December 3, 2025 · 10:20 pm

Elche – Alicante marathon 2025

Last Sunday, November 30th, together with my friend Juan we traveled to Alicante to take part in its marathon, with over 3,000 runners registered in the distance.

We picked Elche – Alicante following our series of marathons abroad (to combine tourism with long distance running) that has taken some of us to run together in Paris, Berlin, Roma, Athens, Rotterdam, New York, Sevilla (x3), Madrid, Millau, Dublin (x2), Lisboa, Vienna, Krakow, Porto, Bucharest, Malaga and now Alicante (in bold those run with Juan).

To prepare for this marathon I followed the same 16-week training plan I had used in the past. I started with the plan in mid August during our holidays in Italy. In the end I arrived to Alicante with 540km in the legs in those 16 weeks, a bit less than I would have liked. For some months I felt the Achilles tendon of the left leg a bit sensitive, hence I decided to run a moderate weekly mileage for over a month before starting with the long runs. I also chose to skip the series training, as being overweight (94kg the day after the race), the series would hurt the tendon. By mid October I started to run some long runs. Not many though, just 3 over 20km: 27km, 30km and 30km. I then had some business travel during which I managed to run some days even if on the treadmill. With that training behind and the experience of the last 3 marathons I was somewhat confident in being able to complete the marathon in a time between 4h05′ and 4h15′ even if the final mark was uncertain.

The profile from Elche to Alicante was rather flat on each of the cities and with a 10km descending stretch from one to the other. The race started in Elche by the castle and finished by the port in Alicante. We stayed in Alicante and we counted with another friend, Nacho, to bring us to Elche on the morning of the race.

Race profile

The temperature was a bit fresh in the morning (~8°C), the sky was clear and it would be a bit warmer towards the end of the race, though the temperature did not exceed 19°C. My strategy was to start at a pace just below 6min per km, and then, if I felt well, accelerate a bit after some kilometres to build up some margin during the descent part of the circuit so that I could target a time below 4h15′. There were pacers for times aiming at every 15-minute mark and I started a bit behind the 4-hour pacers, which I kept at a short distance until the km 25.

The race started at 9:00am and Juan departed a bit ahead, hence we wished luck to each other and ran separately. I ran at comfortable and faster paces than I had targeted until the km 25. I didn’t feel any pain in the tendons. Then from the km 30 I started running at paces above 6:00/km, but I still felt good, focused and running one km after another. Until km 37… During the 4 kilometres between 38 and 41 I was unable to keep those paces and I slowed down to ~6:40/km, until I gathered some strength for the last 1.2km.

That last kilometre of the race felt great, as always. Seeing the finish line arches from afar and sprinting towards them, feeling proud of having done it again without having gone through much suffering during the race itself.

In the end, I clocked a net time of 4h08’46”, a time about what I expected given the weight with which I arrived at the race and the incomplete training that I followed, even nearly 3 minutes faster than the last marathon (Málaga). This has been my 25th marathon completed, easy to say today but not so on April 30th 2000 when I started in the distance in Madrid.

With those 4h08’46”, I was again above the 4-hour mark and finished in the 2,266th place out of 3,161 finishers (28% percentile). That time makes it my 8th worst marathon, though with a positive feeling of having completed another marathon 1 year later and a bit faster than the last. I am now looking forward to the next one.

This was the first marathon organized between Elche and Alicante. The organization of the race was rather good. They only underestimated the amount of trucks needed to provide a smooth wardrobe service for the runners’ bags. The circuit was good. They included plenty of water supply (with bottles) posts, isotonic drinks, some food (bananas and dates; a bit late in the race though) and gels (though I carried myself enough of those). It was a great experience.

I leave below some charts with statistics of the race:

  • The average finish time was just below 3h52′. For the men 3h48′, for the women 4h11′. You can also see the distribution of runners by their times by splits of 10 minutes.
  • 85% of the participants were men.

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October 5, 2025 · 7:00 pm

Basílica de la Santa Casa, Virgen de Loreto

El pasado mes de agosto visitamos la Basílica de la Santa Casa en la localidad de Loreto (Italia).

Plaza de la Virgen

Dentro de la basílica, en el crucero, se encuentra una estructura o revestimiento de mármol, diseñado por Bramante y terminado en 1538, que protege la Santa Casa.

Revestimiento de mármol

Dentro del revestimiento se accede a la Santa Casa, los muros trasladados desde Nazaret, que constituían la casa donde nació María, donde pasó su infancia, donde recibió la Anunciación por parte del ángel Gabriel y donde vivió la Sagrada Familia.

La tradición lauretana cuenta que en 1291, en época de las cruzadas, y temiendo por la integridad de la casa en Nazaret (donde sobre la cual se habían erigido templos a lo largo de los siglos), los tres muros de la casa fueron trasladados primero a Dalmacia y luego a diferentes emplazamientos en Italia, hasta llegar el 10 de diciembre de 1294 a Loreto.

En la basílica hay una serie de paneles con explicaciones, de los cuales dejo tres aquí debajo (en italiano).

En el primer panel se muestra cómo los tres muros junto con un gruta en la roca formaban la casa de la Virgen en Nazaret. También se hace referencia a cómo dice la tradición que fue transportada: con asistencia de ángeles (otras fuentes hablan de la familia bizantina Angeli del siglo XIII que pudo estar detrás del traslado), y por qué en Loreto, localidad cercana a Recanati, de donde era obispo el Vicario del Papa, Salvo.

En el segundo panel se muestra cómo eran las basílicas que en Nazaret se erigieron sobre la Santa Casa.

