Medio Maratón Almeria – The 2017 Almeria Half Marathon Race Report
The weather forecast for race day had been encouraging, but when I arose the weather instead was cold, rainy, and very windy. It remained disheartening all through breakfast, but by the time we had gathered in the hotel lobby to walk to the race start (or jog there, in the case of some of the more serious among us), the rain had ceased and there was even a little weak sunshine slowly evaporating the chill. The wind, however, remained gusty and annoying.
We arrived in plenty of time, gathering in clusters to take group photos and find our appropriate places in the starting pens. It was a noisy crowd, with many running clubs represented along with many runners from the military, all gathered together and displaying their colours and their jovial, Spanish boisterousness. I couldn’t help noticing that the great majority of runners were young, male and looked very fit. The pace set in this race would undoubtedly be very fast.
If the race expo had been a little crazy and chaotic, then the actual race start was crazier still, although it came as no surprise to the Almeria regulars among us who have come to expect nothing but the unexpected from this event.
Despite their 20 years of experience running this show, one had to wonder as to the organiser’s thinking regarding the race start. It’s fair enough I suppose to have the same start time for the two races, those being the half marathon and its smaller sibling, the 9km race. It’s not even perhaps so unusual to have both events start from the same location. It of course makes sense to have separate starting pens for the two different races. But it takes bizarre to a new, bewildering level to place the starting pen for the shorter event, with its faster runners, behind that of the longer and slower half marathon. If it struck us as odd and pretty much just asking for guaranteed chaos, then our scepticism was shown to be justified from the moment the starting gun fired.
At the back of the half marathon starting pen I had gathered with Ash, Duncan, Antonio and Rob. Behind us was a 10 metre neutral zone and then the 9km starting pen, at the front of which were a great number of anxious, serious runners, nervously worrying about how they were going to weave their way through a massive labyrinth composed of more than two thousand far slower half marathon runners. Many of them had apparently devised a plan, the nature of which became immediately apparent when the starting gun fired. As we at the back of the half marathon starting pack waited patiently for those in front to move across the starting line and get under way, hundreds of 9km runners simply streamed around us and on to the footpaths to get ahead of us and get their race started with as few of the slower half marathoners in their path as possible. The chaos and confusion this caused was to us back markers simply amusing, but to the elite and serious running folk trying to get a good fast start to their race, it must have been annoying in the extreme.
My intent was to start and stay at the back end of the race and run a slow, steady pace throughout. Ash and Antonio had suggested race time goals very similar to mine, and I thought it would be nice to try and stick with them as much as possible. At the gun however, they surprised me by taking off like hungry cheetahs chasing an antelope. I kept them within sight for a few moments, but too quickly they were way ahead of me, so I slowed to my expected pace and resigned myself to running solo.
The first two kilometres were crowded and chaotic, but then the 9km and half marathon courses went separate ways, and so quite suddenly I find myself running near the very back of the race, with only pram pushers and the fat and unfit for company. I didn’t mind, but it was quite a lonely experience, and with Spanish being the only language spoken I couldn’t even understand the small amount of banter among the few people this far back in the race.
I knew that this race was largely entered by fast, club runners with the average pace well above that which I normally experience in a race, and so I expected to be in the bottom 10% or so of the field, but now I appeared instead to be perhaps in the bottom 1%, something of a novel experience for me. My poor grasp of the Spanish language and the fact that the people I had hoped to be running with had disappeared way up ahead only intensified the isolation I was beginning to feel.
Of course there was nothing to be done about it except to press on and complete the race. I was travelling comfortably enough, a little faster than anticipated, but only moderately so. And then somewhere between the 4th and 5th kilometres the unexpected happened. Up ahead, I saw Ash, and he was walking. Thinking he may have hurt himself I picked up my pace a little and drew alongside. There was no concern though, he’d simply gone out too fast and had slowed to a walk to get his heart rate back down in the zone he was determined to run in. This accomplished, we ran on together, and stayed as such for the next 13 or so kilometres, happily chatting all the way.
