Almería half marathon. 30th January 2006

[Antonio247]

This morning I did a part of the half marathon course. I started at Sierra de Alhamilla road, just opposite the block of flats where I live at km 2.5. It was a sunny day. The temperature indicators showed 11º Celsius at the shade and 14º at the sunshine. I followed the course along this road to cross carretera de Ronda and get to the Rambla. Here it is a little uphill as far as where we have to turn back. There, I met two fellow runners, Felipe and Mario, who were going down the Rambla after having reached the end- a further half a kilometre – which is not a part of the course. I went down this avenue with them. We talked about the half marathon next Sunday, which they are also going to take part in it. Felipe is also a teacher of English at a secondary school and Mario is a serviceman in a camp near Almería where there is a base of legionnaires. Actually, a lot of military people usually take part in this race.

We took the sea front which is parallel to avenida Cabo de Gata because there´s no traffic and the view is much better. We saw some people running but fewer than usual. There were many people strolling and others sitting at the cafés. We got to avenida del Mediterráneo. Here it is where the last three kilometres uphill starts but it isn´t really hard. They´re nearly flat. However, they may look tougher after 18 kms. In the half marathon, we have to go back to the Rambla uphill and downhill to get there again in order to get to the finish. So, we went along that avenue and took another avenue instead of taking carretera de Sierra Alhamilla since it has very little traffic. Then, we got to Camino de la Goleta to get to the stadium. I couldn´t keep their pace the last kilometre. When I got to the stadium about one minute later, they were stretching. I also stretched a little. Then, Felipe asked the man at the gate how we would get to the track at the half marathon. He was very friendly. He spoke with an Argentinian or Uruguayan accent. He told us that he used to train two or three years ago but he had an injury in the abductor muscle because he had done a big effort when he was taking part at a race.

Then, we went on along the first kilometre of the half marathon. I decided to go along the original course while they went back to the sea front. I got to my starting point- km. 2.5 in 78´. Then, I completed 80 minutes and stretched again outside my block of flats. I guess I did in all around 12 kilometres. I did it better than I expected since I haven´t managed to train much lately due to illness or injury.