También se muestra la estructura que se ha construido en Loreto para completar la Casa a partir de los tres muros trasladados desde Nazaret.

La comparación de los ladrillos en Loreto, que no son locales, con excavaciones arqueológicas en Nazaret donde se encontraron materiales y formas de construir similares son algunos de los elementos a favor de la tradición lauretana.

El tercer panel muestra imágenes de las inscripciones que se pueden ver dentro de la Casa (no se permite fotografiar dentro), en letras griegas y hebreas, como “Jesu Cristo, Hijo de Dios”, o símbolos judeocristianos como el Pleroma y Kenoma, de plenitud e imperfección, del cielo y de la tierra.

La basílica cuenta, entre otras, con una capilla “americana” o capilla de la Asunción. Está decorada con pinturas de Beppe Steffanina sobre la Asunción y sobre la “Glorificación de la Virgen Lauretana, Patrona Universal de la Aviación” (ver debajo).

En esta obra se puede ver la Santa Casa llevada en volandas por varios ángeles en presencia de varias figuras contemporáneas e históricas:

  • Benedicto XV (con el decreto de 1920 en la mano que declaró a la Virgen de Loreto como Patrona), Pío XI y Juan XXIII que la coronaron respectivamente en 1922 y 1962,
  • el mito de Ícaro y Leonardo da Vinci (abajo a la izquierda),
  • los astronautas Gagarin (CCCP en el casco) y Armstrong (papel con las palabras questo piccolo passo),
  • un tercer astronauta (a la izquierda de Armstrong) que he visto referido como McDevitt y como Aldrin, pero creo que es Frank Borman, comandante del Apollo 8, misión que orbitó por primera vez alrededor de la Luna en Nochebuena de 1968, y que siendo televisados en directo leyeron versos del libro del Génesis. En esa misión llevaban un medallón de la Virgen de Loreto, que es lo que parece que lleva el astronauta en el brazo,
  • Kennedy (a la izquierda de Borman), quien puso como objetivo llegar a la Luna,
  • la perra Laika (a los pies de Armstrong),
  • Orville Wright a bordo de su Wright Flyer,
  • un avión cuatrimotor (¿un DC-8?), varias naves espaciales indeterminadas, un globo, un dirigible…

Finalmente, siendo la Patrona de la Aviación, fuera de la basílica, hay un Aermacchi MB-339 de los que usa la patrulla italiana Frecce Tricolori.

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September 30, 2025 · 12:44 am

Marathon world record evolution (2025)

Last time I checked all-time men’s best marathon times and the world record evolution was in 2014 ahead of running Rotterdam marathon (post back then). In this blog post I’m going to make an update, share some charts and review some statistics. For that purpose, I use the website “Track and Field all-time Performances” (maintained since years ago by Peter Larsson).

With the data of all-time best men’s marathon I plotted the chart below with the best 1,903 times, i.e., all those below 2h08′ and their dates, highlighting marathon times by Haile Gebrselassie, Wilson Kipsang, Eliud Kipchoge, Kenenisa Bekele and Kelvin Kiptum.

Some stats in relation to those 1,903 times under 2h08′:

  • Countries of which athletes achieved most such times: Kenya 853 times or 44.8%, Ethiopia 570 times or 30.0%, Japan 114 (6.0%), Morocco 44 (2.3%), Eritrea 41 (2.2%), Israel 20 (1.1%), France 20 (1.1%), Uganda 19 (1.0%). Those are the top 9 countries, there are another 34 from which athletes have run below 2h08′ (for a total of 43 countries).
  • There are 742 athletes that have run below 2h08′. The individuals who have done so more often: Eliud Kipchoge 18 times, Sisay Lemma 17, Tsegay Kebede 15, Tamirat Tola 13, Abel Kirui 13, Wilson Kipsang 12, Bernard Kiprop 12, Evans Chebet 12, Benson Kipruto 12, Laban Korir 11, Emmanuel Mutai 11, Amos Kipruto 11, Birhanu Legese 11, Kenenisa Bekele 10, Haile Gebrselassie 10, Leul Gebrselassie 10, Deso Gelmisa 10…

Now, if we raise the bar to see the times at or below 2h05′, we find 231 times:

  • Countries of which athletes achieved most such times: Kenya 108 times or 46.8%, Ethiopia 98 times or 42.4% (both combined 89.2%!), Tanzania 4 (1.7%), Belgium 4 (1.7%), Netherlands 3 (1.3%). Those are the top 5 countries, there are another 11 from which athletes have run at or below 2h05′ (for a total of 16 countries).
  • There are 124 athletes that have run at or below 2h05′. The individuals who have done so more often: Eliud Kipchoge 14 times, Tamirat Tola 8, Wilson Kipsang 8, Sisay Lemma 7, Amos Kipruto 6, Birhanu Legese 6, Leul Gebrselassie 5, three athletes with 4 times including Kenenisa Bekele, 14 athletes with 3 times including Kelvin Kiptum, Dennis Kimetto, Geoffrey Mutai and Haile Gebrselassie, 23 athletes with 2 times including Patrick Makau…
  • Which are the fastest marathons? The cities where most of those 231 times at or below 2h05′ have been achieved are: Berlin and Valencia with 35 each, London and Dubai with 27 each, Rotterdam 18, Amsterdam and Chicago with 15 each, Tokyo 14. Those are the top 8 cities (accounting for 81% of those 231 times), there are other 16 cities where such fast times have been achieved.

