Last weekend saw ten Heanor RC members return for the second-successive year to the Spanish city of Valencia for the annual club trip abroad.

A tradition that started back in 2003 in Prague – and that has taken in such places as Lisbon, Berlin, Torremolinos and Antwerp since – the 2014 trip proved to be another success as nine members raced in the city perhaps most-famous for its paella.

In among the near-10,000 strong field, Abbie Leivers crossed the line 3,821st in 1:47:35 and she offers us her race tales from the sun-kissed Spanish streets below:

“It was already 19 degrees centigrade when we left the hotel at 6.45am so we knew it was going to be a warm one! We got to the start line just after 7am and there were already crowds of runners waiting at the start line. By 8.30am we all went off and did our warm ups and the temperatures had risen to 21 degrees!

We headed to the start line to try and get a good position but there were already thousands in front of us so I knew it was going to be a slow start. The first 5km was a lot slower than I ever expected – I averaged 9:20/mile pace for the first two miles – but thankfully it then started to become faster.

By this point I already knew and accepted that breaking my personal best wasn’t going to happen (I had wanted to run 1:40). So I decided to just go and enjoy the whole race instead and ran the first 11km with Scott [Wigman] and Dave [Henton].

The heat was much harder to run in than I had expected! But after 11km I felt really good and decided to go off and run my own race. I averaged 7:30/mile pace for the last 10km and felt really comfortable! For the last five kilometres, the temperatures had risen to 26 degrees so the finishing line was such a lovely sight to see!

It was the most enjoyable half marathon I’ve ever done and such an amazing city to run round. I was disappointed in my time but the fact I enjoyed it so much was a great feeling and I was just happy to have had the chance to do this race.”

Image from Facebook