Portugal Half Marathon - report

Portugal 9^th Half Marathon was my fourth competition, taking place at the 28^th September. The race started at ponte Vasco da Gama, and, since there was no possibility of getting there by car, I had to woke up pretty early (7:00 a.m.) in order to get into an event bus and not end like a sardine in a pack.

I got to the starting line at 8:45 a.m., which means 1h45min of before the starting gun. I drank water, walked, laughed about the frenetic movement around the toilets, read abandoned newspapers… everything served to kill time, really.

One nice feature was that, since there was a half marathon and a mini-marathon (8km), the organization divided the runners. It was nice to benefit from some space for the half-marathon runners, like me.

As for the race itself, I was really impressed how quick the 10km came, despite my slow rhythm (57:28). Things only started to get a bit painful in the 13^th kilometre, with a not so easy climb. A long one… some people quitted right there. The rest of the race was made in pure effort management, with plenty of water and powerade being drunk. By the 20^th kilometre, I made a final effort and ender the race in a really fast sprint: 1:57:02. A bit slower than I expected, but waiting almost two hours for the start of the race played a role here.

Here are some photos:

A view from the half-marathon starting line. Pretty early, so, few people yet

My Nike Dryfit t-shirt, which I used for this race. Perspiration issues are overcome with this garment. Nice piece of gear

And my classification screen shots

General classification - 1737^th out of 2758 runners

Men’s classification - 582^th out of 881 runners

And now, one week off and then… Corrida do Tejo 2008 trainning!