Now let’s look at the evolution of the World Record since 1985 in this other chart:

Some comments to the chart:

  • In the last 40 years, the record has been beaten 13 times.
  • The current world record was set by Kelvin Kiptum in Chicago in 2023 with 2h00’35” at the age of 23.9. He sadly passed away in a car crash a few months later. His career was very promising, having run only 3 marathons, all three in less than 12 months, all 3 below 2h02′. 3 of the best 7 times, 1 of the only 4 men having run below that mark.
  • The record that lasted the most was Dinsamo’s 2:06:50 in 1988, which took just over 10 years to be beaten by Ronaldo da Costa in 1998.
  • 3 athletes have set the world record twice: Khalid Khannouchi, Haile Gebrselassie and Eliud Kipchoge.
  • The biggest improvement of the record was made by Eliud Kipchoge who took 1’18” off Dennis Kimetto’s previous record.
  • Geoffrey Mutai ran in 2h03’02” before 3 world records set the bar below his time, however, as he achieved that in Boston 2011 (downhill and point to point race) it didn’t count for the record.

What is the best age to run marathons?

I plotted this other chart looking at the best 1,903 marathon times vs the age the runners had at the time of completing each of those races.

Most of the times below 2h08′ are achieved between 23 and 33 years old, but indeed most of the best ones are achieved between 28 and 39 years old, with the exception of the 3 marathons ran by Kelvin Kiptum, including his current world record.

Another interesting chart to relate best times and age is the histogram below. In that one we can see that effectively most of the times below 2h08′ are achieved between 24 and 30 years old, and between 23 and 33 (both included) 80% of those times are achieved.

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September 16, 2025 · 8:07 pm

All-time men’s best pole vault – Tokyo 2025 World Athletics Championships – Armand Duplantis

Last summer, after the Olympic Games Paris 2024 I wrote a post to review the best pole vault jumps after the world record set in that competition by Armand Duplantis with 6.25m. That post aged very quickly as just 3 weeks later Duplantis set another World record.

In this 2025 he had set another 3 records before going to the World Championship in Tokyo, where again he sat a new World record with 6.30m. This is a good time to update last year’s chart and recap the best ever performances.

For that purpose I used the website “Track and Field all-time Performances” (maintained since years ago by Peter Larsson).

With the data of all-time men’s best pole vault I plotted the chart below with the best 4,022 jumps (jumps from 5.80m and above) and their dates, highlighting the jumps by Sergey Bubka, Renaud Lavillenie and Duplantis (dark colour for outdoor vaulting, light colour for indoor).

Bubka dominated the sport in the 1980’s and 90’s (first competing for the Soviet Union and later for Ukraine) when he set up to 35 world records (17 outdoor and 18 indoor), won 6 gold medals at the World Championships and 1 at the Olympic Games. Lavillenie also won a gold medal at the Olympics in London and won several World Indoor Championships (among other medals) and set an indoor world record (which was the absolute record for 6 years). Duplantis, competing for Sweden, at the young age of 25 has already won 2 gold medals at the Olympics (Tokyo and Paris) and 3 World Championships outdoors (among other medals) and has already set 14 world records (10 outdoors and 4 indoors).

Some comments after looking at the chart:

  • Bubka holds 249 of the 4,022 jumps (6.2%) at 5.80m and above
  • Lavillenie holds 271 of the 4,022 jumps (6.7%) at 5.80m and above
  • Duplantis holds 323 of the 4,022 jumps (8.0%) at 5.80m and above… he’s already the athlete with the highest proportion in that segment
  • Of those jumps of 6.00m and above (274 jumps… 52 such jumps in just the last year):
    • Bubka holds 46 of the 274 jumps (16.8%) at 6.00m and above
    • Lavillenie holds 21 of the 274 jumps (7.7%) at 6.00m and above
    • Duplantis holds 122 of the 274 jumps (44.5%) at 6.00m and above
  • If we focus at outdoor jumps of 6.00m and above (170 jumps):
    • Bubka holds 28 of the 170 jumps (16.5%) at 6.00m and above
    • Lavillenie holds 4 of the 170 jumps (2.4%) at 6.00m and above
    • Duplantis holds 82 of the 170 jumps (48.2%) at 6.00m and above
    • 25 men have vaulted outdoors at 6.00m or above, only Bubka and Duplantis jumped 6.09m or above: 6 and 28 times, respectively. Duplantis has performed 13 such jumps since the Olympics last year.
  • Until Duplantis came to the scene when the World record was at 6.16m held by Lavillenie, established indoors in 2014 (Donetsk). Since 2020 Duplantis has jumped above that world record 14 times.

Bubka achieved his best jumps when he was between 27 and 30 years old. Duplantis at his 25 years has already more than twice as many high jumps as Bubka in his entire career. If Duplantis continues his progression up to 27-30 years of age we can only imagine what I’d to come, something that might have been deemed unbelievable for those of us who witnessed Bubka in his prime, but we are now going through the same dominance yet with higher heights and more pronounced (Emmanouil Karális, silver at the World Championships in Tokyo, achieved 6.00m… 30cm less than Duplantis!).

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September 7, 2025 · 7:41 pm

Flight excursion around the Lot and Dordogne

Yesterday, together with my family, we participated in a fly out excursion organized by Jean Claude and his aeroclub du Quercy for members of our Aviation Society. We came with different aircraft to meet at Cahors (LFCC) and from there, Jean Claude had prepared a closed loop circuit around the valleys of the rivers Lot and Dordogne, with several points to spot and some quizzes around the area.

