III carrera nocturna memorial José Zapata. Roquetas de Mar. 10 kms.

[Antonio247]

Last Sunday I took part in the third edition of the “ Carrera nocturna de Roquetas. 10k.”. The course was the same as last year. It started at the Gran Plaza shopping centre and finished in the same place. It was a wonderful day. It was sunny and the temperature around 23º Celsius. When I arrived at the start, I met some friends I´d seen in the Red Cross race the previous Sunday such as Paco and his girlfriend Puri, José Antonio García Verdegay and his girlfriend, Diego. I also met Juan Pedro, who took part at Cartagena half marathon with me. There were around two hundred people at the start. There were some people taking part with a wheel chair and some Moroccans who came to get the trophies.

Juan Pedro and I started together at a pace around 5´30´´ a kilometre. We felt quite well and talked a lot about our next aims. He told me that he is going to take part at Berlin marathon in September. I told him that I´d like to take part at Benidorm marathon in November if I felt well otherwise I could do the half marathon, which is on the same day but at 10 instead of at 8. I told him that the atmosphere was quite good with a lot of runners from other countries, mainly the UK but also The Netherlands. I felt quite well and in around km 3 I decided to increase my pace getting to the roundabout at the urbanización de Roquetas in 28 minutes. It is around km 5. After that, we took along the road that leads to the sea front. There was a drinking station where I took a bottle of water and went on trying to reach other runners. Then, in km 7, Juan Pedro reached me and we went together. I told him that my aim was to do it under 60 minutes since last year it took me 61 minutes. He was confident that we could do it. In the last km, Juan Pedro started to go faster but I couldn´t keep his pace, so he arrived half a minute before me. Actually, I finished in 57´25´´. When I was getting to the finish, I could see the people clapping and cheering me. When I passed the finish line, I was given a slip of paper with my time and after queuing a little with Juan Pedro and other runners, I was given a bag with a T-shirt, a rucksack, a bottle of water, an apple and a banana from the Canary Islands. Then, I had a glass of Fanta but I rejected a glass of beer since I had to drive home. On the way to my car, I saw a few runners getting to the finish. I cheered them a lot. I know what it is like to be in the last positions.

This is the third year I take part in this race and I am quite glad since I´ve managed to improve my time and the bag of goodies is not bad taking into account that the entry is free. Besides, it is nice to run in the evening when the temperature is quite nice.