Last Saturday I took part in Mojácar 10 km race. I left from Roquetas de Mar at 3.30 pm. I decided to leave early since I was going alone and I felt like spending a few hours sunbathing and having a swim on the beach before the race. I arrived at the beach at nearly 5 pm after driving 110 kms. After having a wonderful time on the beach, I went to Mojácar, a white village up on a hill. The view from up there is superb.
http://www.dipalme.org/mojacar/
I left the car in the open air car park at the bottom of the village and walked up quickly to register. On the way up, I met Riccardo , an Italian friend who is training for Venice marathon. I went to the town square where I saw Riccardo´s wife, Anna. There, I met other runners from Almería, Murcia, France such as Phillipe, who is a young man from Paris who I met in Mojácar race last year. He told me that he had taken part in Paris marathon this year doing 4 hours 44 minutes, which is 25 minutes faster than my 5 hours 10 minutes in Madrid. We noticed that there weren´t many runners this year, only around 70.
The race started at 8.07. It was a big downhill for one kilometre. I ran together with other runners. However, from km 2 I had to go alone. There were a few slight ups-and-downs following a road next to some resorts of two-floor houses with a few cars with British plates. There were drink stations every 2.5 kms. As I was the last one, the ambulance went behind me and offered me a bottle of water more times and asked me how I felt. Then, we got to the road near the beach where there were many people in the streets encouraging. Then, I arrived at the road leading to the village, which is really hard. It is about 3 km long going uphill. It´s really exhausting, especially the last km when it is very steep. I had to walk and run one minute three times because I noticed I would go faster walking than plodding. Luckily, I got to the last hill leading to the village square where the people clapped a lot. I managed to arrive in 63 minutes. I was tired but glad since I had been able to finish. Last year, I had to leave in km 6 because I had had stomach problems and it was hotter since it had started at 6 pm. I got a bag with a bottle of water, an apple, a leaflet and two postcards but no T-shirt this time.
I was with Riccardo and his wife while we saw the people receiving their awards. A cup for the first, second and third in each category. I almost got one since there were only four participants in my category. I was congratulated by a young runner, who had been a pupil of mine at Vera secondary school fifteen years ago and I had seen at Almería half marathon. I congratulated him for having finished in only 44 minutes. I also talked to Phillipe who encouraged me to take part at Paris marathon on 10th April. I told him that if I dont get a race number for London, I could go to Paris. Then, I left with Riccardo and Anna to the car where we said good bye and we wished each other good luck expecting to meet in the next race in Vera on 12th September after their trip to Italy.
