Last Saturday on 30th December I took part another year in the San Silvestre race in El Ejido. It is a five lap course along the main avenue in El Ejido, a town 35 km away from Almería. Each lap is 2.2 km long. In all, 11 km. It was a beautiful sunny day. The temperature was around 18º Celsius. I went by car with my brother Jose and my friend Felipe. My brother came as our official photographer and Felipe accepted my invitation to come and take part although he hadn´t trained for a few weeks because of a strong cold.
We arrived at the town hall where we picked up our race numbers, chips and a goodie bag with a T-shirt and a rucksack, which is not bad since the entry was free. We saw the big crib that is set up there every year. There we met a few runners that we know such as Antonio L., who encouraged me to take part five years ago and I have come all those years to say good bye to the old year. We also saw two great ex marathon champions, Abel Antón and Martín Fiz. Later, in the avenue, I saw Abel Antón and asked him if we could have a picture with him. He accepted in a friendly way and we talked a little about his first position in two world championships, Athens 1997 and Seville 1999. He was very nice and we all wished each other good luck.
The race started and Felipe and myself went together most of the race. It took us nearly 12 minutes each lap, which was uphill then downhill and finally uphill.People were very nice and children offered their hands and said Choca, which means Shake ( hands ). When I offered mine, some of them took theirs away and laughed at me but others accepted. After two or three laps we were offered a bottle of water.
Felipe noticed his lack of training lately and told me to go at my pace but I said that I couldn´t go much faster and I preferred to do the race with him. When we were in the last kilometre, I noticed a couple of runners behind who wanted to overtake us and I decided to go a little faster. I managed to overtake another couple of runners but the ones who wanted to overtake us, overtook me in the last half kilometre and I couldn´t keep their pace. When I arrived at the finish, I took a bottle of Aquarius and went back to finish with Felipe. I finished in one hour, one minute and a half and Felipe about forty seconds later.
I felt quite well but Felipe was a little tired since he hadn´t trained much although happy to have come and eager to get prepared for Almería half marathon where he will beat me as usual.
San Silvestre de El Ejido 2006
