Last Sunday, February 22nd, together with my friends Juan, Nacho and brother Jaime, we traveled to Castellón to take part in its marathon, with a bit less than 1,000 runners registered in the distance.
We picked Castellón to celebrate Juan’s 50th birthday and 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, Alicante and now Castellón. We also counted with the presence of Balint, a Hungarian runner whom we had met before in Vienna (2018).
To prepare for this marathon I should have followed the same 16-week training plan I had used in the past. However, since I had previously run the marathon in Alicante, by that date we were already in the 13 weeks prior to the one in Castellón. I only ran a couple of times in December and a bit more in January, so in the end I arrived at Castellón with 292km in the legs in those 16 weeks, much less than I would have liked (barely half the training volume that I had cumulated before Alicante). I chose to skip the series training, as being overweight (96kg the day after the race), the series would hurt the Achilles tendon. I only did a couple of long runs in those 16 weeks: the 42km marathon in Alicante (November 30th) and a 20km run in early February. To make it even worse, just 8 days prior to the race day I had a small injury in the left calf (I suffered a similar one when preparing for Malaga in 2024), so during the last week I did not run but only did three sessions of elliptical riding.
With that disastrous training behind I only expected to finish the race in a time between 4h15′ and 4h30′, with the final mark uncertain, and I would start with the 4h15′ pacers.
The profile in Castellón is rather flat. The organization prepared a circuit composed of several long avenues in the city centre, then taking us by the seaside, 4km away from the centre, by the port of Grau around the half marathon, going North up to the aerodrome and back to the centre for the last 12km. All in all the circuit wasn’t very scenic or appealing, but the organization was good, with supply posts every 2-3 kilometers and several music bands and DJs (including a local one by the name Serrucho, of certain fame).
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, with the group of 4h15′ (which also started a bit faster) to build up some margin, and then, whenever I started to feel the lack of preparation, manage the situation the best I could.
The race started at 9:17am. Nacho had already departed with the 10k race. Juan and Balint went with the 4h pacers, I went with the 4h15′ group and Jaime a bit behind. We wished luck to each other and ran separately. I ran at comfortably until km 26; with the 4h15 pack until km 12 and around 100 meters ahead of them later. I didn’t feel and pain or injury. However, at the km 26 I felt that I couldn’t keep up with that pace any longer, hence I softened it. Later, from km 29, I needed to walk for some short stretches of ~100m here and there.
At around the km 33 I met Juan again and we ran at times together, or ahead one from the other. I also show a couple of times among the cheering crowd Nacho (who had finished his race long before) and Fran, another of Juan’s friends who came over for the weekend.
In the end, I clocked a net time of 4h26’19”, a time a bit worse than the best part of the bracket I had in mind, but as expected given the weight with which I arrived at the race and the incomplete training that I followed. This has been my 26th marathon completed, easy to say today but not so on April 30th 2000 when I started in the distance in Madrid.
With those 4h26’19”, I was again above the 4-hour mark and finished in the 783th place out of 891 finishers (12% percentile). That time makes it my 3rd worst marathon, though with a positive feeling of having completed another marathon, another year doing at least one marathon, less than 3 months after the previous one. I am now looking forward to the next one, hopefully with a better preparation and lower weight.
This was the 15th marathon organized in Castellón. The organization of the race was very good. They offered a wardrobe service at the gym of a school nearby, including toilets and showers. They included plenty of water supply posts (with bottles), isotonic drinks (paper cups), some food (bananas), and gels (up to three times). It was a good experience.
During the weekend we had the chance to meet and discuss with some other runners with over 100 or even over 400 marathons completed (we had seen some of them back in Alicante in November). This was already their 5th marathon in 2026 (!), as they are running over 20 per year.
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