XXI Subida al Veleta

[johnb]

Hi.. The above is true, but seems less impressive when I admit that I was also the only Englishman in the race (as far as I can make out from the results). It is also my best finish in my short racing career - 32nd in 5hr29m.

It is a nice race - hard, as you might expect, but manageable with sensible training. I trained as if for a marathon but with a few more hills thrown in - I live in Granada so I have little choice but to train on hills, no matter what the race is. In the final few kilometres (over 3000m) I had no choice but to walk, but I wasn't too broken hearted about that. If I do it next year I will put in some longer training runs and treat it more like an ultra than I did. I was pretty tired when I finished but was feeling okayish by the next day. Better than my first marathon.

Aside from the first few athletes who post pretty fine times, it is a proper mass participation event - plenty of people appeared to finish near the eight hour mark and almost everyone was good natured and supportive. It is all on tarmac (except a short distance near the very end), which is kind of unrelenting - almost everyone has to walk at some stage. This is good because it gives you chance to look around - the Sierra Nevada is beautiful (as you can probably tell from the photos above).

The organizers are friendly and everyone who finishes gets one of those nice trophies you can see in the photo on the bottom right (new design for this year, apparently). The runners have to tolerate a lot of waiting around at the Ski resort before the buses start running back to town. I was told that this is a year in year out complaint, and that maybe will get sorted out before next year (but my guess would be not).

Final complaint about the TVE E2 coverage - That guy from La Marca who wrote three long and very boring pages about his own participation in the run and hardly mentioned anyone else (except a woman with breasts that were 'on fire') - he was also in the TV coverage. Yet there was no sight of me - I was hoping to make all my friends and relatives sit through it when I visit England in September....