SuperHalfs conclusion

Back in the good ol' days, in 2019, 5 European half marathons - Prague, Lisbon, Copenhagen, Cardiff and Valencia - announced they got together to give runners an opportunity to earn a fancy medal if you completed all 5 within 36 months from 2020 onward. Off course such a thing was right up my alley and I quickly signed up for all of them. And then that happened, so they were all cancelled and/or postponed. 

And postponed a bit more.

Until towards the end of 2021 where the first started again; Copenhagen and Valencia. So I participated in those though after the Copenhagen run I realized that they wouldn't start counting until the beginning of 2022. They argued they wanted a fresh start and fresh year, and while some of the community complained about this - the communication about this decision hadn't been clear before the Copenhagen run - they held onto that decision and I would have to also run them in 2022 despite completing them in 2021. The horror!

So getting through 2022 I have finally run and completed all 5 Superhalfs.

Prague (2nd of April); 1:44:41
Lisbon (8th of May); 1:46:35
Copenhagen (18th of September); 1:40:05 (PR)
Cardiff (2nd of October); 1:45:11
Valencia (23rd of October); 1:48:08

My goal on the half marathon distance is 1:45 which I didn't achieve for 3 of the runs. Fortunately, due to my fast time in Copenhagen I still managed to stay below 1:45 on average, more exactly 1:44:56. This meant that in Valencia I had 18 seconds to spare. A bit close to comfort, but I am happy I managed and it is now over and done with.

The SuperHalfs medal next to the Valencia HM medal.

23rd – 24th – Post-race and return home

Walking back to the hotel, goodie bag on my back and trying to prevent the two medals from rattling too much against each other, I relished in the thought that this was the last run in a row of many and I was looked forward to a month with no running and just relaxation. While the conditions during today’s run definitely had something to do with it I was looking forward to getting back to the hotel, have a shower and then lie down until going out for dinner somewhere. On arrival I passed by the kitchen where they were still serving breakfast, so filling my plate and going to my room I did exactly as planned; shower and relaxation, snacking on breakfast and goodie bag snacks. Trotting out for dinner I (obviously) ended up at a place where I managed to grab another pile of paella. And yes; smallest serving was for 2.

Having a flight just past noon fit perfectly with leaving the hotel in the morning, checking out (the receptionist recognized me from my visit last year – (not so) surprisingly not many people with my last name visit) and taking the train back to the airport where I checked in and had a nice flight home. Had quite a bit of a layover but fortunately there was plenty of food available. Not bad at all.

Having already visited Valencia once I feel like I have had enough of the city for now; the old part is really charming and nice to walk around in, but after two visits that feels like a done deal. The city is definitely worth a visit, I think, but going twice I feel is overdoing it. But I had a blast, the food was great and the half marathon there is done. Time to plan another one!

Full album can be seen here.

23rd – Valencia half-marathon

Staying in a hotel only 20 minutes’ walk from the starting area I relaxed with setting the alarm for 0630. With a snooze and slow shuffle around in the hotel room before leaving at 0715 I realized when coming outside that it was still dark (I had an internal room so I had no view of the outside). Arriving at the starting area, still dark, I shuffled around for a bit more waiting for the start at 0840 (with the elites leaving at 0825). Had I known that there wasn’t any water stations in the area I would definitely have waited a bit before leaving the hotel room. No water at the start (unless you brought it yourself) was a huge surprise to me. That was a first.

It turned out they had only installed speakers near the starting line so if you were anywhere else – and the area was huge – you didn’t have a chance to hear the music or the announcers. Coming up to the starting line it turned out I wasn’t missing much; it was all in Spanish and the announcers sounded like DJs on coke. 

Due to long lines at the porta potties I only made it to my starting group a few minutes before we were brought forward to the starting line. The group I was in contained the 1:30-1:45-runners and I only saw one pacer: the 1:45’er. While I would have preferred a more diverse pace team it was ok, but who’s idea was it to put him in the front of the group instead of somewhere in the middle?!

And, on time, off we went! At 21°-23°C along the way the temps were ok though maybe on the high side. The main issue was the high levels of humidity which made me struggle throughout most of the run. I didn’t seem to be the only one – only a few kilometers into the run I saw runners all over completely drenched in sweat.

The streets used for the course were quite narrow relative to the number of runners and how many they sent off at a time. That meant that it wasn’t until around the half-way point it felt like you could settle into your own pace instead of having to constantly adjust your pace and position due to the others. It was so frustrating. On top of this while running there were only water stations at 5, 10, 15 and 19km. For a warm and humid run like this it felt a bit underwhelming and certainly something you had to plan accordingly for. Personally I would honestly have preferred maybe 1-2 stations more along the way.

The support was good – a lot of people had shown up and stood along the course but there were few signs and the noise level was not near what I had gotten used to from my previous runs. On the other hand that just meant it was easier to concentrate on not crashing into the other runners.

The run was going quite well, the course is flat and turns are relatively easy, but with 5-6km to go my legs started feeling very heavy. I ended up getting in at 1:48:08, slower than my goal of 1:45. I came in as 7128 out of 16915 in total (top 42,14%) and 1324 out of 2383 M40 (top 55,56%). I couldn’t find the number for the position among men. Not the result I had hoped for, but I keep reminding myself that because this was the 4th run in 6 weeks (3 halfs and on full marathon) and the fact I don’t do well in high humidity these were far from optimal record-setting conditions. On the other hand I stayed below 1:48:26 which was the limit if I wanted my SuperHalfs average to be below 1:45. So a win overall. 

