A Flying Visit To Madrid

Flew out to Madrid on Friday morning and was pleased when disembarking to find the weather not too hot. Registered for the Marathon without too much difficulty, although I did resort to pointing at my my map and pleading "por favor" more than once.

The difficulty was in finding the right bus out to La Cabrera, a small town about 40 miles north east of Madrid where Jorge's (our Spanish son-in-law) parents lived. However this obstacle was overcome and I homed in on the Spanish in-laws. Some difficulty in communicating as Hazel had failed to teach me the Spanish for "pasta's good the day before a marathon" or "I've got to stay well hydrated".

Saturday morning, went for a stroll and was impressed by the line of crags overlooking the village. They reminded me of a mini Cullin; another volcano rim?

...but not impressed by the registration number of Jorge's father's car in which we were to travel to the start!

On another walk later in the day after Rachel, Jorge, Sam and Sarah had arrived, we heard a loud clattering from the top of the church.

It was a pair of storks getting aquainted.

Then on Sunday it was an early start to get to the race, with warmer weather than I had seen since arriving.

The field was about 8,500 strong, and it took four minutes to cross the line. Most of the first quarter of the race was uphill, the middle half was gradual downhill, then most of the last 10k was uphill again, but by then it was getting quite warm and despite the regular 5k water stations I was begining to suffer. However the finish eventually arrived without my pace dropping too much (no splits published yet) and it was good to be able to stop punishing my weary legs any longer.

Very few Brits were in evidence; my main contact was with trio of ladies from Coventry, who I identified as Brtish by hearing the bossy one instructing the wild one about how to get her stop-watch back on song. The bossy one beat me by a few seconds, the wild one who couldn't fix her watch dropped back by about five minutes after suffering from my usual complaint, but I don't know what happened to the poorly one who'd been in bed with the flu during the week ~ I know you're meant to rest up before a marathon, but that's a bit extreme!

Final result:- 1st Moses Arusei in 2:10:58, 1st lady Girma Tadesse in 2:35:28, Yours Truly, 6,784th in 4:21:06 (chip) 4:25:15 (clock) 8,583 finished.

Anybody know anything about copyright legislation?

On a happier note, TBIL placed 3rd V60 at London in 3:05.