Summary of the excursion

As our aeroclub is based in Toulouse Lasbordes (LFCL) we first had to fly to Cahors, a 40 minute flight.

Once at Cahors, we met different members of the local aeroclub and received a last briefing and some advice around the flight. The circuit was divided in 5 sectors.

Sector 1: in this sector we had to spot castles along the Lot, including the Château de Mercués (which belonged to Georges Héreil, former manager at Sud Aviation and father of the Caravelle), the Château de Caïx (acquired by Queen Marguerite II of Denmark, as her  husband, prince Henrik, came from the region), Puy l’évêque and the Château de Bonaguil.

Sector 1
Château de Mercués
Château de Caïx

Sector 2: it consisted of flying North to reach the Dordogne, by way of Villefranche du Périgord.

Sector 3: in this sector we had to spot castles along the Dordogne, including the Château des Milandes (which belonged to the American French singer, activist, resistance agent Joséphine Baker – whose remains rest at the Pantheon), Beynac-et-Cazenac, La Roque, Domme, Souillac.

Sector 3
Château des Milandes
Beynac-et-Cazenac
La Roque

Sector 4: in this sector we had to continue spotting castles along the Dordogne, including Château de la Treyne, Château de Belcastel and Château de Castelnau Bretenoux, we then turner South to fly over Saint Céré (home of the tapestry  artist Jean Lurçat), then West towards the fall of Autoire (seemed dry from the air), Rocamadour and Labastide Murat (origin of the Marshal Joachim Murat).

Sector 4
Château de la Treyne
Rocamadour

Sector 5: in this sector we went back to the valley of the Lot, by way of Marcilhac sur Célé, Cabrerets (where the Pech Merle cave is located, with its prehistoric cave paintings) and reaching Saint-Cirq-Lapopie. We then flew back to Cahors (birthplace of Leon Gambetta).

Sector 5
Saint-Cirq-Lapopie

When we completed the circuit, we landed again at Cahors and shared a delicious lunch with the participants and members of the local aeroclub (very welcoming). They showed us as well the flight simulator they have developed in house to help with the training of new pilots.

Flight simulator at Cahors aeroclub du Quercy

Once, finished we bid our farewell and flew back to Toulouse.

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December 31, 2024 · 3:43 am

Summary of (my) 2024

Time to look back and reflect on how the year which is about to end developed. Brief recap of my 2024. (*).

The main experience that we enjoyed together in this 2024 was the road trip we did to Namibia during the summer holidays. We spent over two weeks driving up and down the country along solitary and unpaved roads, through deserts, mountains, canyons, along the coast… We did a bit of camping and enjoyed great hotels and resorts. We did some boat excursions and various game watching safaris at different parks. An unforgettable trip.

Namibia

Family. Andrea is now 11 years old and David, 8. Andrea just started secondary and is proving to be a responsible and good student. She loves drawing, researching for her school homework and clothes. She now has her own smartphone and starting playing volleyball in the village team. She is in her 3rd year of Spanish lessons, which now she also studies in the school. This year she is volunteering to take part in the school play at the end of the year. David continues to enjoy building Lego sets, playing video games but most of all he loves football, which he is now playing with the village team. He is also a very good student in his grade 3, where he enjoys Math and French. He is very helpful at home and he is now in his second year of Spanish lessons. They’re both taking piano lessons and this 2024 they have spent several weeks alone with parents in Madrid during school holidays, which they loved.

Running: After an end of 2023 marked by injuries, I just wanted to get again into the running habit and completing another marathon, which I did! In all, I run just 1,250km in 2024, more than in 2023 but less than I would have liked. I still had some injuries now and then but I could cope with them and I ran the marathon of Malaga in December, my 24th marathon.

Following a mantra I try keep to the letter (when in good health), “the running shoes, always in the suitcase”, the year 2024 caught me running in: Torrelodones, Miranda de Ebro, Brunei, Doha, Galapagar, Athens, London, Namibia (Sossusvlei, Swakopmund, Damaraland, Ethosa), Helsinki, Madrid, Málaga, the Netherlands (Wijchen), San Sebastián, plus the tens of times I trained in my village, in Blagnac and Toulouse.

Running around

Skiing. In 2024 we went again with the family for a week to our favourite resort at Vars, in the Southern Alps. This year again we could enjoy much time skiing with the kids out of their skiing lessons. They are more daring and at ease especially skiing off tracks, and sometimes it’s difficult to keep pace with them. This year Andrea got her 2ème étoile medal and David his 1ère one (levels from the French ESF).

Skiing in Vars (Alps)

Flying. This year I did not manage to fly as much as I wanted. I kept up with the recency requirements doing some training flights and some others with the kids. This year I also flew for the first time with Rodrigo and Harriet-Eve. I am sure that in 2025 I will have the chance to fly with more colleagues.

In all, this year I have flown just 5 flight hours, 7 flights and 15 landings. This takes my total experience to 215 flight hours and 339 landings since I started taking lessons back in 2011. In 2025 I will need to renew the SEP (single-engine piston) qualification, that will certainly require more flying in the coming months, hopefully with some excursions abroad.

Flying with friends and family

Travelling. Apart from the unforgettable trip to Namibia, in this 2024 either alone or with the family we continued to visit some new and old places: Brunei, Aix-en-Provence, Vars, Avignon, Doha, Paris (including another visit to the Parc Asterix which the kids loved), Madrid, Vic-Fezensac, Helsinki, London (including a great trip with the family to visit Harry Potter’s studios), San Sebastian, Málaga, Wijchen, Rijswijk, The Hague, Waterloo, Reims, Saint-Quentin, Poitiers, Bordeaux…

Traveling

Reading. In this 2024 I didn’t read as much as I would have liked to, but I managed to read 10 books with a good mix between reading in English, French and Spanish. I’m also happy for having read other 4 books of the Great Books curriculum for the bachelor in arts of Saint John’s College, I list I have been using as a reference for years. For the detailed list of books, see the post I wrote about my 2024 reading list with a brief description of each one.

