Seville Half Marathon 2024 Race Report

Jan 31, 2024

Back in autumn when we went and ran the Frankfurt marathon we both agreed that doing a race abroad combined doing something we enjoy in running but also provided a short break as well.

With this in mind the Seville half marathon was entered as a stepping stone to this year’s London Marathon.

Friday myself Jen and her mum drove to Luton airport to meet up with her sister as they had offered to be bag carries for the race!

Saturday morning we had a short shakeout in the Palace parks before heading across the city to the expo to collect out numbers then the rest of the day was spent relaxing ahead of Sundays race

Other than a 10k on New Years day my training has been pretty general and a time to get a few miles in with the odd speed session with the group before becoming too marathon specific which is the plan post this race.

My race plans were pretty flexible as I wasn’t going for any specific time but wanted to finish thinking I had more to offer to carry that into training post race.

Our warm up was vastly difference to what we ideally would have wanted to do but ensuring we were on the startline with 14,000 other runners meant that a light jog was all we could get in with my main concern was that I needed a pee with 5 minutes to go!

The start was fast and furious and stream after stream of runners flew past both myself and Jen in that first couple of Kms with Jen getting bumped several times which was far from ideal with her injured shoulder.

Eventually the pace settles and we ran together holding our position until that urgency for a pee took over again and I had to stop mid race for a quick toilet break!

Anyone who runs with me will not be surprised with this but it was one of only very few times I have actually had to stop in a race

I was soon back in the race and resisted the urge to chase lost time and by 10k was back around the same position I was before I stopped.

It was around the 10k where I had intended to lift the effort in the second half of the race and the feeling of passing people for the next few miles was motivating and this coupled with a super fast course allowed for a great second half of the race.

Crossing the line in just over 80mins after a steady start and pee stop resulted in a good day in the office and puts me nicely in a position to move more into marathon mode training off a good place of endurance.