10 Things I Think About Running

10 Things I Think About The Seville Marathon the 2022

1. Problem Solving

I think that marathons are all about dealing with anxiety. I spent the week before the marathon checking the Windy app every 30 minutes not for Seville but for Cork. By Tuesday I had made up my mind that flying from Cork on Friday was not going to work so I gave Ryanair money to fly me to Malaga on Thursday morning. The weather in Spain was scorchio as normal.

2. Spained

I think that dodging the storm should have been the end of my worries. It wasn’t. When I arrived in Seville I got a taxi to my specially selected apartment very near the start. It looked very excellent on the website, very IKEA. When I opened the door I was greeted by very black mouldy walls with big chunks of plaster taken out of the walls and very battered IKEA furniture, there were probably bed bugs too but I didn’t wait to meet them. I googled the playbook for getting refunded on Booking .com, followed the script which involved complaining in short terse sentences to the hosts, taking photos of the black mould and ringing Booking .com twice. After two hours of negotiations I got refunded and booked into a place that I’d stayed at before that was moderately further away from the start. The black mould still has its 4.8 rating intact as part of the agreement.

3. Chupeta

I think that it was a great shame that Billy wasn’t able to run the Chupeta 50m race for under 2s the day before the marathon. It would have been excellent, he definitely would have won, he was going excellently in training. I picked up his number at the Expo anyway. Not even Jacob Ingebrigtsen would have been doing races at 20 months.

4. Bland

I think that marathons are a terrible waste of a weekend in Seville. Saturday was an awful day. It was so sunny and beautiful in Seville, perfect weather for a session and a double run with a pile of croissants, coffee and a walking tour in between. Instead I ran 30 minutes with all the other Cork runners and ate mainly rice, bread, hummus and tofu for the rest of the day. A desperate waste of a day.

5. Maurten up your Sleeve

I think that arm warmers are wonderful inventions. I detest how they they make you look like a triathlete who needs to wear as much gear as possible but the usefulness justifies the awfulness. I’ve no interest in having warm arms or looking like an Ironman but crucially for a marathon you can put a maurten gel up each sleeve. You would barley notice the gels presence, even better you can be like a snake once you get to 15k and peel off one sleeve. This does mean running with only one arm warmer on for the next 10k but I don’t think it looks any more ridiculous than running with two.

6. Waiting for Something

I think that the first 20 miles of this marathon were probably the most uneventful miles I have ever run. They were entirely free of hate and anger, I saw no one that I wanted to beat so I had to focus on keeping the watch at about 5:40 which was the pace I decided on because it was what my watch was showing after about 10k of running by feel. I hate this style of running as it goes by so slowly so instead I just followed groups and focused on racing not pacing. It was perfect, idyllic, free from hatred, almost enjoyable, I even passed through halfway under 2:30 pace which would justify all of my nonsense and torment Michael Herlihy.

7. Real Betis Belly

I think that things started to go wrong just after the Real Betis stadium. I was having a lovely time at the back of a group headed by a tall Spaniard in a pair of very yellow Alphaflys. Everything was perfect, perfect legs, cool arms and bouncy magic shoes, then just after we turned right after the Betis stadium my brain started focusing only on my stomach and not on running. It was not good, the only way I could deal with it was by slowing down a bit and massaging my belly. This seemed to work very well and by mile 23 I felt like I could run full gas again so I did although I didn’t actually get any faster.

8. Thin Lizzy

I think that the finish of the Seville marathon is wonderful. It’s like a tribute to all the little tiny races in Spain that I normally do. The last two miles are the only miles where it feels like Seville as it runs through the old city on the pedestrianised streets. It’s a mess of tiles, cobbles and tramlines. I loved it, everyone else seems to hate it. I loved it even more when I turned left onto the finishing straight and saw 2:31 on the clock. They were playing The Boys are Back in Town so I sprinted as hard as I could knowing that anything under 2:32:30 would destroy John O’Connells PB and I’d officially be better than him at every distance. My time however is still not fast enough. I will not rest until I get Michael Herlihy as I know that it would annoy him terribly and that is my main reason for running.

9. Victory over Viv (again)

I think that the best way to beat someone is when the person you beat badly is also happy with their race. It’s a lot easier than having to tiptoe around the beating pretending that you aren’t thrilled about beating them. I didn’t even think about Viv during the race as I didn’t see him after the start. If I’d know how he was tracking me down relentlessly I probably would have been terrified. In the end I only had about 90 seconds on him which was perfect as we were both delighted and I could speak freely about the beating.

10. Better Than Berlin

I think that Seville is probably a far easier marathon to run than Berlin. Seville is unbelievably flat. There are no inclines apart from one underpass which you do twice. The standard also seemed to be higher than Berlin, I spent the whole race with company whether I wanted to or not. The only way it could be better is if it was in December or January and was just that bit colder. Other than that it is by far the best place I’ve run a marathon.