Last weekend, Newport & District Running Club’s Kay Wilkinson-Smith & Phil Hardy took part in the Benidorm Half Marathon – huge thanks to both of them for sending in this report!
On Saturday 22nd November, Phil Hardy and Kay Wilkinson-Smith took part in the Benidorm Half Marathon, the first time for Phil, second time for Kay, who did it back in February 2020 with some other members of the club). We went with our partners and other friends for a long weekend of fun in the Spanish sun with this evening race starting at 6pm on the Saturday night.
On Friday afternoon, we collected our bib numbers and bright orange running shirt, and posed for photos in front of the board. An hour prior to our race was the 10k, a well attended race, with runners in their blue t-shirts. At 6pm, we set off, along with 3,500 other runners from across Europe. We spotted a few local West Midlands clubs: Stafford Harriers and Dudley & Kingswinford, to name but two.
The music was pumped up in our green start area and we were off. Obviously in the dark, but well-lit with thousands of spectators, loads of drummers on the lined streets. A pleasant 14 degrees temperature. We started near the town hall and headed downwards towards the sea front, along the beautiful beach and into the town with lots of switchbacks passed all the pubs and clubs before the final push to the town centre.
Our times clocked were a very respectable 1 hour, 51 minutes, 27 seconds for Kay and 2:01:38 Phil. This was only Phil’s second ever half marathon, his first being last year in Lisbon and he managed to run 14 minutes quicker this year. Phil said “It won’t be the last overseas run I do, as they are a great spectacle and make a great weekend away!”.
Kay said “It was a great atmosphere, although the signage to start, toilets, baggage drop etc wasn’t the best, surprisingly I managed to knock minutes off my previous Benidorm half in 2020 (Brucie bonus 😊) for those who ran it in 2020 this year was a different route”. First home was Ben Connor from Derby who clocked 1:04:50.
We would recommend anyone who fancies a few days of sunshine, lots of laughs with sangria (plenty of it…!) to enter this race.
Newport & District Running Club 