Almería half marathon 2009

[El Gordo]

I'll double check the dates I looked at for the vehicles . . . I may have lopp-ed a day off by mistake in which case the cost may be closer to GBP 40 per person, though still pretty reasonable at that. I'll confirm before booking.

It depends how they calculate the days. In my experience most vehicle rental firms regard a part day as a day. I well recall hiring a car after the Hamburg Marathon. We booked it for 3 days. It was due back at 4pm to complete the 3 x 24 hour booking. Unfortunately it was 4:10 when I reached the head of the queue, and I was charged for 4 days as I'd gone into the 4th 24 hour period. Harsh, but they were the rules I'd agreed to.

I guess we'll need the vehicles for roughly 3 days + 6 hours, so may well be charged as 4 days. I don't mind, but it's as well that we know that in advance if that's how they calculate it.

The WAGS -- I like that.

Is Niguel definitely out of the running for Almeria? I see he's not in your list.

Now that we (or some of us) have done this trip a few times, what might we do differently this time? For instance, one thing that occurs to me is that we need to brief everyone in advance about getting the meal tickets when we register, and ensuring they're for the first sitting. Antonio may have to be on hand to help out here. There's always a last-minute panic about someone not getting a ticket, or not being able to get into the same sitting.

There was also confusion last time about eating on the last night. We demanded tapas in the Bullfighters Bar, not realising that had we ordered raciones, we'd have been able to sit down. We ended up leaving prematurely. A language mix up that deprived us of our usual hour of cross-cultural jousting in the Bullfighter's.

Any thoughts about post-race Sunday lunch? I enjoyed last year and the year before that. Don't mind repeating either of them or finding somewhere different. What does Antonio think? Any new places opened that we should try? Or should we stick with the tried-and-tested?