Other cultural activities:

Bullfighting. This year again, together with Luismi, we went to Vic-Fezensac to attend its corrida concurso (same wording in French) with very strong bulls from different breedings. This year it was especially tough for the bullfighters as it was raining all the morning. Despite that, we saw a good show, with Sánchez Vara (that we had seen in previous occasions) and the Colombian Juan de Castilla who was awarded an ear, and left quickly after the 5th bull as he would be fighting in another corrida in the afternoon at Las Ventas (Madrid). I also renewed my membership to the foundation Toro de Lidia just a few days ago to keep supporting the art.

Bullfighting at Vic-Fezensac

Theatre. We started the year with two musicals in Madrid: School of Rock (thanks to a wonderful invitation from my sister Beatriz!) and Fabiolo connection (which was hilarious). Luca and the kids then attended Aladdin by the Secret Pantomime Society in Pibrac. At the end of the school year we also attended the great show put up by the kids of the school with Shrek. I took the opportunity of a trip to London to attend Les Misérables (a great recommendation from by brother Jaime, and something I had been wanting to do since I read the book years ago).

Les Misérables in London

Cinema. After years of nearly not having gone to the cinema (small kids!) this year we have started to go more often, with or without the kids (5 or 6 times from memory?). My favorite movie this year was The Count of Monte-Cristo.

Museums. This year again we took benefit of every trip to visit as many museums and castles as we could, among them: Fondation (Victor) Vasarely (Aix-en-Provence), Palais des Papes and Pont d’Avignon, Kolmanskop ghost town (Namibia), Finish Aviation museum (Helsinki), Tower Bridge, British Museum, Tate Modern, Harry Potter Warner Bros studio London, Westminster Abbey, Casa natal Pablo Picasso, Museo Picasso, Roman theatre in Málaga, Alcazaba Palace and Castillo de Gibralfaro in Málaga, Centre Pompidou Málaga, Waterloo battlefield museum 1815, Kröller-Müller museum (NL), Escher in the Palace (The Hague).

Blogging. This is the 15th year since I started the blog in 2010. This year I wrote just 7 blog posts, in line with the past years since 2020. The blog received just over 20,700 visits, a bit more than in 2023 (in line with the past few years) and over 512,000 views since 2010.

Work. No changes in the scope of the work this year (A330neo product marketing since January 2023) but we have had quite a few changes higher up in the organization and more closely we bid our farewell to Anna and welcomed Andoni.

Since 2023 the markets have been very active. If in 2023 we at Airbus broke a new record of aircraft orders, this 2024 has also been very active and positive, with many sales and campaigns.

This year I had the opportunity to attend the Farnborough airshow, where I could showcase a Virgin Atlantic A330neo together with colleagues from Airbus and Rolls-Royce and the airline crews, at times showing the aircraft non-stop for hours to many different and varied groups of customers or institutional representatives.

Working in aviation means fun!

This year, on July 3rd I flew for the first time onboard an A330neo, with our flight test aircraft MSN 1795.

My first flight onboard the A330neo with Jose

In September came another highlight of the year with the organization of the Airbus Family Day, when we spent a whole day touring Airbus facilities in Toulouse with the kids.

2024 Family Day at Airbus in Toulouse

Not everything was positive in 2024: the father in law of one of my best friends passed away as did the father of my boss. The Russian invasion of Ukraine continues to create havoc in many families, in autumn we received a short visit from Lena and her family. Hopefully in 2025 that war comes to an end.

On the positive side, some family and friends had new babies and got married in this 2024!

Now it’s time to rest, celebrate with the family and hope for the best in 2025. For the moment we have just a few days in Madrid to enjoy with family and friends and a planned skiing week in Vars; hopefully that will be just the beginning of another memorable year.

I wish you the best for 2025, enjoy it!

(*) You can see here my 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023 recaps.

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December 29, 2024 · 9:14 pm

My 2024 reading list

In this post I wanted to share the list of books I read along the year (1) with a small comment for each one. I have also included a small rating from one to three “+” depending on how much I do recommend its reading.

