Running around Bilbao city at night!

As promised here is my recap on the Bilbao half marathon, this will be my 2nd night time half marathon, the last one was 3 years ago in Las Vegas.  Most would think that running down the Vegas strip with no traffic would be amazing but I was in my "I don’t like running funk" so it was all a little bit meh which was not helped with me being ill at the end of it.

Anyhow....Sean found night time half marathon and flights were only a couple of hours, so we signed up and hoped for good weather, surely in Spain, the rain stays mainly on the plane right…

Following our arrival on Friday evening, on Saturday we found ourselves exploring this quaint City as we used Sean's soon to be patented "Google-Zen-maps" for the Race Expo and scoped out the race start…no it's over here or is it here.  Once we finally found the start area and got it locked in for later we headed off for a nice cosy Italian to help fuel us for the evenings run and replenish us from this morning's roam around the city and 13,000 steps!!!

Not necessarily the right preparation for a half marathon, but it was done, so we meandered our way back to the Airbnb for a quick relax, with the dark skies looking very foreboding.  As we dressed for the race and made the decision to catch the tube to the race start to save our legs and stay out of the rain for as much as possible, we emerged from the tube in a haze of deep heat to the race start area which was heaving and bumping out Queen way up to 11!

After a long queue in the short loo line, we said our goodbyes and headed off to our race starting pens. The rain had been coming down in fits and starts although, it seems to stop just before we headed off, which I hope would be the case for the rest of the race. They released the fireworks and flames over the starting arch we were off. I wasn't sure what my race strategy was going to be, the GNR had gone better than expected and felt that a sub 2 again would be on the cards again Then the first mile clicked by 8 min🤔 a little quick, slow down or the wheels may come off.

As we ran through the city streets my pace did settle down for the next couple of miles and it was lovely to see people out cheering us onwards and upwards with Vamos and rapido, the City looked very different at night and now in the rain, we pressed on. 

Only now as I'm reflecting on my pace and race, it's clear that after halfway I sped up considerably, I don’t remember it being a conscious effort on my part but quite clearly, from the splits I had decided enough was enough and let's get this over with.  However, there was the realisation at around 11 miles that I might be able to actually break 1:50 for a half which has been unheard of in the last 4 years!! Although, as the bleep on my watch signalled 13 miles,  then 13.10 miles the finish was not in sight and then as I rounded a corner I could see the finish and the clock said 1:51:47 my official finish time.