Races and stuff.

[Bierzo Baggie]

Vigo-Bay Half Marathon. Sunday April 15th.
This is one I probably shouldn’t have done, for lots of reasons. As we were staying with my in-laws near La Coruña last weekend and Vigo didn’t seem that far away on the map I ended up going.

The motorway from Coruña to Vigo is a fast, traffic-less one at 7 in the morning but, hey, it’s also full of toll booths. By the time I reached Vigo I suspected that the Almeria- half by plane would have worked out cheaper. Found myself at the start line a record breaking 2 hours early. Amazingly there were already people kitted out and warming up . Met up with Miguel the Prof for breakfast at a beachside café. A warm, sunny day beckoned and it felt like I was on my hols. Suddenly the beach became much more appealing than the half marathon course.

Miguel the Prof is one of many runners who got up at 5:30 to get here from El Bierzo. Noticed that a fair few of the Ponferrada crew don’t even do our local races. Strange that. But Vigo Bay is a big race, the biggest half marathon I’ve ever run (and I reckon I’ve done about 20). There are 2000+ entrants and I imagine it’s something similar to what you runningcommentary folk are used to in the UK. It follows an attractive, “undulating” course along the Atlantic coast to the popular resort of Bayona, the last decent sized town before Portugal. It’s also a smoothly organized, customer-friendly operation with several tonnes of bananas at the end.

Got changed and joined hundreds of other runners trotting very slowly up and down the seafront. Didn’t see the point of it myself. I’ve never been one for warming up. If I’m going to run 21K then I don’t want to waste any more energy than strictly necessary beforehand. If I collapse next to the 20K mark then I just know I’ll be cursing those 20 minutes spent trotting up and down the seafront. This isn’t misplaced bravado or anything. I’m just scared of knackering myself out.

So, I stretched a few muscles half-heartedly, wriggled my toes about a bit, observed the mass of humanity trotting up and down (some very stylish lads and lasses out there) and then found myself gawking at some ladies stretching. Isn’t this what they call leering? Snapped out of it and went for a trot with Miguel the prof, the man from Ozuela and a few others who I recognized from the Aquilianos or the Morredero run. At this point I bumped into Riazor Blue. Didn’t recognize him at first without the long socks. RB’s shop must be doing a roaring trade in long socks as there were dozens of people wearing them. In fact I don’t think I’ve ever seen a race with as much stylish sportswear as this one. There was also some bloke dressed up as a clown called Mr Dixieland who was running about and blowing a trumpet which is always nice to see.

And so, to the race, which I can divide into 3 clearly defined stages.
1-10K. Worked my way up through the field. Brian RB floated past me at the 10K point just as I had started to go backwards. Accelerated to keep up with him for a few strides but could see that the boy is in horribly good shape and so I did the wise thing and eased off. And backwards.
10-20K. Worked my way back down the field, wilting disturbingly in the heat. Everybody else seemed to be going at a constant, well-calculated pace and they all went past me in waves. Developed a nasty spitting habit. I’ve never spat so much in a race, not even in a game of football (neither playing nor watching). Lost more liquid gobbing than sweating…and I sweated buckets! They won’t be inviting me back to Vigo …
20-21K. Despite feeling very tired I discovered that I could still run hard. Went apeshit and overtook about 30 runners. I must have looked like a right nutter. One last push and I crossed the finishing line but it turned out to be the 21K marker. Lengthened my stride again and found myself racing the last 100 metres with another fellow from Ponferrada. We both finished as the clock ticked towards 1:38.

Had to shoot back pretty early which was a shame as this was an event to make a day of and I wasn’t able to meet up with RB and the clan. A dip in the sea would have massaged tired limbs back to life and as I watched the Atlantic breakers crash into the rocks off Bayona I imagined Sweder and Co looking out to a similar sort of panorama in Cape Town.

Postscript. Hobbled about for much of last week and only managed to run a measly 2 kilometres on Friday morning. Never before have I taken so long to recover from a race. Not even a marathon. Felt like I had concrete blocks strapped to my calves. Ouch! Maybe I should have warmed up…