  1. “Notre-Dame de Paris” (The Hunchback of Notre-Dame) by Victor Hugo (++): this is the second book of the author I have read after Les Misérables. The key theme and word of the book is the fatality, Quasimodo’s fate in his attraction for the street artist Esmeralda. The book is set in the Paris of the XV century with very detailed descriptions and maps of its streets, buildings, atmosphere and especially of the cathedral (which I guess can be delicious for the history of art lover, though sometimes it is quite dense). The plot narrates the interconnected lives of Quasimodo, his caretaker the priest Frollo, Esmeralda, Gringoire and the captain Phœbus de Châteaupers, the love some have for others and its impossibility. The plot also denounces the injustice suffered by those in the lower classes with some undue legal processes (a recurrent theme for Hugo). What I liked the most was the unbending commitment of Quasimodo in the last part of the book, to the very end of his life.
  2. “A time for mercy” by John Grisham (++): this is another legal thriller around the courtroom in Clanton, with the lawyer Jake Brigance defending a minor convicted of capital murder (of his mother’s partner after months of abuses and threats). As in some of his books of 20+ years ago, he takes time to guide the reader through the jury selection process and later laying up the strategy for the ambushes that will happen during the trial.
  3. “Liftoff” by Eric Berger (+++): I received the book as a gift from my friend Asier and quickly started reading it. The book tells the story of SpaceX in its early years. It takes time to dwell in the details of some of its first engineers, the technical challenges they faced and what they went through (administrative burdens, financing troubles, changes of location, first failures…) up to the first successful launch of the Falcon 1 in its 4th flight and some insights into SpaceX’s transition towards the Falcon 9 program. The book is energising, and exudes passion for engineering and the extreme dedication of those individuals. [Twitter thread]
  4. “Camino ghosts” by John Grisham (+): this is a legal thriller linked to Grisham’s character Bruce Cable (a bookshop owner and old books collector in South Florida) with an old lady author descendant of African slaves as the centre of the plot (Lovely Jackson) and an enchanted little island off the coast where her ancestors lived. At the time of the novel a real estate development company wants to work on the island to build some housing and a resort. Lovely wants to preserve the island off the hands of the developers and claims the property of the island which triggers the legal action. This is one of the books I have liked the least by the author (after having read over 25 of his) mixing beliefs in black magic, enchantments on the island, misticsm and the praise of the oppressed political agenda of the past decade.
  5. “El banquete” (Symposium) by Plato (+): this book is a short dialogue after a banquet in which several attendees to the meal are asked to give a speech praising love and Eros, the Greek god. These praises include the controversial relationship at that time between minor pupils and their adult instructors. One of the last passages of the book includes the praise by the young and ambitious Alcibiades of his instructor Socrates, as the latter didn’t attend to the approaches of the former as Socrates was focused on his search for truth.
  6. “Leviatán” (Leviathan) by Thomas Hobbes (++): published in 1651 (during the English civil war), the book portrays the republic as a mortal God (Leviathan) needed for the defence of the individual. The book discusses different types of government (with monarchy as the preferred one for the author) and the relationship between the civil power and the Church (to which christians have an allegiance and commandments to follow), for which the author discusses in depth different passages of the Bible.
  7. “Números complejos” by Bartolo Luque (++): this is a short book from a collection of Mathematics books I started reading some years ago. This particular one was written by an Applied Math teacher I had at the engineering school. It explains the appearance of complex numbers from Heron of Alexandria up to the the first labeling of imaginary by Descartes. The book explains some of their applications such as the Zhukovsky transformation (very much used in aerodynamics), the art of Escher and goes into the Riemann hypothesis. The book doesn’t spare mathematical expressions thus it is not recommended to the untrained reader. [Twitter thread]
  8. “Du contrat social” by Jean-Jacques Rousseau (+++): written in 1762, the book describes how the people in a community (the Sovereign) come to be organized (Social pact) in order to be defended and have their natural rights as individuals upheld. The book discusses different forms of government (monarchy, aristocracy and democracy), which of those forms suit best to different countries based on their size and wealth, who is the legislator, different types of laws. [Twitter thread]
  9. “Maximes” by La Rochefoucauld (++): La Rochefoucauld was a duke in XVII century France (also known as Prince de Marcillac). In 1665 he published the first edition of the reflections known today as his “Maximes”, out if which some originated from his acquaintances at the time. Once drafted he shared the volume with friends and continued to edit them with additions and removals. The present edition includes all those and some of the exchanges and critiques of the volume made at the time. The topics of the reflections are virtues and vices of humans, with the particularity that the author takes a rather sceptical view on human nature pointing at the weaknesses, the pride being at the centre of many of our actions… and even portraying sloth as our main virtue (!) as it subdues our passions preventing us from taking action and falling prey of our vices more often. [Twitter thread]
  10. “El Arte de insultar” by Schopenhauer (+): the book wasn’t really written as such by Schopenhauer but it is a compilation of rants he wrote throughout his different publications. In the book the insults and rants are classified per topic in alphabetical order. Which are the most recurrent subjects? Other philosophers (in particular Hegel), the French language, women (several times, placing women as a secondary sex), university professors / deans, journalists, writers… [Twitter thread]

This year I read a bit more than in 2023 but not as much as I would have liked, as I found myself not finding time sometimes during the year and other times I was stuck with a couple of books.

A resolution for 2025 will be to keep the habit and read a bit more, for which I will be following these two tips that I share every year:

– a blog post from Farnam Street blog “Just Twenty-Five Pages a Day“, which was published well after I had adopted such an approach to reading but captures it very well,
– the Wikipedia article about the Pomodoro Technique, which enables you to efficiently use the last hours of the day.

I wish you all very interesting reads in 2025!

(1) You can find here: my 2012 reading list, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023 ones.

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December 19, 2024 · 1:53 am

Malaga marathon 2024

Last Sunday, December 15th, together with my friend Manuel we traveled to Malaga to take part in its marathon, with around 6000 runners registered in the distance.

We picked Malaga following our series of marathons abroad (to combine tourism with long distance running) that has taken some of us to run together in Paris, Berlin, Roma, Athens, Rotterdam, New York, Sevilla (x3), Madrid, Millau, Dublin (x2), Lisboa, Vienna, Krakow, Porto, Bucharest and now Malaga (in bold those run with Manuel).

