Seville Marathon, 23.02.2025

I love Scotland, but it has been pretty cold and dark for long hours over the winter, it's true. I miss that feeling of warmth you get when you're somewhere where it's hot enough to just wander around in the sun. It's a very lucky thing to be able to go somewhere sunny at this time of year..... somewhere just like Seville.

I've also been missing my running pals, so I was super excited for a full weekend of chat-athon-ing in the sun with Sarah.

I left home just before 05.00 on Friday in the dark and rain, and drove to Inverness Airport for the 06.35 flight to Gatwick. Once at Gatwick, I had a full 8 hours before our Seville flight. Sounds boring, but I thought I would approach it from the perspective that it was like a mini city-break in Gatwick, and I loved it. Breakfast, people watching, catching up on programmes, coffee, window shopping, walking laps of the airport, and then Sarah arrived in time for lunch and our 16.20 flight. 

Once in Seville, we caught the EA bus into the centre of the city, and checked in to the Don Paco hotel. Friday night seemed to be the night for wailing in the Don Paco hotel, which was very random, but luckily everyone wailed themselves out during the night, and the rest of the time was quiet.

It was quite hot, compared to home, and the air-con in our room wasn't working. The next morning, we enquired about this, and were informed that the air-con in the whole hotel was not turned on yet, as it was the wrong season for air-con. From which we concluded, people who live in Seville have a different idea of what is hot to the idea we do.

Saturday morning we had breakfast at Holy Joy (croissants, and ORANGE juice!) 

We then walked to the Marathon Expo to pick up our running numbers. I also got some watermelon electrolyte sachets, as I'd managed to pretty much forget everything I needed for the trip, other than trainers and my passport. 

On the way, we admired the orange trees and collected some good drain covers.

From there, we walked back to town via a nostalgic trip to C&A....

...and full of happy shopping memories from times gone by, we carried on walking to find the marathon start at the Parque de Maria Luisa, and then did a nice walk around lots of the big sites, including the river, cathedral and Real Alcázar de Sevilla (aka Alcatraz). 

Then we fuelled up with poké bowls at La Mala and ice cream at Café Square, and caught an early night.

Up early on Sunday for the marathon. It was chilly in the morning dark, but it soon warmed up, and it was so nice to run in the sun in just vests, and not hundreds of layers.

The start was all well organised and the only difficult part of the whole thing was the portaloos, which I remember from last time as being a very traumatic experience. I recorded this in my blog of 2 years ago, so here it is, as there's no point in reinventing the wheel (although there would be a very good point in the race organisers in reinventing their portaloo strategy)....

There were about 14,000 people running, and it was a really good atmosphere the whole way around, with good hydration stations, DJs and music, and support. 

The route started off along the river, over the bridge to the Isla Magica and Agua Magica (aka Spanish Blackpool), through the area used for the 1992 World Expo and past the Cohete Ariane 4 rocket replica (aka Giant Tampon building), and back over the river to complete 12.5km....

....then it was back up the river, this time to do a wiggly route through more residential areas, before heading back to the old town for the last few miles, and around the Plaza de España, to the finish.

And so to complete the 40th anniversary edition of the Seville marathon - happy birthday, marathon! 

Afterwards, much of the day was focussed around food, starting with refuelling with the best crisps in the world and watching the finish line....

...then for some walking around to the Plaza de España for a picnic and medal photoshoot. 

Finished off the weekend with tapas at La Gorda De Las Setas... 

....lollies from Loco Poco and a walk around Setas de Sevilla....

...and churros for breakfast at Holy Joy.

A brilliant adventure! Thank you Sarah for the best weekend and catch up! 

Glentress Trail Marathon, High Terrain Events, 16.02.2025

I entered this marathon a few weeks ago, as I was struggling with enthusiasm for running on hills, which is a problem, living where I do. I thought that the thought (lots of thinking - scary) of an upcoming hilly marathon might serve as good motivation. It turned out that I was sufficiently terrified of the thought to be galvanised into some sort of action, and stopped avoiding hills on my runs, and tried to try a bit more when going up (and down) them. I wouldn't say that as a result of this, hills feel any easier, which is disappointing, but then I would say that I hate them less than I did at the beginning, which is a definite positive.

Although in Scotland, the marathon wasn't actually anywhere near us, and was in fact 4 hours drive away. I am still learning to appreciate quite how big Scotland is. But thanks to this, we got a weekend trip down to Peebles (about 30 miles south of Edinburgh, and somewhere I've not been before). Preparations were hampered somewhat by getting car sick on the way, which is a new experience for me (one I'd be completely happy never to repeat), combined with a migraine, with the end result being throwing up the evening before the run, rather than enjoying the Peebles experience. Which is a shame, but these things happen.

I felt OK enough to try the run the next morning, which was good, and strangely, the more I ran, the better I felt.

The event was organised by High Terrain Events, and consisted of a 4km, 10km, half marathon and marathon, all starting and finishing at the Glentress Peel Visitor Centre, which had great facilities and was a good base. The route was 2 laps of 13 miles each, and had 5,300 feet of ascent.

The route I would say was tough, but absolutely beautiful. Running through the forests, up to the tops and through the snow and watching the stunning views appear was magical, and worth the hard work.

It was really friendly, and a great atmosphere, and the marshals were brilliant, standing out in the cold weather and at the top of hills to keep everyone right!

On reflection, I feel my training was sufficient for the first lap, but I found the second much harder and completely ran out of energy. Still, that's a good base to work on, and it was an enjoyable adventure.