Objectives: Under two hours and under eighty kilos

[Antonio247]

After Almería half marathon where I just managed to finish in two hours 30 minutes because of an injury in my right hamstring. Fortunately, I could go on training softly for a week and harder and longer the next weeks.

On Sunday 18th March I picked up Antonio G. at six am and drove to Murcia. He´s going to do Worcester marathon on 15th April whereas I’m going to do the half marathon. It is his first marathon. He’d like me to do it with him but I don’t feel well enough. However, when I finish the half marathon, I want to go back and do with him his last miles.

It was a lovely day in Murcia although later it got hotter. We picked up our race numbers and went to have breakfast at a café near the sports pavillion. There were two races at the same time: the half marathon and the 10 km race. There were 2400 entrants for the half marathon and 600 for the 10 km race. The atmosphere was fantastic. There were also many soldiers from a parachuting brigade in Alcantarilla, 10 km away.

We started together but after one kilometre I felt that I could increase my pace and left him behind. I greeted Rafa, the companion I did many kilometres with at Almería half marathon. Later, I learnt that he had to do just 10 km because of strong pain in some muscles. I saw a balloon with the 2 hours target just 300 metres ahead but I didn’t want to force since I didn’t want to get injured again. Anyway, I managed to do the first 12 kilometres at a 5´45´´ pace the kilometre. However, in the last kilometres I had to slow down since I felt tired. In kilometre 14 I met a man, Amadeo from Elche de la Sierra, who had a problem in an artery and although he had done a half marathon under one hour forty minutes, he couldn’t force to avoid big problems. So, we went together talking and enjoying the race. We arrived together and congratulated each other. After picking up a technical T-shirt and a bag with fruit, water, juice, a cap, etc I saw Antonio G arriving. He had done the half marathon in two hours 23 minutes. Then, we went to where the awards were given and gave our race numbers to take part in a draw of ten legs of cured ham. The gave a prize and a boy took out a race number. I was the first lucky one but Antonio G. was the third one. So, we left with our legs of cured ham to the car and decided to go to Sierra Espuña, in the province of Murcia, to have lunch. In that natural park we found a nice restaurant with fantastic views where we had a fantastic meal. The restaurant is called El mirador de Gelves. After that, we went to Lorca where we visited a friend of mine, who is a Franciscan friar at the local sanctuary. He showed us the beautiful building which was affected by the earthquake last May. He also showed us a part of the town where some blocks of flats had to be demolished for security reasons.