To prepare for this marathon I followed the same 16-week training plan I had used in the past. Just before those 16 weeks of the plan, thanks to a running challenge we followed in the company, I cumulated +200km in 4 weeks between mid May and June. Then at the end of August I started with the plan. In the end I arrived to Malaga with 554km in the legs in those 16 weeks, a bit less than I would have liked. I trained quite well in September, doing most of the series sessions and all long runs, but in early October I had a calf contracture that slowed me for a couple of weeks. At the end of October I resumed the plan but discarded the series sessions while maintaining the long runs… until two weeks before the race when I had another injury in the other calf. I stopped for a few days and resumed with some short runs before the race day. In those 16 weeks I averaged 37km per week, completed 8 long runs (including 4 above 20km; 22km, 30km, 30km and 26km – with positive feelings especially in this last one) and 11 sessions of series, though not enough of them to get a bit faster. Provided that I didn’t get injured again, I was confident in being able to complete the marathon in a time between 4h05′ and 4h15′ even if the final mark was uncertain.

The profile in Malaga is rather flat. The organization prepared a circuit mainly composed of long avenues, mostly by the seaside, which allowed to run at constant pace. The race started and finished in the Paseo del Parque, in front of the iconic Banco de España building, and I stayed for an extended weekend at an apartment at walking distance from the place.

The temperature was a bit cold in the morning (~6°C), the sky was clear and it would be a bit warmer towards the end of the race, though the temperature did not exceed 16°C. My strategy was to start at a pace just below 6min per km, and then, if I felt well, accelerate the pace at mid-race so that I could target a time below 4h15′. There were pacers for times aiming at every 15-minute mark and in the end, I didn’t quite followed that strategy but ran just after the 4-hour pacers at a short distance until the km 23.

The race started at 8:30am and Manu departed from a different box, hence we wished luck to each other and ran separately. We ran with the participants in the half marathon, that made the first half of the race a bit more crowded.

I ran at a comfortable pace until the first half, but I started to feel the same pain in the calf that made me stop a couple of weeks before since km ~16. At km 23 or so the pain became stronger and I softened the pace, fearing that I would have to do some walking later on. Luckily I saw a volunteer with Reflex spray at km 25 and got a good dose of it. A few minutes later the pain mostly disappeared and I could continue running even if at a slower pace. At km 32 I got the calf sprayed again with Reflex and even if I had some difficulties in the last ~6km I could manage the timing to be below the target of 4h15′.

The last 2 km of the race were superb. The race goes through the city centre including Plaza de la Constitucion and calle Marques de Larios with the crowd surrounding and cheering the runners. I kept my pace in the last few hundred metres as by then I had muscle pain in both lower legs so I could not give it a last sprint.

In the end, I clocked a net time of 4h11’39”, a time about what I expected given the weight with which I arrived to the race (93kg) and the injuries I went through during the training weeks, but slower than the last two marathons I ran in 2022 (Sevilla and Bucharest). This has been my 24th marathon completed, easy to say today but not so on April 30th 2000 when I started in the distance in Madrid.

Pace during Malaga 2024 marathon (minutes per km)

With those 4h11’39”, I was again above the 4-hour mark and finished in the 4279th place out of 5733 finishers (25% percentile). That time makes it my 5th worst marathon, though with a positive feeling of having completed another marathon 2 years later and following a 2023 marked by injuries as well. I am now looking for the next one.

The organization of the race was great. The circuit showed a beautiful city. They included plenty of water supply (with bottles) posts, isotonic drinks and food (bananas and oranges), I just missed gels (though I carried myself enough of those). The finish line was great, the wardrobe service was close to the start and finish line (by the bullfighting arena). It was a great experience.

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August 15, 2024 · 6:15 pm

How does UEFA weigh club honours? (football clubs’ coefficients, 2024 update)

This is an update of a post I wrote 6 years ago (here, in Spanish) explanining how UEFA weighs club honours and now sharing the current (end of 2023/24 season) ranking.

UEFA publishes various rankings of football clubs, football federations and national teams. For that purpose UEFA assigns a series of points according to results achieved in the competitions organized by UEFA itself. From those, one can see at the end of each season the club which reached the highest scoring.

With the scoring of different years, UEFA publishes two different club rankings: the 5-year club ranking and the 10-year club ranking.

The 5-year club ranking is the one that UEFA generally employs to rank the teams (when UEFA publishes the team leading the ranking at any given point, it refers to the team leading that 5-year ranking, not the one with the highest score on that particular year). UEFA also uses the 5-year club ranking at the time of seeding the draw of the different groups of the Champions League.

5-year club coefficients (2023/24)

On the other hand, UEFA uses a slightly different 10-year club ranking as one of the criteria in order to distribute the money prizes among the different clubs. To compute that 10-year club ranking UEFA collects the yearly scoring of clubs in the last 10 years, and to that sum it adds another coefficient that UEFA calls “Title“, which is the coefficient I wanted to write about, and that shows the weighing that UEFA does of clubs’ honours.

10-year club coefficients (2023/24*)

I leave below the the 10-year club ranking sorted by the column “Title“:

10-year club coefficients (2023/24*) sorted by the column Title

The table shows that Real Madrid leads the “Title” ranking with 98 points, followed by Bayern Munich with 43, AC Milan with 42 and Barcelona with 41…

How does UEFA compute that “Title” coefficient?

