The Little Chemist That Could: Race Report: Barcelona Half Marathon

This whole thing came about rather suddenly.

Long story short: Scott got scheduled to go to Barcelona for work, travel plans worked out so that it would be fairly easy and inexpensive for me to join him for the weekend prior, and it just so turns out that we would be there during the Barcelona Half Marathon.

Woohoo!

Packet pick-up had to be done before race day, so we went over to the event center immediately after we landed. It was basically the top floor of a large circular mall - like a big cylinder building, where the top floor was one big room for event space. Everything was well laid-out and went smoothly.

The view from the top floor was pretty nice, too!

Map of the race course

Ready!

The morning of race day was fairly relaxed, but a little bit stressful since the time change (+6 hours from home) plus new/unfamiliar cuisine was making my stomach somewhat uneasy. I didn't get my PRD (replace "ride" with "race" and you get the idea). 😞

We had breakfast at the hotel then went out to the bus stop that would have taken us to the starting area... except the bus never came. Google Maps indicated it was running about 15 minutes late, but we decided not to wait and walked the 2km to the start line instead. At least it was a nice warm-up walk??

Map of the starting line on the reverse of my race bib

We got to the Arc de Triomf with plenty of time to spare - what a cool place to start the race!

Calm before the race

We slowly made our way towards the starting corrals and I finally found mine: the 1:40-1:50 predicted finish times. As we were walking there, I spotted the pacers getting warmed up. They had small flags stuck into Camelbak-like carriers with the target finish times in big bold letters on the flag. There were pacers at every 5 minute interval as far as I could tell. I decided I should find the 1:45 pacers and try to stick with them as much as possible.

After waiting around for each of the faster corrals to start, we were off at 8:54 a.m.

In the start corrals

I knew I started off fast, and the first kilometer marker seemed to appear very quickly (of course, kms are only 0.62 mi!). It was kind of nice to have the faster appearance of kilometer markers throughout the race, though knowing there were TWENTY ONE of them was a little daunting. Still, being able to tick off progress at a faster rate was kind of motivating. Plus it kept me distracted doing mental math throughout the race. :)

It wasn't until about mile 2 that the 1:45 pacers caught up to me. I decided I would stick with them as long as I could, and if I was still feeling good and keeping pace with them with 3-5 miles remaining, I'd consider trying to pull ahead. I felt strong and steady through the first five miles.

Right about the time I passed the 8km mark, I felt the need to use the bathroom. Oh dear.

I spent the rest of the race fighting the increasingly urgent need to poop. For the record, this is a terrible feeling in general... but an even more terrible feeling when you're running a race and every second counts. Pushing yourself physically is VERY difficult when trying to restrain your bowels. I did everything I could to control/ignore the feelings and just focus on putting one foot in front of the other.

Miles and kilometers ticked by steadily, but the increasing urgency of needing to be done with the race was harder and harder to ignore. I'd decided to start trying to pull ahead of the pacers around 14km. It took another 3km to actually lose them, so with a 5k remaining in the race, it was a desperate sprint (as much as I could manage) for the finish line.

I hadn't looked at my watch the entire race, but as I passed the 20km marker and rounded the corner to where the finish line was in sight (still 3/4mi away) I glanced at my watch. I saw my time was around 1:38. I could still finish with a PR! The finish line was the last of a series of about 5 inflatable arches, which was deceiving since you see one arch and you think you're done, but there are still more to go. I was sprinting as fast as I could go without pooping my pants, and I crossed the finish line at last and stopped my watch...

2 seconds to spare for PR!

My excitement for getting a PR was overshadowed by the immediate and urgent search for a bathroom. The finishers' area was a long walk... first the water station, then the medals, then the fruit, then the ponchos, then finally exiting the area through the Arc de Triomf. I found a race volunteer and asked her where the restrooms were.

"Donde están los baños?"

(with an apologetic look on her face)

"Están muy lejos... Encontrar un café? o bar?"

Translation: They're very far away. Find a cafe or bar?

So off I wandered/waddled to find something.

Kind of like this.

I desperately barged through the closest cafe across the street, thankfully nobody stopped me to ask for payment or for me to order something before I could get to the bathroom (Europe is notorious for "no public restrooms" in their restaurants).

Confession: I didn't quite make it in time. 💩😐

Once I'd finished up and felt OK enough to leave, I found Scott outside the cafe and told him we needed to return to the hotel immediately. The 2km walk back to the hotel felt like a long way, between a still-unsettled stomach and sore & tired legs. We finally made it and after a nice hot shower I felt much better, though my stomach didn't entirely recover for the remainder of the trip.

Still, despite all of the complications and struggles, I'm proud of my efforts there and that I was able to come away with a shiny new PR.