Maraton Valencia Trinidad Alfonso

Pasky PB's with perfect pacing

Mass start with 10k on the right

Four runners from Grantham Running Club were amongst the 1,190 Brits to make their way to Spain’s third city and were cheered on by a crowd of over 200,000 people through the streets of Valencia last Sunday. At 50€ this race is great value with a tee shirt, medal and two bags full of goodies. This race is famous not only for the fantastic backdrop the city provides but for the stunning times it is possible for the elites at the front of the field to produce. Sharing the same start as the marathon was the fastest ever 10k road race with Joshua Cheptegei breaking the 10km road world record, setting a new time of 26 minutes 38 seconds. Although his 2:40 per km wasn’t quite matched by Kinde Atanaw Alayew with 2:03:51 winner of the marathon it is Spain’s fastest marathon for both men and women. In the latter category, Roza Dereje set a time of 2:18:30. This is a IAAF Gold Label event so guaranteed to be one of the best in the world.

The finish

Road racing in Iberia is more akin to that of Britain in the 80’s with 81% of the marathon runners male rather than the 50:50 division we see in the UK. Like the London Marathon there are nine starting pens but in Valencia box nine is for the four hour runners. The early start to avoid the heat of the day means that the runners actually approach the race in the dark with dawn coming after they line up.

Unlike Paris, Berlin and Amsterdam in Valencia the race takes over the city for a week, the organisers paint the blue line well in advance so everyone can see where they will be running and the runners are all given wristbands to grant them free or reduced admission to the many museums and tourist attractions. Although most people rarely wear their medal past race day the wristbands were still seen in the tapas bars days after the event.

This is how the walking on water effect at the finish is setup, runners bounce home on a scaffold seen here being dismantled

With over 25,000 entries the GRC contingent were starting well behind the top international runners on a flat but rapidly warming course. The club has been represented in this event in the past with Gav Meadows setting the club best here in 2016 dipping just under the 3:15 mark (3:14:35) and Gordon Geach running in the 2017 event (4:37:40). It was Falkland bound Andrew Pask who was first local runner home wearing his RAF colours, Andrew who has been doing marathons for around a decade chose his 13^th one to record his best time of 3:05:10 eclipsing the marks he set in Rotterdam and Paris by a minute and a half. The quality of the field was such that even with this great time Andrew was 619^th in his veteran age category, comfortably inside the top 25%. Having signed off the season now he heads to the South Atlantic to have another go at the Stanley Marathon hoping to improve on his 19^th place set back in 2012.

Next back was Catherine Payne in 3:31:10, around twelve minutes slower than her London time earlier this year but able to take full advantage of having already secured her position in the 2019 rankings to allow her to experiment both in the build-up and the actual race with strategies for future races, although slow by Catherine’s own high standards it was still good enough to place her 27^th in her age category just behind the BBC’s Sophie Raworth.

Robert was the only runner in the green and black with Ian opting for his lucky Bournemouth shirt

In a time some fifteen minutes outside his season’s best in his third road marathon of the year was a very hot Ian McBain (3:45:55) who thoroughly loved his visit to the city all except the final ten miles of the race when he brutally discovered that his training programme, the 24 degree heat and the early stages of a cold were all combining to make it a long second half to the race a lot harder than the first.

The final runner from the club was Robert McArdle in 3:49:57, after getting boxed in at the start was able to pull something back between 5k and 30k before fading. He had to up his speed considerably for the final 5k to just scrape inside the qualifying time for the next year’s Chicago Marathon.