, the sight of the Mediterranean, and those waving palm trees, can be uplifting. Something happens. A sudden wistfulness that gnaws at my heart: threatening and consoling at the same time.

Out and back, out and back. All the time, confronted with the faster guys coming towards me, whistling past like missiles. After the gliding Kenyans and the best of the rest — the muscular, athletic Spaniards, came the first of our lot: whippet Paul, head down, straining at the leash, face tomato-red and blotchy, gurning angrily, anxious, carrying some appalling burden I’d never experience. Ten or twelve minutes later, in a cloud of steam, Ash appears, scarlet and sweat-glistened, cooking in his clothes, but, in his often used phrase, grinning like a loon. Here’s the long-limbed Nigel, rangy galloping strides, that characteristic, distant smile — the man who knows too much. Antonio: intense, determined, rhythmic. Head up, eyes straight. This is a serious business. And Suzie. Relaxed, beaming, gentle gait, a runner who knows what she’s doing; a runner at peace with herself.

All of us crossing and re-crossing those thresholds, picking up and peering at nuggets of self-doubt before tossing them over our shoulder and out of sight.

Twice I reached the roundabout at the end of the Avenida Maritimo, and twice I had the chance to measure how far I was from the back of the field. The first time, I counted eleven casualties behind me. The second time, just three. There was an elderly couple holding hands, and finally, some way behind, a plump young girl in a red, military sweatshirt, plodding along like her life depended on it. Immediately behind her, just a few feet away, were two police motorbikes with flashing lights, an ambulance, a transit van, and five hundred metres of honking traffic. I’ve never seen anything like it.

I overtook someone — a girl dressed all in white — two kilometres from the stadium. Through that long final stretch towards the stadium, I constantly expected her to float past me again, but she never did. The end of this race was always going to be grim, but it really shouldn’t have been as hard as it was. It had become a marathon survival-shuffle, and it shouldn’t have been.

Let’s end the misery. How nice to hit that ramp and plunge down into the stadium to the finish line. I got home in 2:28, my slowest half marathon in 5 years.

The others were waiting to greet me — thank you. They needn’t have waited, but it meant a lot to me that they did.

The girl in white never appeared, so she must have dropped out in the final mile. The older couple arrived, still holding hands, still grinning. I wanted to clap in the final finisher, the girl who’d led the angry queue of traffic, but I missed her while I was collecting my fleece. But the records show that she finished.

Beatriz Ramos Jorge, we salute you.

I don't want to be the Beatriz of 2017, so I'll have to wait and see how it goes. The Zurich Silvesterlauf in mid-December is already under very serious threat.