Lisbon

Last week we travelled to Lisbon so I could participate in the Half Marathon. It’s one of the SuperHalfs, a group of six half marathons across Europe, that are now coincidentally really hard to get into! I’d missed out on the first ballot but got a place in the second round. Otherwise I’m not sure I’d have planned another European race so soon after Seville!

* This email may be too long for your browser, so you may need to visit the app to read it all. Ironically it was EVEN longer, but the original post got deleted from my drafts. GAH! That will teach me for rambling on for so long. So apologies…. Read on if you have time.

Our flight in on Thursday evening was slightly delayed, so when we arrived we headed straight to the hotel restaurant as we were probably a bit hangry. The restaurant wanted us to use a QR code to access the menu. It was frustrating as we then couldn’t work out how to translate it to English. Eventually we managed to order some food and normality was restored. The hotel turned out to be great after that teeny pitfall. Comfy bed, shower AND bath, fab buffet breakfast and good Wi-Fi.

After a good sleep, Friday’s plan was to head to the expo to collect my race pack. We’d picked our hotel so it was handy for getting to the start of the race on Sunday so it was a bit of a trek to get to the expo and the finish areas. We thought we’d walk and take in the sights. Unfortunately there weren’t many! Eventually we arrived at LX factory, which housed cool independent shops and restaurants. We had a little look around, but some of the shops weren’t open yet. I’d head there if we go back as there was definitely more to explore.

LX factory

Next stop was the expo. I picked up my race pack which included arm warmers and a buff. I think this was a consolation as they had controversially decided to stop doing the bag drop. (I heard it was badly organised last year). I HAD to buy the Lisbon socks and race magnets, it would have been rude not to.

The expo was near Belem, so we decided to walk on so I could see the tower and so Andrew could see the famous custard tarts. *see can be interchanged with eat in the second part of the sentence.

Belem

After all that walking (over 25000 steps) we headed back to the hotel. That night we ate at a fantastic fish restaurant near Sete Rios station. It felt really traditional and the fish was so good!

That’s how good it was!

On Saturday we woke up to brilliant blue skies for our touristy day. We walked down to the main town, which was a prettier walk. We spent the day walking, looking at some of the sights and stopping for food and drink. There are some of the highlights below:

That night we found a great Italian for some carb loading.

Race day arrived and conveniently the hotel breakfast started at 7am. After eating, I set off for the station and managed to get on the second train to the start. It was so busy as the train is the ONLY way to access the start. There was a lovely, friendly atmosphere though, everyone was chatting. Once off the train I made the obligatory toilet stop and went off to my starting pen. I was in the final wave and I just wanted to finish before the three hour cut off.

The first kilometer was slow. It was up the gentle incline of the Ponte 25 de Abril bridge, and it was very busy. I managed to pick up speed as we came off the bridge and started overtaking people. The route wasn’t especially inspiring but it was nice running with others and seeing different places. I came through the first 10k steadily and started looking out for Andrew at 11km as arranged. Stupidly I took my eyes off the road to scan the crowd and managed to trip over the fencing that separated the half marathon runners from the 10k runners. I gashed my knees and elbows, but managed to get up and carry on running. I saw Andrew just afterwards so he had to spend the next hour worrying if I was ok. It was made worse by the tracking not working so he couldn’t see that I was still running! Anyway I held onto the pace and finished strong. I grabbed my medal and finishers ice lolly (why isn’t this more of a thing?), met Andrew and headed to the first aid tent to get patched up. I couldn’t believe I’d run faster than Seville after all that drama.

Getting away from the finish was a whole other issue. The area is only really served by buses, so there was little chance of getting on one. We ended up walking for ages, until we were back in the main town, where we picked up a bus to take us part way home. Luckily we’d heard this might be the case, so it wasn’t that surprising.

Back at the hotel we both felt much better with some beer and some food!

Overall we had a really lovely trip. It was our second visit to Lisbon, I’d definitely go back as there is still more to see, but I won’t be running the half marathon next time!