Viva Sevilla

It’s marathon number three with a dodgy heel. I had booked all of them before I knew that my foot condition was not improving, despite all mobility, cross-activity, and mindfulness that is within my capacity. My running calendar showed Seville for February! It’s one of those races that had been on my bucket list for many years. Last year, when my new minimalist running approach had seemed to work in my favour, I got over excited and booked Valencia, Egypt, and Seville (and eventually Brighton) much further in advance than I usually do, just to force bucket list tick-offs into being. Running them despite dodgy heel had “worked” for Valencia and Egypt. It’s a compromise of extra slow and careful running, combined with accepting more discomfort than I had ever done. And accepting times that usually would frustrate rather than excite me. But then, for me, marathon running has also always been the art of the possible, rather than only running when being at my best. So here I was again, dodgy heel or not, at the start line of one of those bucket list races.

Seville is great. I really could get used to this Spanish way of life. Just think of the sheer amount of people on the streets, constantly chilling and chatting in cafes, tapas bars or other places to eat, drink and enjoy life. The whole background sound on the streets is this soothing mix of voices and conversations that says “Let’s do life”. The small cobble-stoned streets, orange tree-lined places, and buildings with all their colourful tiles, old grandeur, and rich history are fantastic. So, it did not really matter, that our apartment, booked by my regular marathon buddy Michael, was two miles away from the marathon start (which was also the finish). When we left Sunday at 7:15 am, to make it in time for the 8:30 start, it did not take long until the deserted streets filled with fellow runners coming from all directions, and merging on our way to the start line.

The Sevilla Marathon is an exceptionally well organsied 12,000+ runners event. Maybe we were just lucky, but we never felt any ambiguity about where to go and what to do to find our sub-4-hour group (well, my race number said sub-3:30 to 3:15, which painfully reminded me of the optimism with which I had entered the race). Despite temperatures of 8 degrees, while wearing light stuff that would also work for running in 20 degrees during the last hour, and not having taken advantage of the bag drop (even though the bag drop was perfectly placed on our way to the start and wouldn’t had caused any additional hassle), it never felt too cold at the start. I got time to take a couple of pictures and we got moving. It only took 5 minutes for our sub 4 hours section to cross the start. Sometimes it’s the little stuff that makes a difference. In this case, I felt like capturing the start line moment live on Instagram, which is always a good sign.

My heel felt alright to start with: since Egypt, I had added to my therapy ideas ice and this thing I strap around my leg every night to keep my foot flexed. It does help, but doesn’t cure. For now, it meant I had not to deal with too much discomfort from the outset. It was a good start. Michael was a tad faster than me, and I had to resist the temptation to run his pace. Usually, he caves in around mile twenty and does a walk/run approach, so I thought I might meet him again. And so the race began, and despite the good start I knew, that running in my current condition is less fun and less light-hearted. It’s like a job you have to do: keeping up the focus at all times, constantly monitoring, what is going on with your posture, stride, cadence, breathing, and evaluating the increasing discomfort in that heel and what it means. It’s almost like a different sport, and I am increasingly tired of it, but yet not prepared not to do the possible.

The first 10k felt extremely slow, my legs sluggish. I try not to look at my splits at all and just go by feel, which is part of the whole “finding the possible” mantra. But when I saw the time displayed at 20k point, it was clear that I must have been speeding up. A good sign, because I seemed to have found a rhythm, bad, because I was not sure how sustainable that was, and facing the frustrating realisation, that despite all the work I had been putting in over the last months, my endurance had not really improved. I need to remind myself, that it is a special running phase and the old mechanisms of “putting the work in and seeing results” don’t quite apply. It’s more like trusting the process, even when you don’t see results.

I finished, but my own experience was not that great. I did not have to walk yet slowed down quite a bit. The heel did not hurt too much, but when I had to walk the two miles back to our apartment, I was in agony. (It’s all good now, the day after, supposedly thanks to ice and nightly foot flex thingy.) I had not met Michael again, who was over the moon with how it went for him: his first sub-4:15 for years (I did tell him, that getting older is not an excuse), no caving-in around mile 20, and freshest legs after a marathon ever. It was his 30th and our 15th joined one. I tried my best to be happy for him but did not quite succeed in hiding my pain and the subsequent frustration with having to walk back for that long. Booking an apartment that far from the finish… Seriously!? But this is just temporary personal stuff. Seville as a marathon city will stay in positive and vivid memory: a route that maximises on Siville’s great locations like the river, bridges, and buildings – it was great. And then there was a spirit of life affirmation, joy and the best humanity can offer. Seville really deserves its place under cities more than worth visiting and running a marathon in. May there be many more to come! Viva, Sevilla!