VII Carrera por la convivencia de la Cruz Roja Española

[Antonio247]

On Sunday 26th April I took part at the VII carrera de la Cruz Roja. It is a multicultural race where people from different countries take part in it. Apart from Spain there were a lot of people from Africa and South America. The race starts a 11 am. When I got there at around 10:20, there was a long queue of people entering the race and another one for people who were picking up their race numbers since they had entered via internet. I took position in this queue and at once Fran, who took part at the race at the port in Almería, arrived. We talked while we waited for our turn. After being given our race number, we tried to get the T-shirt but there weren´t any left from our size. This year the participation was larger than previous years. Then, we saw Felipe and Mario who were going to pick up their race numbers. Afterwards, I spotted Paul K who was at the sea front, I went to greet him and he introduced me his sister who was spending a week at his house. It was a bit cloudy and windy. We went to the start line where we met Felipe. Mario, Santi. Paul told us he was going to find a place nearer the start line.

I went most of the time on my own feeling well but a bit slower than the previous week at the port in spite of the fact that this race is shorter, around 6.5 km. When I was going along the sea front, Adolfo, a colleague from one of my schools greeted me. I told him it was unusual he was so far behind. He told me that he wanted to enjoy with a friend of him who had been injured until recently. He said that they had done ten kilometres before the race so that it could be a long run as they usually do on Sundays. As I couldn´t keep their pace, I went on at mine.

After the sea front, we crossed carretera de Ronda and went up the Rambla for around 1.5 km to go down the same distance afterwards and get to the sea promenade again. In the last half a kilometre I accelerated passing a few runners. It took me nearly 40 minutes to do around 6.5 kilometres. At the finish, I saw Paul. We congratulated each other and picked up a drink and a sandwich for each one and his sister. After a chat with him and saying goodbye to Paul and his friendly sister who had to go back to Arboleas, I greeted Santi who was with Adolfo and talked about future goals. There were some people from Africa playing the drums at the finish area.