Crossing the finish line and getting a medal, snacks and drinks in (another) bag, I located the SuperHalfs desk (very inconspicuous – somebody just sitting at a table in the middle of the crowd of finished runners) where I got handed my medal for running all 5 half marathons within 36 months. As the runs didn’t count towards the medal until the start of the year it meant that this was the first time one could collect this medal.  

20th – 22nd of October – Valencia pre-race

Returning to Valencia from last year to run the half marathon again – last year it didn’t count towards the SuperHalfs collection so I had to return and run it again to get the “necessary” medal. 

The flight was uneventful apart from the part where I had a 4+ hour layover in Frankfurt. Fortunately it turned out the lounge had food that was surprisingly good so time was spent eating that (and making sure everything was good) while enjoying the view of the apron outside. This meant I didn’t get to check into the hotel until the evening after dark so I hadn’t planned to do anything on arrival. I still ended taking a walk down to and around the aquarium, tech museum, IMAX theater and stage to once again enjoy the illuminated buildings in the night. They are so peculiar so I’d say they are always worth a look in the dark.

The following day I headed out to the runners’ expo. As opposed to last year it wasn’t located in the starting area for the run, instead it was now in a conference building a fair bit further away in the opposite direction (I assume this is where it usually has been, but due to Covid it had been moved out into the open temporarily). So I wandered off, passing through a large part of the park surrounding the central city area and through an older part of the city further north with a lot of small random streets which kept you on your toes, I was keeping an constant eye on the map to make sure I wasn’t suddenly going off in a completely wrong direction.

Arriving at the expo there weren’t a lot of people so getting my number and goodie bag was a smooth process. And the goodie bag surprised me just like last year with regards to how much stuff they put into it. Leaving the expo I returned to the center via a different path – part of it brought me out along a road without sidewalks going through what looked like onion fields. A slightly different view from the old buildings lining narrow streets. I ended up walking around a bit and booking a table for dinner before returning to the hotel for an hour’s break before returning for dinner – paella was obviously on the menu. And the smallest portion was “for 2” so yup: delicious. 

The following day I went to the IMAX to watch a movie about the Amazon jungle and a British explorer exploring it in the 1800s. I wasn’t too impressed – it seemed more like a movie filmed normally and converted to IMAX; I didn’t really see it using the strengths of the IMAX Dome format. From there I visited the aquarium, apparently the largest in Europe. It’s a large open area with various buildings spread out containing the pools and aquariums, with also a few pools outside. With regards to size it did seem larger than many others – my impression is that aquariums usually are contained within one large building with limited outside areas. A large part of the out door space was taken up by the dolphin show stage, and lots of cafes and restaurants. Nothing bad per se but overall it didn’t feel as good as advertised. It felt a bit like quantity over quality. 

I left and continued trotting around town before finding a place for dinner. I managed to finish in a timely manner so I returned to the IMAX Dome to watch the “Secrets of the Universe” which sounded promising and that it would compensate for the disappointing experience I had with the Amazon movie. It turned out to be a dry CERN documentary about when they tried, according to the sceptics, to create a black hole and flashbacks to scientists who made big & important discoveries. The headphones had various languages, but they mounted on your head in a way they didn’t sit close to your ears which meant that you could actually hear the sound from others’ headphones, all different languages. Also, there was a delay of almost a second between the visuals and audio which made it so much more frustrating. 

I had hoped to watch something that made me forget the previous movie – instead the second movie made the first so much better.

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. 

Update on the Superhalfs

Just like with the Marathon Majors the Superhalfs have been affected by the current pandemic. What I had planned on running and completing in 2020 when the Superhalfs were introduced has now been postponed to 2022. So despite my annoyance to start this means that I still will be able to complete the Superhalfs series in the first year (completely ignoring you have 36 months from the first to the last run to get the Superhalfs medal). So as of now the schedule looks like the following:

Prague – April

Lisbon – May

Copenhagen – September

Cardiff – October

Valencia – October

Here's crossing my fingers that things will go smoothly going forward. Some of next year's dates have not been published yet so those are still pending. In any case, the fall looks like it'll be busy which will be a nice change of pace considering the recent lack of traveling. 

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.

The Superhalfs

From 2020 a group of European half marathons have gotten together to create what they call “an adventure”. It is basically 5 different half marathons spread out throughout the year, two in the early spring and three in the fall. The list is as follows:

Lisbon (March 22^nd)

Prague (March 28^th)

Copenhagen (September 13^th)

Cardiff (October 4^th)

Valencia (October 25^th)

You have 36 months to complete all 5 races to be listed in the Superhalfs Hall of Fame, but I looked at it and concluded that I wanted to challenge myself so I decided to do them in within one calendar year. This has therefore resulted in me booking four extended weekends throughout the year (the Copenhagen marathon will only require a short train ride back and forth). They will all be Friday-Sunday with the exception of Prague which will be Thursday-Sunday as the run is on the Saturday instead of Sunday. Also, Prague will be a repeat visit but despite it was just in 2018 I went there last time I don’t really mind as I really enjoyed walking around in the old city (and the food was good and cheap).

I managed to get hotels close to the start/finish lines which fortunately were also quite close to the centre of the cities. Lisbon was an exception, though, as the start is across a bridge from the city centre. And from there the course mostly stays away from the main parts of the city centre. I tried to find a place close to a train station (the race instructions are to take the train to the starting area) and still close to the centre so I’m hoping I’ve read the map correctly and it won’t be a logistical nightmare when I get there to get to and from the run.