25th – Returning home

As opposed to coming to Valencia the trip home was quite uneventful.

Check-out time at the hotel was 1000 but I managed to get a late check-out time at 1200 so I didn’t have to be in a hurry in the morning. It also meant that when I left the hotel I could take the metro directly to the airport and check in and only have 2 hours until the flight.

The only hiccup was during check-in when my carry-on was weighed and the guy behind the counter pointed out it was too heavy. It took me a moment for it to sink in, but if it was split in two bags and neither weighed more than 8kg I could bring them both on as carry-ons. Total weigh was the same, just split in two. 

So I went through security with two bags (one being my backpack and the other one of the bags from the run stuffed with camera and a jacket) but coming out on the other side I realized it felt very silly and put it all together in one again. And no one stopped me and asked me to split it up. Weird.

Flights home via Zurich went without a hitch, and arriving in Copenhagen 25 minutes ahead of schedule meant that I could catch an earlier train and be home an hour before I had planned to. And that was a pretty neat end to another trip.

Full album from the trip can be seen here.

24th – Valencia half marathon

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.

22nd – 23rd – Getting lost in Valencia

First thing when I left the hotel Friday morning was to pick up my goodie bag and bib number for the run on Sunday. It was (together with the start and finish lines) conveniently located 20 minutes’ walk from the hotel in a straight line, in the middle of the large university campus. There was barely anyone else when I was there so I was quickly done collecting my bag and contents.

From there I walked more or less west until I was straight north of the old part of the city which I entered and spent a few hours walking around in and taking in the sights. It is probably the most inconveniently confusing city I have been in as there were a lot of very narrow streets and odd angles in every single intersection – and add to that tall buildings, that might not have been much taller than maybe 4-5 stories tall, but so close across from each other along the streets they at times felt almost oppressive.

The hotel’s receptionist had suggested to go take a look at the city’s cathedral and city hall. The city hall had a free entrance so it felt very uncommitting to have a walk around inside which was a relief as it was pouring down at the time. The cathedral looked impressive from the outside but less so inside – and outside the entire plaza in front was torn up and being renovated which soured the view quite a bit.

The rear corner of the cathedral (center).

City Hall.

I had also been recommended a market – the market itself was relative ordinary (and a fair bit of the booths were empty) and what one would expect from such a market in a city. But the building it was located in was definitely worth the walk around inside. And as an added bonus it kept me out of the rain.

Market.

After wandering around for a bit and getting genuinely lost a few times I managed to navigate myself out of the old part of the city, find my bearings and return to the hotel.

The following day I instead went East ward to the beach where I had a walk up and down along the walk ways before zig-zagging my way back to the hotel. The forecast had said clear sky and 22-23 degrees. True, it was 22-23 degrees, but at best in the shade. In the sun, which there was plenty of, according to various thermometers it was 30 degrees. Nice weather, would have been nicer if I had been prepared for those temperatures and actually packed a pair of shorts.

The beach in Valencia.

Dinners was a classic paella and a large chunk of lasagna (not on the same night). Both were delicious. Paellas don’t come in servings for one, and while I didn’t eat the entire thing there was definitely not enough for two which it was meant for. Or maybe it just says more about my ability to eat without any portion control. 

No, definitely not that.

21st of October - Footballing

I was planning on letting this day, flying to Valencia, just being part of the general telling of my time there, because what can be told about a flight (or rather 2 flights with a layover)?

Oh, boy.

I usually ensure I am at the airport with time to spare, so 1½-2 hours before departure I’m siting in the lounge having breakfast, killing time. An hour before departure I am informed that my flight has been delayed for half an hour. How am I informed? I receive notifications from the airport’s app and Lufthansa’s app, I receive two texts and two mails from SAS and a mail from Lufthansa. All at once. Consider me informed. 5 minutes later the plane is delayed first another 15 minutes and then 5 minutes more. At least only the airport app informed me of this – until I 5 minutes later also receive mails from Lufthansa and SAS. 

I honestly don’t know why SAS ever got involved. I booked a Lufthansa flight on Lufthansa’s website and SAS was never mentioned until I received all these notifications from them. One of life’s big mysteries.

At one point I decided to just go to the gate and wait there so I’m ready to go when we actually are able to board. It turns out that Brøndby (Danish football team) was playing the Rangers in Glasgow in the evening so a bunch of fans were going there for support and were on the same flight as I. Being football fans going to support their team many of them were already in a good mood – as in: they were in a beer-fueled good mood. (Yes, yes, this is in the AM close to noon, I do not see the relevance). When the delay was reaching an hour and the plane had only just arrived, the mood starts to slowly sour among the fans as the apparently only had that long of a layover in Frankfurt. Some of them were getting verbally annoyed but the riot I felt could easily be underway fortunately never happened.