The wind was making sections of the run difficult, although at other times it provided a welcome push from behind. We were aiming for kilometre splits of about 6:30, but in reality we were often much faster than this, with the odd split being below six minutes and putting me a little ahead of my target time. This would come back to bite me in the final kilometres of the race, but for the moment all was well.
The race route had taken us through the old part of town and was charming, even if some of the residents and the occasional motorist didn’t quite know what was happening. It seems the race is still small enough that not all the locals are aware of its existence. We hit 10km in about 68 minutes and then from there we were running along the seafront. This section had three out-and-back sections and we were kept busy spotting our running colleagues, all of whom were ahead of us. At 11km we caught Antonio, who had strained his left calf and was struggling to maintain pace. He gamely stuck with us for a kilometre or so, but then fell back to preserve his leg and to ensure he at least finished the course, but his target time was by then out of the question.
We maintained our pace as best we could, but the wind was making pacing difficult. If we were flagging though we were buoyed at about 16km to spot Antonio’s delightful wife Carmen cheering us on from the sidelines. At 17km we turned inland gain, a long, gentle 4km ascent to the finish. At first the wind was at our backs and was welcome, but that wasn’t to last, and the closing stages started to become difficult. Or, I should say, I was finding them difficult. Ash was feeling good and chomping at the bit. With about three kilometres to go, I needed to drop the pace a little, so I bid good luck to Ash who quickly disappeared ahead whilst I slowed to a more comfortable, survival plod.
A little later I caught Rob who had started with us at the back of the race but was suffering from cramps. Too tired to say much we plodded on. Inevitably the finish came into view. The rest of our crew were there cheering us on, which was fantastic and a real boost. I crossed the finish line thirty seconds inside my target time, normally cause for hearty congratulations as a triumph of masterful pacing and willpower. On this occasion however this had to be tempered by the fact of sore legs and the knowledge that the race had been far harder than anticipated. I wasn’t alone in thinking this. Very few of us were completely satisfied with our results, nor were any of us expecting this level of discomfort in our legs. Whether the road surface was harder than we thought, or the wind made it tricky, or perhaps just a combination of factors, it was one of the tough ones that come along unexpectedly from time to time. But if that made the post-race celebrations a little more enjoyable, then it was well worth the effort and pain.
I finished in the bottom 5% of the field, and 53rd out of 56 in my age category. This, it must be said, is a sobering result. At dinner the following day I had the extreme pleasure of being seated next to a local gentleman and long-term friend of Antonio’s named Felipe. At the age of 67 and a runner for over four decades, he ran the 2017 edition of the half marathon in a PB time of 1h48m! He credits the stress-free lifestyle of retirement for the improvement in his race times, and is proof that age has only a little to do with performance. And he is hardly obsessed with his sport, running only two or three times per week, and sometimes ‘going off the rails’ and not training at all for anything up to four weeks at a time. After talking with Felipe I resolved to reject the excuses of age and negativity of circumstance as being irrelevant to my results. Nothing, it seems, is beyond reach if one’s attitude is right. Time then, to get my head into gear and be 100% positive.
The post-race meal was a blast, and the following day’s bus trip along the coast to San Jose for a dip in the sea, relaxing and restorative.
At the end of the day, it isn’t the race, the tavernas or the seaside location that makes this such a great occasion (well okay, maybe the tavernas do help)… it’s of course the people. Running with like-minded people is always a joy, and to combine the pure delight of running with friends in a beautiful location and with such gracious hosts as Antonio and all the good people of Almeria has made this a super-special, memorable occasion.
May there be many more Almerias to come!
Oh, and a final word on the brilliance of our host, Antonio. As mentioned, those of us who had ordered and paid for the commemorative race T-shirt did not receive the standard one which we believed would have been included as well as part of the entry fee. Antonio took it upon himself to track down the race director and persuaded him to provide the T-shirts anyway, which he did and which Antonio then delivered to us! A legend and a true friend. Muchas gracias, Antonio!
Fab Fun Feb
