Running a 5K in Sevilla

Up until now, our posts on wearehere.blog have been written by both of us from our shared perspective.  Putting the WE in wearehere.  None of the posts have been his or hers.  Over the next few days and weeks, you’re going to see some posts written solely by E or written solely by S.  They will be written from our individual perspectives based on experiences that we’ve had in and around Spain.  We mention it only because we’ve been careful to use we or us and now you’re going to see I.  Fear not dear reader.  Salemily is going strong…better than ever.  But some experiences breakdown uniquely E or uniquely S…what follows is the first of these posts and it’s from E.  Enjoy!

While we are living in Sevilla, Spain, our goal is to live just as we would if we were permanent residents.  It was important to me (E) to find and participate in a local running race as part of our experience.  In general, there aren’t many races here during the fall and winter months.  The ones they do offer tend to be smaller, fun runs.  Sevilla is hosting a half marathon in January; however, this will be after we head to Santiago, Chile.  I did find and sign up for a half marathon next April in Santiago with 50,000 of my closets running friends, but I will save that for a future blog post once I conquer that race.

For this post, I found a 5K race in Sevilla with a Halloween theme, called The Monster Run.  It wasn’t going to be a serious run, but at least you would get bibs, it would be on a complete 5K course, and hosted in a large park only two miles away from our apartment.

Signing up was challenging.  You have to have a local Spanish resident ID number in order to sign up online.  Luckily, I was able to use the little Spanish I know to email the organizer and find a way around having the ID.  She gave me a number to use, and I successfully signed up.

Fast forward to the night of the race.  As I mentioned, it was a Halloween fun run for all ages.  Given this, there were only about 300 runners, most of which were dressed in costume and full makeup.  I would not want to run over 3 miles with thick white paste on my face, or a heavy costume.  Scattered throughout the celebration area were a few serious runners.  They were easy to spot as they only sported athletic gear and were stretching before the race while the DJ played some dance music in the park.  The organizers even offered a Zumba class as a pre-run warmup.

When it was time to head over to the start line, I was shocked to see spectators and even race participants smoking in the crowd of the start area.  Seriously, I was towards the front of the crowd, at the start line and a woman with a race bib was sucking on her cigarette next to me.  I know a lot of people smoke in Spain, but right before a running race??  Really???

More typical for Spain (and a futbol match) was a song being sung by the crowd just before the race began.

Recognize it?

When the countdown ended, and we were permitted to begin the race, the crowd behind me started pushing as if their life depended on it.  I almost got knocked to the ground.  I don’t know where this sense of urgency came from, because once I found my way to the front of the race pack, they disappeared behind me.  There apparently weren’t that many “runners.”   Although a little sense of urgency is present at the beginning of a race in the States, it is minor.  The pushing that took place at this fun run would have been more than sufficient for a disqualification at a more serious run.

The Monster Run 5K was a night race.  It didn’t start until 8:00pm and it was DARK out (well past sunset). I had read online that it was compulsory to have a headlamp to participate; but didn’t want to run with one.  I thought – “doesn’t matter, the park will be sufficiently lit” as previous twilight/night races I had participated in were.  About a half mile into the race, there was a sharp turn into a wooded area of the park on a mulch trail.  I thought “whoops – it’s pretty dark”.  By then, the only runners present around me were an older gentleman and two kids about the age of 8-10.

The trail was only marked by some ribbons tied to trees and a few short cones to indicate it was time to turn onto a different trail.  The little girl running nearby me was dressed as a witch.  She was running a few feet ahead of me, and she would turn around and smile every 30 seconds or so.  I think she was partly afraid and wanted to know someone else was nearby, and partly to encourage both of us to keep going. Otherwise, it was pretty eerie on the trail.

Scattered in the dark woods were several kids and adults dressed as zombies and ghosts.  You couldn’t see any of them, until last minute when they would run out in front of you and sometimes even grab you or spray you with silly string or water.  They also had several sites set up to simulate a haunted forest.  One site had an adult zombie with a chain saw.  The race was well done.  Did I mention it only cost 5 euro to participate?  A race of this caliber in The States would have been at least $30.

I could barely see my feet in front of me.  I was nervous I would trip over a twig and fall or twist my ankle.  I was worried about not seeing the trail and getting lost.  Everyone knows I need a GPS on my forehead to get from point A to point B in the bright light of day.  I don’t have the best sense of direction. There was a man in front of me running at a much faster pace than I normally would have run.  He was my motivation.  I knew if I kept up with him, I would find my way to the finish line.

The finish line came MUCH faster than I anticipated.  Not only was I the first woman to cross the finish line, I discovered that I set a new personal record.  The 5K race only took me about 21 minutes and 30 seconds.  It was a great race, I am only sad that our bibs didn’t have a timing chip on it.  This race was a PR and I will not be able to prove it with any results posted to the web.  A dear friend of mine in Arlington, Virginia with whom I used to always compete would have surely owed me a beer after this race!  To that friend – if you are reading this, I think you owe me a beer!  And to the man I chased for the entire race – well, I owe you a beer!  Thank you for the motivation!