Race Report: Valencia Half Marathon – The Great British Weather Edition
What better time to write a race report than when you are sat alone in the airport with a crippling hangover…apologies for what you are all about to read with your morning coffee as you do as I do when pretending to be working…
Valencia known for its warm climates, oranges, the cocktail aigua de valencia(more about this after the running stuff) and most importantly the insanely flat and fast half marathon route where the world record was broken.
Myself, Nicola, Mark, Martin and the most famous 2nd claim harrier Sarah all made the start line in our various start categories.
Naturally I was hoping for better weather conditions than the rain that poured down virtually from start to finish but let’s be honest we are used to these conditions and I think that’s why we all walked away with incredible PB’s
Once the gun went off I settled into a stride with two options in mind, go easy and enjoy it or push on and see what I had in my legs full of niggles. Obviously I fully ‘sent it’ especially the last few kms when I realised I was in PB territory. The route was insanely flat and fast with any slight increase in gradient feeling like sausage factory hill. Apparently with flood issues in the city, there were cattle grid style drains on the course which combined with the British themed weather were awfully slippy, where possible other runners pointed them out in a style more associated with cyclists avoiding pot holes. Numerous water stations round the course were very much welcomed by me after having 4 beers the night before (always need to self sabotage and have an excuse for a poor performance) Mark seemed more impressed with his 100% effort of getting his water bottles in the bins provided than his PB, me on the other hand didn’t even notice the bins as I dug deep telling myself ‘your Achilles might snap but that’s a tomorrow problem’ the finish line was welcomed after the last few kms of really ‘sending it’ where oranges, bananas, protein bars and of course medals were handed out in a very organised fashion.
Wetter than an otters pocket with a bloodied harriers deck chair after I managed to poke myself with a safety pin trying to reattach my race number (while still running at PB pace, who said men can’t multitask?) after the rain had thought it would be an great idea to try rip it off me and leave me with no evidence of the 21 second PB (cue anyone singing the famous so solid crews ‘21 seconds’) we all went our separate ways to shower and change before we met for dinner and well deserved rehydration.
I won’t go into too many details for a few reasons, 1) I am sure you’re all very bored of reading this. 2) I’m sure I probably made a fool of myself and 3) I don’t remember everything.
What better way to rehydrate than to start with 3 pints of 8% DIPA (thanks Martin) head for dinner to a restaurant I have little memory of but I do remember my fluent Spanish let me down where I confused cava and aqua (apologies Nicola I still don’t know what you actually wanted to drink)…moving onto another watering hole where finally we had a round of the famous Aigua de Valencia a cocktail so strong that it wipes your memory and undoubtedly makes you ‘too drunk’ if my memory serves me correctly Martin knocked his glass over causing it to shatter and spill all over me…by this point I really was drunk and didn’t really care about the broken glass but naturally had more concerns about the loss of Aigua de Valencia.
To summarise it’s a bloody brilliant race in an awesome city full of great watering holes and restaurants and I fully recommend it to anyone and everyone.
A few images for you to appreciate and giggle at along with a screenshot of everyone’s official times…