With a delay of an hour and 10 minutes we were let on board (why is it that you can always identify those who are not part of the first boarding group by looking at who is crowding and blocking the access gates to the flight? Peasants!) and we were soon all seated and ready to go.

Then the captain informed us that as we had missed our preplanned window, we would have to wait at the gate for another 10-15 minutes before the tower would let us taxi to the runway. Sneaky bastard, because a few minutes later he came back on and let us know that security had arrived onto the plane to escort certain individuals off of the plane as “they were not acting in accordance to what is needed to keep it a safe flight”. 7 football fans were escorted off for everyone to see, all of them compliant and not putting up a fight. One of the guards was of the size of The Mountain with a beard rivalling that of Gandalf, I almost wished one of them had put up a fight as I would have loved seeing him folding them like a pretzel. That would have been some memorable in-flight entertainment. 

With a 1½ hour delay we were off to Frankfurt where I still had 40 minutes to get to my next flight. They had just started boarding but I arrived at the gate with no issues and plenty of time to spare.

The second flight was almost boring compared to the first one and on arrival in Valencia I easily found the metro line to my hotel. After a short breather in my room at this small 1 floor 12 room hotel, I had a small walk down to the Science Museum and surrounding buildings, enjoying the park and the large illuminated buildings.

Hemisfèric (IMAX, 3d and special screenings) in front and the science museum in the background.

"Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia", stage for opera, theater etc.

Science museum.

The Spanish connection

So as mentioned previously the Superhalfs have all been pushed to 2022. What I didn't mention, and what neither the runs or the Superhalfs have been good at communicating, is that while the Superhalfs did get established in 2020, due to the pandemic the runs wouldn't start counting towards the Superhalfs medal until 2022. It makes sense in the sense that it gives runners the opportunity to get all 5 runs in the first year if they are silly enough to want that (me included), otherwise I can't really see any reason for it.

I found out about this, completely randomly, less than 2 days after I had booked flights and hotel in Valencia as I was planning on running the half marathon there this year. I would be sad seeing those tickets go to waste, so I'll be going to Valencia to run the half marathon, despite it not counting towards the Superhalfs, and return again next year when it does. 

21^th – 25^th of October

Fly out to Valencia via Frankfurt and spend a few days in the city wandering around before running on the Sunday the 24^th and flying back home on the Monday. They've changed the route this year so the start and finish is at the University but the rest is fairly similar where the course takes the runners around the city center.

The pandemic and working from home the last 1½ years has resulted in a weight gain I'm not too happy about, but running the Copenhagen half on the 19^th of September I came to the conclusion that while I might be a bit more squishy I'm still able to run fairly satisfactory when in a large group and with pacers. So I think that things will go fairly well despite it all. 

Second update on the Superhalfs

With already one update to the Superhalfs' dates I was hoping that that would be it, but as we all know by now there is no sign of the pandemic slowing down and giving us a break. This means that all the planned runs have now moved their dates for next year. The runs are therefore now planned for the following dates next year:

Prague - March the 27th

Lisbon - May the 9th

Copenhagen - September the 19th

Cardiff - October the 3rd

Valencia - October the 24th

Here's to hoping that the dates won't change anymore, but I guess that just by writing that I've already jinxed it. On the plus side I am still able to do all of them in the first year the Superhalfs in going on but that is the only positive I can see from all this.

Superhalfs pandemic update

As mentioned previously I have decided to participate in the Superhalfs - 5 half marathons in Lisbon, Prague, Copenhagen, Cardiff and Valencia, two in the spring and three in the fall. You can complete them over 3 years from the first run to get get into the Superhalfs hall of fame. And originally my plan was to power through all 5 in one calendar year.

And then the Corona pandemic happened.

It pretty much ruined all my plans for the first half of 2020 (after coming home from Antarctica). The organizers were forced to cancel or move the runs, and therefore my schedule has changed quite significantly. The schedule now looks like this:

Lisbon (September 6^th)

Prague (March 27^th 2021)

Copenhagen (2021)

Cardiff (October 4^th)

Valencia (October 25^th)

Lisbon got moved to the 6th of September, and a week later Prague was moved to the same day. A lot of criticism was voiced on the Prague HM facebook page, but apparently the organizers couldn't find another day that would fit everybody's schedule (city, organizers, etc.). So my Prague run will be postponed for next year. And I have had to postpone my run in Copenhagen until next year, too, as the Boston marathon got moved to the Monday the day after, and that run takes priority by a wide margin.

So here's to hoping that no more delays will happen, but I guess nothing is certain these days.