Bilbao Half Marathon

I’ve been meaning to write a race report for a while now, but there’s been little time since moving here. I’ve found some gorgeous hills about 15 mins run from the flat so I’m well chuffed! However, last week a friend asked me if I’d join him for th Bilbao Night Half Marathon so I said yes. Bilbao is a really interesting city and sits on a river, nestled in lush green hills.

The start time for the race was 9.30pm so it was odd racing so late in the day, especially with the temperature being 26 degrees. There were thousands of people there when we assembled at the start and we were set off to a live band and fireworks, so the atmosphere was superb. The route was an acceptable mix of wide avenues, tight sretches, hairpin turn-arounds and fairly bland and quiet parts. It took in nice parts of the new town and the river, but the middle section of the race was directed along some industrial estate roads. The number of people out on the streets supporting it was quite incredible and they huddled in so close to cheer that sometimes there was only enough space for runners to run two abreast. I tried to keep a steady 3.40 min/km pace but I flagged a bit in the middle part of the run. There was a couple of completely naked people running the race and towards the end an old naked guy was closing in, so I managed to pick up the pace and made it to the finish just in front of him with a time of 1:20:30 which for me was a p.b..

There are some good photos of the race here: http://www.festak.com/evento.aspx?lang=cas&ev=2190&pag=p&c=no (unfortunately the naked guy proved to be more photogenic than me).

I’ve got my sights sent on a few hill races and have found some gorgeous hills in Zaragoza just 15 mins run from the flat, so hopefully there’ll be a hill race report some time in the near future!