  • UEFA Champions League / European Cup:
    • 12 points for those won in the last 5 seasons, i.e., 2019/20 to 2023/24
    • 8 points for those won since the creation of the Champions League up to 6 seasons ago, i.e., 1992/93 to 2018/19
    • 4 points for the European Cups won from 1955/56 to 1991/92
  • European Cup Winners’ Cup / UEFA Cup / UEFA Europa League:
    • 3 points for those won in the last 5 seasons, i.e., 2019/20 to 2023/24
    • 2 points for those won since the creation of the Champions League up to 6 seasons ago, i.e., 1992/93 to 2018/19
    • 1 point for the Cup Winners’ Cup / UEFA Cup won from 1960/61 or 1971/72 to 1991/92
  • UEFA Super Cup does not compute for UEFA Title coefficient (if it did, Real Madrid leads that ranking as well with 6 titles)
  • Intercontinental Cup / FIFA Club World Cup do not compute for UEFA Title coefficient (if they did, Real Madrid leads that ranking as well in both of them with 3 and 5 titles, respectively)
  • National competitions do not compute for UEFA Title coefficient

After having gone through the explanation, some comments to it:

  • UEFA has not updated this Title since the end of 2021/22 season; you can see that Manchester City’s Title coefficient shows 1 point only, which is related to the European Cup Winners’ Cup they won in 1969/70 and does not include the 12 points for the Champions League won in 2022/23. Similarly, Real Madrid updated figure should be 106 points, as you can see in the table below
  • Among the competitions that UEFA organizes it weighs the Champions League as 4 times more important than either the UEFA League, or the extint UEFA Cup and European Cup Winners’ Cup
  • UEFA applies a time weighing as described above: titles in the last 5 seasons get a given amount of points, titles since 1992/93 to 6 years ago get 2/3 of those points and everything older than 1992 get 1/3 of those points
    • That time weighing makes teams having won titles more recently (Chelsea, 6 major titles) be better placed than others with older titles (Juventus, 6 major titles)
  • The extint Inter-Cities Fairs Cup (played between 1955 and 1971) does not compute for UEFA Title coefficient as it was not organized by UEFA and there were not qualifying criteria to take part in it. Interestingly enough, this competition is much talked about in Spain to make up for the lack of sufficient honours on the part of Barcelona when compared to Real Madrid

Which European club has the largest honours sheet?

The answer is clear, Real Madrid. So clear that the Title coefficient it has (either the outdated 98 or the updated 106, see below) is as high as the sum of the coefficients of all the other clubs that played the Champions League finals in the last 4 seasons (2020/21 to 2023/24) combined: Chelsea (27), Manchester City (13), Liverpool (36), Internazionale Milan (21) and Borussia Dortmund (9).

To conclude, I leave below a table where I show the computation to get the coefficients for the top 4 clubs (Real Madrid, Bayern, Milan and Barcelona) with the results up to the end of the 2023/24 season. I invite the reader to compute the updated figures for City, Chelsea or Liverpool that I referred to above.

Title coefficient computation, updated to the end of 2023/24 season for the top 4 clubs

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August 13, 2024 · 10:18 pm

All-time men’s best pole vault – Olympic Games Paris 2024 – Armand Duplantis

Following the closure of the Olympic Games Paris 2024 a few days ago, I wanted to take a look at the track record of Armand “Mondo” Duplantis, one of the dominant athletes of our times that set a new world record in the pole vault competition with 6.25m. For that purpose I used the website “Track and Field all-time Performances” (maintained since years ago by Peter Larsson).

With the data of all-time men’s best pole vault I plotted the chart below with the best 3,754 jumps (jumps from 5.80m and above) and their dates, highlighting the jumps by Sergey Bubka, Renaud Lavillenie and Duplantis (dark colour for outdoor vaulting, light colour for indoor).

Bubka dominated the sport in the 1980’s and 90’s (first competing for the Soviet Union and later for Ukraine) when he set up to 35 world records (17 outdoor and 18 indoor), won 6 gold medals at the World Championships and 1 at the Olympic Games. Lavillenie also won a gold medal at the Olympics in London and won several World Indoor Championships (among other medals) and set an indoor world record (which was the absolute record for 6 years). Duplantis, competing for Sweden, at the young age of 24 has already won 2 gold medals at the Olympics (Tokyo and Paris) and 2 World Championships (among other medals) and has already set 9 world records (6 outdoors and 3 indoors).

Some comments after looking at the chart:

  • Bubka holds 249 of the 3,754 jumps (6.6%) at 5.80m and above
  • Lavillenie holds 271 of the 3,754 jumps (7.2%) at 5.80m and above
  • Duplantis holds 259 of the 3,754 jumps (6.9%) at 5.80m and above
  • Of those jumps of 6.00m and above (222 jumps):
    • Bubka holds 46 of the 222 jumps (20.7%) at 6.00m and above
    • Lavillenie holds 21 of the 222 jumps (9.5%) at 6.00m and above
    • Duplantis holds 86 of the 222 jumps (38.7%) at 6.00m and above
  • If we focus at outdoor jumps of 6.00m and above (134 jumps):
    • Bubka holds 28 of the 134 jumps (20.9%) at 6.00m and above
    • Lavillenie holds 4 of the 134 jumps (3.0%) at 6.00m and above
    • Duplantis holds 57 of the 134 jumps (42.5%) at 6.00m and above
    • 24 men have vaulted outdoors at 6.00m or above, only Bubka and Duplantis jumped 6.08m or above (7 and 14 times, respectively)
Sergey Bubka

Bubka achieved his best jumps when he was between 27 and 30 years old. Duplantis at his 24 years has already twice as many high jumps as Bubka in his entire career. If Duplantis continues his progression up to 27-30 years of age the best is still to come, something that might have been deemed unbelievable for those of us who witnessed Bubka in his prime, but we are now going through the same dominance yet with higher heights and more pronounced (Sam Kendricks, silver at the Olympics in Paris, achieved 5.95m… 30cm less than Duplantis!).

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