At the beginning of the semester, I heard somewhere that there was going to be a Rock N Roll Marathon in Madrid this spring. Naturally, I signed up - though just for the 10 kilometer run, not the full thing (Haha, run a marathon after this crazy semester!)
Somehow, the event popped up this past weekend - a sick reminder of both my short time in Spain and my poor physical shape - but I was looking forward to it nonetheless. I went to pick up my bib at the exhibition on Saturday with Bronwen and Connor (who studied in France this quarter and was daring to run the whole thing). The exhibition was a great reminder of our skiing days and how crazy endurance athletes are. And there were A LOT of them.
We stood in line for a while to get our bibs, then moved on to another line to get our goodie bags (which don't translate to anything near as cute in Spanish), and then moved on to the longest line of all: the pasta feed line. I love how universal carbon-loading is. Turns out though, that it was only for those in need, aka the marathoners, and sadly they turned us away at the door after 30 minute wait in line. We had a great lunch from a nearby takeaway place anyway.
The next day, I arose bright and early (maybe my first bright and early Sunday of the semester) and dragged myself down the metro to the finish line, where I had to store everything I wanted at the end of the race. It wasn't hard to get from the finish to the start: I just followed the thousands of people wearing race numbers through the streets.
The start was incredible - unorganized, but incredible. Unsure of where exactly I needed to be, I worked my way forward in the mass of people and finally picked a spot. I was surrounded by anxious runners stretching and chatting in many different languages. The "chatter" of 20,000 people was a roar from within them and all attempts at announcements disappeared long before reaching my part of the crowd. All of a sudden, everyone was clapping and starting to walk, and we were off! For a marathon so big, I was expecting a cannon or something to start us off, but nope, just a round of applause.
The start was on one of the biggest streets in Madrid, and it was great to see it covered in thousands of runners rather than thousands of cars and motorcycles. There was also quite the brigade of spectators, cheering us on from the sidewalks, bridges, and fountains. As we neared the stadium and the second music stage, the split between marathoners and 10k-ers became imminent, and as we broke off, already headed home when they still had so far to go, there was a giant applause among the runners, wishing the best of luck to those crazy folks.
It's amazing how after all those years of ski team, there seems to somehow still be a base there, and 10 kilometers really went by pretty quickly. Before I knew it, we were running past the Puerto de Alcalá, into Retiro Park, and across the finish line, where they gave us sustenance and medals, in 52 minutes. Not having known about the security situation of the storage, I hadn't brought anything with me and had no way to contact my friends who were watching, so, a little lonely among all the celebrating finishes, I jumped on the metro, still wearing my number, and got home just in time to see the runners going by, about 25 kilometers into their 42 kilometer run. I cheered them on, grabbed my things, and somehow managed to get to the finish line for the first finishers, at around 2:11!
The finish of a marathon is great - everyone is so relieved and excited to have made it - some are accompanied by their small children across the line, some are revving up the crowd, some are limping, a few are sprinting (but not very many). It's a wonderful reminder of why I did (and do) endurance sports.
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