pickupthepacepaul

On 18 February 2024, I took part in the Seville Marathon. Sevilla was a beautiful location for a marathon and a family holiday. When considering races, I always look first at school holidays, to consider options available when my children are not at school, and Seville was perfect. We decided to travel on Thursday until Sunday, needing to leave after the marathon as my children returned back to school. The weather was beautiful, averaging 19⁰c with a high of 24⁰c on race day, which was a little warm for running, but perfect holiday weather.

This was the first time taking part in Seville Marathon, but my second marathon in Spain, after Barcelona Marathon 2021, where I achieved my PB 3:00:26. It was my 149th event for the 100 Marathon Club, which includes 130 standalone marathons. I was also the sub 4 hour pacer for Seville Marathon, which was the 109th event I have paced, and the 47th time as an official marathon pacer.

We stayed in the centre of Seville, so we were walking distance for everything we wanted to see and for race day. We decided to get a taxi from the airport as it is fixed fares and wasn’t too expensive. We were really nervous about the return home because of the marathon route, and we had to leave whilst the marathon was still happening. There were taxis, so we did not have any issues getting back to the airport. The only time we used public transport was for the expo, but it was a 30-minute bus ride, and services were frequent.

We went to the expo first thing on Friday. It was a decent expo, but I didn’t need anything, so I did not stay for long. The only purchase I would have made would have been a Seville Marathon visor, but the asics gear on sale was limited, very much geared towards trainer sales, with not a lot of other items to choose from.

With the expo out of the way, it was family holiday time. Thursday evening, most of Friday and all of Saturday had nothing to do with the marathon. It was a lovely place to walk, eat, drink, and have fun. We also went on a boat cruise for something to do, which was nice and not expensive.

On our travels we found a lovely rooftop bar and some nice restaurants. I had Sangria for the first time, and second and third… Outside our hotel was also a nice tapas bar, which hit the spot for a quick meal.

We also found an Illusion Museum, which the kids loved, but we saved this for Sunday morning, so they had a nice activity whilst I was running.

Seville Marathon

I didn’t really sleep very well on Saturday night, so I was awake most of the night. I left my hotel at 06:45 as I had a planned meeting with the rest of the pacers at 07:30 to collect our balloons. They were huge and very annoying for those around me. It was a pleasant 30-minute walk to the start, and the bag drop was well organised and easy to navigate. There were also lots of toilets that were not busy when I turned up. Later, I needed to go again, before the 08:30 start, and they were busy. However, there were a few toilets in the pens, and these were quiet.

There were pacers from 2:45 to 5 hours. This race prides itself on the number of sub 3 runners, so there were a good number of very fast pacers. There were 4 sub 4 hour pacers, but we did not end up running together. We started together, and it was great to get a big group together. The other pacers were Spanish, and I always find it is good to have a mix. Although there were some runners I could not communicate well with, there were a lot of English speakers, and I was able to lead them. We had a big group, but when we moved towards the start line 2 of the 4 hour pacers ran before we even started.

We started at a steady pace, and it only took us just over 3 minutes to get started. After 5k, we were within a few seconds of target time. The other pacer then said to me we were 2 minutes behind and started pulling ahead. I tried to ensure the gap did not get too big, but this meant running slightly faster than I would like. At half way, I was 45 seconds ahead of schedule, and he was a minute ahead of me. By 30k, I could no longer see him. Each 5k there was a clock with the gun time, and we took just over 3 minutes to start, so I can only assume that the rest of the pacers aimed for gun time, either intentionally or unintentionally. This would have worked out having a faster and slower sub 4 group, but I will always run by chip time so that runners run the actual time they are aiming for.

The course is really flat. This meant that it had great PB potential, but I did find my legs getting tired at a more steady pace. There were a few gentle inclines, which whilst nothing and easy to run up, the slight change in elevation could be felt after running on the flat for so long. I had a big group with me until about 35k, and I started losing a few of my core group from here. There were decent crowds, and the route was mostly free from congestion, but it did slow at the water stations. This is an area to be improved. At the beginning, there was a mix of bottles and cups, which were alternative at each station, but this only lasted briefly. By halfway, the cups were not being filled up fast enough, and this led to people running past without water or stopping to wait for someone to fill up a cup. It was a hot day, and this could have been organised a little better to ensure that people could get water. Bottles in the later stages rather than the start would have also helped.

The sun got really hot towards the end and felt a lot warmer than it actually was. Despite this, I managed to keep the pace and try to keep everyone around me motivated. The finish was welcomed. I have struggled with sickness in the heat for the last 6 months, and I managed to finish without feeling too bad, which is positive. I finished with a group pulling ahead of me in a time of 3:59:33.

There were a few runners waiting for a hi five and a hug at the end. I made my way through to meet my family, and a can of coke at the finish was exactly what was needed.

We were worried about getting to the airport, having not considered that we were on the race route. On the way back to the hotel, we had time for a nice beer, and then we made our way to the main street and managed to hail a taxi straight away.

All in all, it was a very successful holiday. A lovely family trip, good race, nice medal, and all the timings worked out well. I would recommend it for sure.