Portugal Half Marathon – report
Portugal 9th Half Marathon was my fourth competition, taking place at the 28th 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 13th 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 20th 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 – 1737th out of 2758 runners
Men’s classification – 582th out of 881 runners
And now, one week off and then… Corrida do Tejo 2008 trainning!
