Viana do Castelo

The other day when I was running, I realized that the same day I was running the Getafe's half marathon in Madrid, the Viana's half marathon was taking place also.

This made me remember my two participations on Viana's race in 2004 and 2005. The first one took place one week after having a scaring car accident in a winding small road between two small towns near Viana. It was a terrible experience, similar to one I had a few years ago on our previous destination, in Chile, south america. It's a hard situation to go to a hospital in an emergency situation being abroad: another language, all different. The caotic situation gets worse in a foreign country. Those are bad memories for me. Even the accident, I could ran one week later the race, it was very important for me, and when I finished two hour's later,I had strong feelings: I had been able to surpass all this situation.

The next year it was different, I ran with some portuguese runners that I met some months before, I felt as one more runner of the portuguese group. I finished in 1h44' or something.

The 2004 edition was my debut on half marathon races after more than 8 years without running regularly.

On the picture, there's the Santa Lucia Basilic, in Viana, a beautiful church who looks like the Sacré Coeur in Paris.