10 Things I Think About Running

10 Things I Think About The Seville Half Marathon 2023

1. Over Racing

I think that it is very important to keep racing, don’t mind people who warn about over racing. You never know when everything will align. The more often you race the more likely it is that one day you won’t have been sick or injured for a few weeks, the weather will be perfect, your stomach will be perfect, and your legs will feel good.

2. Chancing Your Arm

I think that it is always worth sending an email to see if there are any elite entries. Even if the word elite is being stretched to breaking point when applied to my name there’s always a chance that they might just want to fill the places. I got lucky for Seville, my email was successful which was just as well as the race was sold out back in December.

3. Coldio y Scorchio

I think that it was amazing how cold it was in Seville on Sunday. I left the apartment at 8am for a mile of a jog to allow the coffee to do its work. Two things struck me when I walked out the door, it was still dark and it was icy cold, possibly freezing. Wonderful, the darkness went away after a mile but the icy cold remained.

4. Elites in a Pod

I think that when you come to a race in Seville you don’t expect to find all of the elites hiding in a heated tent before the start of the race. I didn’t find it particularly cold as I have significantly more insulation than the typical elite so I pretty much had the starting area to myself to do a few strides and jog up and down enjoying the sunshine. Just before the start a reluctant bunch emerged from the cosy heated tents into the freezing cold Spanish sunshine, in the middle of them was Zak Hanna, so I chatted to him about how cold it was, because everyone was frozen there was little or no fuss and we were on our way without delay.

5. Sevilla on Ice

I think that no one would believe you if you said that you nearly slipped on a patch of ice in Seville. For the first mile or two I decided to be somewhat sensible and try and follow the elite women who I knew were going for around 68 or 69 minutes. It’s dangerous to follow the Spanish men as they all go way too fast for the first few miles. After about 2 miles of straight flat beautiful road we turned left to go across the river into Triana. Then I felt my green original Next% slipping in that horrible scary way that makes me go home after a mile in Cork. Thankfully it was only a short little patch of ice and we were soon back on dry tarmac.

6. Worry

I think that I will have to stop looking at the watch in races after 5k. When we got to the 5k mark I was delighted to see that they didn’t have clocks at the splits so that I wouldn’t be tormented every 5k for the next 20k. I looked at the watch and saw 16:20 and thought that’s a bit fast. I got worried so I decided that like any man who is worried about something the best policy is to ignore it and carry on until it becomes impossible to ignore.

7. Grupo

I think that the best thing about a race abroad is that you don’t know any of the other people in the race, well you might kind of know them to see them if you do enough races in Seville but you kind of associate them with holidays so its ok. After the 5k of worry I got into a lovely little group with a bunch of presumably Spanish runners who I had never seen before. We ran along together with no surging and no contempt for one another, it was wonderful.

8. This is Hard

I think there is always a point in a race where you can find a reason to stop trying. In this race it happened around 12k. As we went under the underpass which contains the only hill in the race I got dropped from my lovely group, not because the Spaniards tried to get rid of me but because I couldn’t keep up. The next 2k were into the wind solo which was terrible, I tried to take a gel which is not as easy at half marathon pace as it is at marathon pace so most of the maurten gel ended up on my leg. I kept going as best I could until I heard the unmistakable sound of a herd of Metaspeed Skys and Alphaflys clapping up behind me so I merged happily into a new group and continued on.

9. Narrow Streets

I think that the last 4k of this race were perfect. When we turned right off the ring road around the old part of Seville my group was naturally lined out as the road got quite narrow and quite cobbled. We ran past the Setas and turned left down a pedestrianized street with the odd person out doing their shopping. There’s something about chasing people through narrow streets with people out doing their shopping that makes running easier.

10. A Stones Throw

I think that a sub 70 half marathon is pretty much the same thing as a sub 2:30 marathon. They both do exactly the same thing, serve as a great way for me to torment Michael Herlihy. Even though I hadn’t looked at the watch since the first 5k marker, as we ran around the Plaza de España I knew I was within a stones throw of the sub 70 because I could see the lead women up ahead. When I turned left into the finishing straight, I saw the clock was just after ticking over from 1:08 to 1:09, then a Spaniard overtook me on the inside so I focused on trying to out sprint him instead which I didn’t but I did successfully, officially on chip, net, gross, app, watch, Strava, Garmin and every time possible torment Michael Herlihy.