Elche Media Maraton

Last Sunday I completed the last half marathon of my season, for the first time in three years in Spain I made it through to April (almost) injury free, and was able to make my debut in Elche. I'd been told by anyone that had run there that it was a nice race to do, and by anyone that had visited the town that it was worth a visit so I went with positive expectations.

I wasn't sure what to aim for in the race, I'm preparing for a marathon so one option would have been to run at my target pace for the marathon, another was to see it as my last chance of a PB this season so put everything in. I ruled out the second very quickly as I still had a little nagging pain on my hip that deterred me from pushing very hard, but I also felt it was unnecessary to slow down to marathon pace, if I wanted to just do another training run I could have just stayed at home. In the end I just went with the flow, I started at what I thought was a comfortable pace and it turned out to be so for the whole race.

I finished with an official time of 1:32:55 and a chip time of 1:32:34. It was a good five minutes from my PB but it was my best of this season, albeit by only a few seconds. However, the really positive thing was that when I finished I felt good, I was confident of being able to go on, I'm not sure how far but I know I could have run more.

They had controls at 10k and 15k, I covered the first ten in an average of 4:26min/km, the next five in 4:25min/km, but picked things up in the last 6.1km, averaging 4:19min/km, to leave an overall pace of 4:23min/km.

It was a reasonably flat course, Elche is not on the coast so its not pancake flat in the same way as Santa Pola and Torrevieja are, but there wasn't any incline to spark fear. I'd like to run there again next year, but without a subsequent marathon in mind so I could really push things.

I was a little bit disappointed with the town though, at least from what I saw there wasn't anything that jumped out at me and said 'I must visit this', and there wasn't the support on the street that I've seen in other races like Orihuela and Santa Pola.

Now to the bag. Again, it doesn't compare well with other races in the province, it satisfies the minimum requirements, but that's about it, you can see for yourself.

A t-shirt, a plaque and a few snacks and drinks. The Maltesers were a pleasant surprise, and the t-shirt is reasonably good quality, but after the goodie bags from Santa Pola and Torrevieja this has to be considered a bit of a disappointment. Hopefully they will step up their game next year!

I'll be back with a couple more blogs in the next few days as I countdown to Madrid.
Until then, happy running.

El maratonero