One of life’s mysteries – waking up a few minutes in advance of the alarm clock, regardless of how early it’s due to cry out in the darkness. It happened as usual this morning, despite it being set for 03:55.
Half an hour later I was tip-toeing down the stairs of my in-laws’ place, and off out into the icy pre-dawn. Ash (Sweder) and Andy (Seafront Plodder) nearly turned up on time, and 20 minutes or so later, we were checking in our bags at Gatwick.
We finished counting our good omens as we arrived in Almeria. Despite the pleasure of meeting up with our hospitable local mate, Antonio, it was disappointing to see the teeming rain. We learned that this had started yesterday evening, and hadn’t stopped. After checking into the Tryp Indalo hotel, a second piece of bad news came in a phone call to Ash from EasyJet, telling him he’d left his wallet on the plane. On reflection, this may not have been such bad news for him. It presented him with the perfect excuse to keep his hands firmly in his pockets as Antonio led us round a cake paradise and some tapas bars.
In truth, this wasn’t the most satisfying of activities the day before a race, when I’m ultra-paranoid about what I eat and drink, not to mention the perils of ingesting too much recycled cigarette smoke. But it was good to meet up for a chat with some of Antonio’s friends and work colleagues. One in particular, a lively and personable redhead called Carmen, reproached our great nation, and called us uncivilised. We drink too much, it seems. The irony hadn’t struck her. She was talking to two water-supping Brits while she necked a few cervezas in a bar dedicated to the noble art of bull-fighting. How do we define being civilised? It’s in the eye of the beholder, evidently. It wasn’t a completely serious discussion, or we could now be looking forward yet again to repulsing the Spanish Armada from our southern shores.
Even more enjoyable was the siesta that followed, and I managed to claw back a couple of the hours lost early this morning.
This evening it was registration at the new stadium, opened last year just in time for the half marathon. It’s developed in the intervening year, and now has a car park, a large electronic scoreboard, and a restaurant overlooking the floodlit, fluorescent green pitch. Here the pasta meal was held. I didn’t mind the more down-to-earth youth hostel venue last year — but the greater convenience this year was welcome.
The meal was fine. Cold pasta and ham starter, followed by what I first assumed to be the roasted leg of an ostrich. But no, a couple of bites later and I revised my view — it transpired to have once belonged to a gargantuan chicken.
I have a thing about empty stadiums. Nothing to do with being a QPR fan, no, but connected with childhood memories of Wembley Stadium. But these are mournful tales for another time.
Tomorrow, the race.
