When I ran the marathon in Barcelona in 2018 I told myself that it would surely take a long time to return. The political situation with the independence movement was palpable in the air, and the atmosphere was not good in the city.
When I was planning the 2023 marathon season, I found a direct flight from my city for only 5 euros, which made me decide to give the city a chance again. Fortunately, the situation was much calmer, and the experience has been as positive as I would have expected.
With more than 10,000 runners in the streets and excellent weather, I turned to face its 42 kilometres, with staggered starts from 8:30.
This time, unlike Murcia the month before, I decided to keep the pace away from the 3h45m group. Mentally it is not difficult to plan 16-minute partials every 3 kilometres.
This being the case, I practically nailed the splits until kilometre 28, which I crossed with a small margin to my goal. At this point the temperature was considerably higher than at the start, requiring more hydration at the aid stations, preferably isotonic, to avoid dehydration and the much more dangerous hyponatremia.
Although slightly slowing down in the port area with less public and coinciding with the “wall”, I still manage to overcome runners as we enter the centre of Barcelona again. There the public turns to cheer on the needy runners.
I face the finish line, knowing that this marathon is already mine. I finish with a net time of 3.45.43. Marathon 73 sub 4h, 57 in Spain and 115 of the total.
After Easter we are expected to have the Clarete Marathon, a new marathon in the province of Valladolid, and again, for the seventh time, the Madrid Marathon.
Greetings, and until the next starting line.
