Running Carreira Pedestre

On sunday I was running a marathon! Well, it's not exactly a marathon, it more like a quarter-marathon.... The name of the event is Carreira Pedestre. It is a 12km race trough the city of Santiago de Compostela. It's open for everybody to compete, profesionals and amateurs (such as me). This was a 35th time this race has been held, and the record was broken with 6.388 competitors.

The morning was sunny (wich is unusual for Santiago this time of year and very fortunate). I turned on an app to measure my pace, my goal was to finish under one hour. It was a bit cold, but as soon as the race started I didn't feel the cold anymore. I didn't really prepare for this, so after the few first minutes i started to get kind of tired, and started to question my decision to enter the race. But as I ran trough our street of San Pedro, I saw my room-mates, my little sisters cheering for me from the windows of our apartments. This gave me a moral boost and I continued to run with a pace I planned.

 

Everything was going as planned, but at about 10th kilometer we got to Avenida de Castelao. It's a street with a very long climb. I got half as slow, and started to feel really tired and wishing to stop the race. But after the climb it all went downhill all the way to the old part. I tried to compensate for the lost time with a strong and fast finish. At the end my time was 1.00.39. Not as I planned, but I am satisfied, considering I didn't have any preparations for the race.

I spent the rest of the day lying in bed, next two days with a muscle pain, and a whole week with terrible pain in my right foot. It's what happens when you run 12km with no preparations in a 13€ shoes. But I was still glad to do it. I recomend this experience to all the future volunteers and all the people that can be in Santiago at the end of october.