Just like when picking up my goodie bag it was easy getting to the starting area in the early morning. My starting group would be allowed into the waiting area at 0830 (where the toilets and baggage handling were) before being let into the starting area at 0845 and crossing the starting line at 0900.
I had registered an expected finish time of 0145 so I had expected to be put into the starting group before the one I ended up in. I was surprised, but the other group was “sub 1:45” and mine was “sub 2:00”, so I was technically in the right place.
Bullshit.
The fastest pacers in my starting group were the 2:00 pacers who were standing in the front, but it seemed like I wasn’t the only one who felt I had ended up in the wrong place, as as soon as we started a large horde of people quickly passed the pacers. The group before us started at 0845 so the front had a 15-minute head start, but even before reaching the 5km mark we were easily catching up with the rear end of that group.
When closing in on the 3km mark there was a lot of shouting and cheering, something I hadn’t expected this soon, but it was amazing and felt good with such eager onlookers. It turned out that they were facing the wrong way; on the other side of the median strip the fastest runners from the first group were just passing their 16km point.
On paper the course looks fairly easy as it is very flat. But along the way there are only 4 water stations (norm is almost double that), a time limit of 2½ hours (norm is usually 3 hours) and when not in the shade, which was maybe half the time at best, we were exposed to the Spanish sun from a cloudless sky, which meant it got very hot at times. I almost missed the rain from the previous day. All this culminated in a finish time of 1:45:24 which unfortunately was outside of my goal of sub 1:45. Despite expecting to be annoyed with the result and whining about it I felt fairly relaxed with the result. No pacers to follow, few water stations and high heat made it far from an easy race.
Out of 8839 runners (7002 men, 1837 women) I came in as no. 3758 (top 42,5%) and in my category (M35, i.e. men 35-39) I came in as no. 623 (out of 1049, top 59,4%). Clearly a lot of strong runners. And we got a new world record for women; 1:02:52 run by Ethiopia's Letesenbet Gidey, 68 seconds quicker than the old record.
Crossing the finish line we were handed a second bag, this one filled with a banana, a net with clementines, nuts, “probiotic mango/coconut drink” (tasted like an iced tea), bottle of blue Powerade, water and a Monster Hydrosport energy drink (which in my opinion is a crime against humanity). Overall with a fair margin the run I’ve participated in with the most goodies handed out to the participants.
Arriving at the hotel the breakfast should have been over and closed but wasn’t, so I got a few quick toasted buns before returning to the room and had a much-needed shower and relaxing. Getting a bit antsy during the afternoon I went for a few hours’ walk but while it did feel good getting out a bit my legs were very happy that I returned to the hotel to do nothing.
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