Week 14

[Nigel]

Felicitaciones y muy buen hecho, Antonio. Congratulations, and very well done on a fine race. I enjoyed your account, picturing your nephew Luis cycling alongside. Hopefully you can count on good support along Madrid's Paseo de la Castellana in April as well.

You mentioned that Las Ramblas in Almeria, where the race starts, was a river bed filled in a few years ago to make that wide and elegant boulevard with its line of parks running down to the port. What happens to the water, when it rains there now ? It doesn't rain often in Almeria, I know, but when it does, it rains very hard....

“Perro ladrador, poco mordedor”, that's a good Spanish proverb. 'His bark was worse than his bite" would be the English equivalent, which we apply to many people, not just dogs. (Except for admirals, where an alternative might be 'His barque was worse than his bight'....).

Who were the Spanish athletes featured in the pre-race lecture ? Spain has had some great 1500m runners over the years - Fermin Cacho is one I remember particularly well, thrilling the crowd at the Barcelona Olympics, whilst Abel Anton was a World Champion who won the London Marathon in style in 1998. A proud running tradition indeed.