A little race report from the last couple weeks. Decided to find some warmer weather further south in Europe. First up was the Barcelona 21k two weekends ago. My first time in the city and really enjoyed it. The temperature was top class at about 20 degrees so it reminded me a bit of Durban in the winter. People eat late in Spain, often around 10pm, so it's very festive on the streets in the evenings with tapas bars very popular. The race is a big one and considered a fast course. Around 23000 entrants I believe but surprisingly very little in the way of a race expo. With a niggly calf in the days leading up to the run I wasn't expecting much at all and didn't even have a goal time in mind. Just ran a steady pace and finished up in a bit over 1h21. If I had the sub 1h20 goal in my mind before I think I could have achieved this. A few minutes off my 21k PB so I'd like to give a good go at a 21 later in the year. Calf was very tight afterwards so I was a bit concerned about how it would be in the following days. The number of quicker runners was incredible compared to your typical race in SA. Hundreds of people finishing under 1h22 - I think I was around 800th. A friend from SA smashed his previous PB and finished in 1h14. He only just snuck in with a top 300. It was back up to colder parts of Europe for a few days before making the trip down to Sevilla, Spain for the Sevilla marathon this past weekend. Again the weather was lekker. Sunshine and low 20s as the day went on. The route is regarded as a very fast one with no climbs besides one underpass and not too many turns. The field was around 14000. My calf was feeling good again and I had done a few runs prior to raceday. It was always going to be treated as a decent Comrades training run so I figured if I sat with the sub 3 group and see how that went that'd be okay. I only decided on this strategy the day before really. Besides 2 pee stops an the first 12ks the k's were ticking by quite comfortably. With the sub 3 group through 21ks in 1:29:24. At about 5kms to go I was feeling fresh so picked up the pace a little to finish strong in 2:56:44 so a good little 2min negative split. Any marathon is hard, even a flat one, but I finished feeling like I had a whole lot more in me and nowhere near as tired as my first sub 3 in 2018. Met a few South Africans briefly afterwards. Seems like everyone had some solid results and or decent training runs for Comrades. One of the chaps from Wanderers smashed a 2h36!! Overall two good weekends away. Now to find a hilly event to at least get some hill training in.
