Karen writes: Race report Zaragosa

Ok, race report...starting with Sunday morning, 0700, trying not to jitter and resisting going out the door far too early for the 0830 race start, trying not to think I was going to run a marathon over 19000 km away from home, literally half a world away.  I told myself 0715 would be early enough, but I was a bit paranoid at this point, was I even sure where the startline really was?  What happened if I'd made a mistake and the start was over the other side of the city, would I turn up and find that no-one else was there?  Who would I ask, well, how would I ask?

But at 0715 I was ready to go, I headed down to reception and for some strange reason I took the stairs which were dark, there seems to be a lot of power saving going on here, the lights are only on in the stairs during the day, I chided myself for my stupidity on this one as I gingerly felt my way down, only to miss a triangular stair and set my heart pounding as I recovered from that near tumble. Ok, calm and collected...not.

How is this for a startline (day after)?

Race start, of course I was in the right place, and of course I was there objectionably early. I sat for a bit, pretended to stretch, walked for a bit, pretended to stretch some more and wondered if my thermostat was off given that I was in running singlet and tri-shorts and everyone else was kitted up in cold weather gear.  No clue what the instructions were, but they sounded exciting, and they were backed up by the stirring sound of ACDC as the gun went. I followed the crowd, well, they all shot off, I followed in their dust.  About 2km in  I ran past a man who turned to me and made a comment in Spanish, I said "sorry Englis", he said “you late start?”.   “No?”. “We start at eight thirty!”.  Now as I ran on I wondered about this, was it a strange kind of joke, was I even in the right race?  Then I got something else to worry about, I had let the next person ahead of me get out of sight and I had NO idea where I was, I ran through lovely forested pathways by myself getting increasingly worried, where was the race...how does anyone lose 900 other people?  Eventually I got to a roped off area and it was indicated I was in the right place, off I went again with much more confidence.   Lots of looping back and forth through the beautiful big park, some cobbled streets, then it was into the real city.

Me and the A-neee-mal

People kept calling out, I smiled stupidly and waved, said hello, thankyou, a few Kia Oras until I wondered whether that might sound like something else in Spanish.  After a while I started to realise I  was hearing the word “a-neee-mal” a lot, eventually I figured out it was the kiwi the girls had wanted me to wear on my hat.   I did get a few “kiwi’s”, I decided those people were pretty clever, I thought my kiwi bird could easily be mistaken for a small rat. 

There were some neat spectator things, like a group of tiny girls in purple skirts who lined up across the road and danced and waved. There was an enthusiastic group of people on a big roundabout, a man ran with me there and asked where I was from, I said New Zealand, “ah, kiwi” he said and went away.  As I ran up the hill I could hear “go kiwi, go kiwi”, on a loudspeaker and I heard excited references to New Zealand and got lots of cheers as I ran.  The spectators were a bit of a double edged sword, apart from not knowing what anyone was saying to me (perhaps something like "they went the other way"), they made stopping a bit of a problem, there was always someone exhorting me along, some got really wound up and it was almost as though they were ready to get alongside and push. I kept feeling like I was being told to speed up and if I didn't I was letting someone down.  Old ladies would leave their shopping trundlers if I looked like I was slowing down and come to the curb and call out instructions, a man in a wheelchair got so excited when I wanted to walk to have a drink and a gel I thought he was going to injure himself. Oh, not to forget the police at every intersection where the traffic was restricted, I tried not to stare too hard at the guns, never been in a marathon where armed police were marshaling!

I got to run through some of the most amazing places, I mean the whole thing was amazing being out in a strange and beautiful city full of people I didn’t understand, who didn’t understand me.  The bridges, I love bridges and I got several to run across, and a few to run under.  I ran at the foot of a huge revolving Ferris wheel type of thing full of people in their tiny cabins, I got diverted through ancient cobbled courtyards, around amazing buildings, past a castle, under narrow brick archways into tiny lanes, past cafe after cafe, and soccer games and dog walkers and cyclists.

As for the conditions, it was pleasantly cool in the morning, well I say cool, about 20 degrees, but it is a different heat from our own in New Zealand.  In the park the shade from the trees provided a measure of protection, but once out of that I found the increasing temperature tough.  My clothing choices were ok, but I quickly realised that I wasn’t making it between the 5km drink stations, fortunately they provided bottled water so I could grab a couple of those and make sure I drank the whole lot before the next one.  I definitely needed the salt tablets, my skin was thick with salt and I had the beginnings of calf cramp fairly early on but that went away when I stepped up the gels and salt.  My feet were hot, and I didn’t realise till later they were swollen, the pressure from the laces had cut cross the tops of my feet, something I hadn’t experienced before.  I felt like I did ok given the insane amount of exercise I’d done the week before getting to conference and back, coming from winter training, and the non-optimal food. The food. Sigh. 

About 4km from the end I was about to pass a young man. His head was down, he was shuffling, I touched his arm and asked if he was OK.  He had a little English and said he was exhausted and his leg hurt.  I made him stop shuffling, drink, and walk a bit, then drink some more, run a bit, then walk and we did that till the end.  It was his first marathon, he said he'd felt like lying down and giving up (I don't think he really did) but he persisted and got there in the end. As we ran the last 500 meters I tried to drop back to get him to run ahead to the finish line but he insisted on going over the line with me and I got a big sweaty hug of thanks from a new marathoner. That's the epitome of the courage of the marathoner and in some ways sharing that with him made the whole experience so much more special, but when I saw how overwhelmed he was at the end, both him and his girlfriend who was waiting for him, I felt kind-of jaded, finishing a marathon doesn’t feel like that anymore for me and I wonder if anything else ever will.

2008 Expo site

The finish itself was interesting.  It was the site of a European expo of some sort in 2008, there were some stunning buildings, a massive and beautifully maintained landscaped site, gondola, the strangest bridge I've ever seen, and lots of extraordinary artwork. When I looked closely at the buildings however, I realised most were deserted and semi-derelict, eerie. It was good to see the grounds used for something, but bizarre being near these modern buildings with doors missing and visible signs of decay.

So today is Monday, I’ve just been out and walked what the pedometer says is 12000 steps.  Been out for a few hours actually, explored the park that was the start of the race some more, caught a taxi back to the finish line and visited a mall in a successful hunt for icecream and some decent protein and vegetables. I had to laugh, I got the food from an Irish pub, it had the label of Irish pub, looked like an Irish pub...sort of.  It was quite hard for this Kiwi to marry the Spanishness and the Irishness, but a lunch that wasn't bread, processed meat and cheese went down a treat.

So what did I learn?

• Never assume food is going to be what, when, and where you expect it, ie, give up being precious about getting everything just right in training cos it may not be right on the day (or week before).
• Not all marathons have toilets!  There were NO toilets (is this because the marathon had mainly men or the reason it had mainly men?).
• You can never use too much anti-chafe.
•  A wet sponge on your head on a hot day is like...well...its right up there with anything really really good
• If the old lady with the shopping trundler says go faster, probably don't!