Running weekend in Murcia

After a long week I arrived in a windy Alicante. The last 40 minutes of the flight was very bumpy and some fellow travelers were scared holding on to their seats and reading emergency instructions. I have to admit it was windy and the plane kept on shaking when we reached the gate. The sun was shining outside and although the wind it was great to step outside without gloves on. I had booked a bus from the airport to Murcia which is one hours drive inland. Looked out at the landscape and dreamed about snow free winters.

Murcia

The city has around 500 000 people living there and is quite known for Scandinavians. I heard about this race some years ago when some Swedes where running it so I checked it out and found the city like a place I wanted to visit. I liked it. It felt local. A lot of “hole in the wall” tapas places, a river, squares filled with life and people. it was nice to stroll around. I was sitting quite long at the river doing people watching.

I booked the trip quite long ago so there was plenty of accommodation to choose from. I stayed at a simple but cute place. Typical Spanish with mosaic half of the walls, black steel ornaments, high ceilings and French balconies. Low budget nice and friendly staff letting me come back for a shower after my run.

Visited one tapas place for a vino de Tinto and afternoon snack. Didn’t know what to order since the potatoes I was thinking of was finished for the day so let the waiter to decide. Although I’m not a meat (or maybe I should say steak) eater the sandwich with some meat was great.

Half a day and you can easily explore the whole city. I made it in slow pace and also did some shopping. Murcia region is known for fruits and plantations and it was a lot of cute fruit shops around. What I couldn’t find was magnets. Does nobody buy that any longer? Picked up my run number and had a Spanish time dinner. Ramen. Not very Spanish. Sorry.

Murcia half marathon

Sunday and time for what I came for. My plan is to do three quality half marathons before my big dream Tokyo marathon 1st of March and this was the second one. Last week I ran Seville half at a faster time than expected so planned an easy one this time.

Got a fast pace group and could of course not hold my horses when the gun went off. The feeling was far from great and it felt like someone had loaded my shoes with stones. The kilometers passed by fast. Atmosphere was great and so also the course. A lot of people watching and I soaked it all up. 12K and the finish felt far away. Think I had been drinking to less because every water station I took a few zips and got a lot of energy after that. There was another Swedish girl with Stockholm Triathlon singlet keeping the same pace like me and a guy that apparently was a “Johnny” reading his race top. We kept on overtaking each other through the run. At 18K the wind was catching us in the face. Felt like a never ending kilometer and I saw afterwards it was my slowest on the run (4:46min) otherwise it was stable pace between 4:36-4:42 most kilometers. Nevertheless I had to work for keeping it. The finish was very beautiful at a square next to the cathedral. A lot of cheering people and also the goodie bag and medal was five star.

Enjoyed it as much as I could and had some nice post race treats after my shower. Can absolutely recommend both the city and the run. They also have 10K and marathon the same day. Marathon had not billions of participants and is very flat so perfect for PB chasers.

/ Pernilla that had another Spain weekend