Calvia marathon

Apologies for radio silence, it's getting quite difficult to find anything interesting to say about my races. Since Luton-that-never-was, I finished 2010 off with a lovely marathon in Calvia, and have done 2 so far this year. I'm on 98 now, so the journey to my 100th at Malta on 27th February is set fair. This is what I had to say about Calvia.


This was a rather enticing prospect of a marathon: fairly warm for December at 14-17 degrees, a 2 lap course and some good company. Mark and I were in the official race hotel, along with Helen, Riel, Ben and Rosemary who's in next year's 10 in 10, as well as a good handful of 100 Clubbers. The downside was the location, just up the road from Magaluf and, even though the hotel was one of the nicer in the area, it was still chav central, with soft furnishings even DFS would reject and invitations not to steal food from the breakfast buffet. It was the perfect HQ however for pre and post race get togethers over a variety of beer, cava, sherry and the odd mojito, and a short walk from the Saffron Tandoori for an alternative carb-loading dinner. Textbook.

The route was rather nice with some diverting bits of scenery, one herd of goats, one long windy wooden bridge over the motorway and lots and lots of undulation. Nothing too long or steep but enough to put tight PB attempts largely out of reach. I rather liked them but then, with no watch, I couldn't be too fussed about time. The roads were impeccably closed off and policed, even more impressive when there were only 104 marathon runners on the second loop. Guess you get unquestioning police backing when the race is staged by the local municipality.

Mark had kept me company for 10 miles until I wanted to slow down to avoid a second La Rochelle and he wanted to speed up. Bit much to expect a 3'16 marathoner to run 9 minute miles. His company had been great but it was wonderful being by myself - long stretches of open road with hardly any other runners in sight on the second loop, next to no supporters, just me, space, quiet and a very peaceful, relaxing and calm second half. Just what I needed to round off the year.

There's an out and back bit at 26k where I established there were two ladies less than 800 metres behind me. With only 11 of us in the race I didn't want to be passed so that provided a bit of incentive to avoid slacking off. As it was, in the final 12k, I picked off 8 people and was dropped by 1, a favourable balance. A final lap of the track got me a 3'56 finish, very pleasing with no watch, a bit of residual illness and a pair of trashed legs.

I was delighted to see Mark had run a huge negative split in spite of paying the price for some exuberance and even more delighted that Helen had stormed through to win the ladies' race. The presentations were just getting under way, so we didn't have to wait for her presentation, but it was a bit of a surprise to hear my name called out for 5th lady (just over an hour slower than Helen!!) for a ginormous, and ginormously naff, trophy. Lucky really, I'd only just got back in time for it.