If it seems like we do a lot of half-marathons we do. At the start of the year, the Attaché had
completed half-marathons in seven different countries: Malta,
Iceland, Holland,
Slovakia, Slovenia,
the Czech Republic
and the US. I’ve only done half-marathons in six countries
and my list is different than hers, but I won’t go into that now because this
story is about the Attaché’s running list.
This story is about her goal to reach ten by the end of the year.
Let me back up a few weeks.
It’s February 1st and she needs three half-marathons to reach her goal
and she wants to do them this year. I
booked two quickly. She hasn’t done a
half in Austria
so I booked Vienna’s Anker half-marathon
for April. Then I stumbled into a great
deal on flights to Latvia
so I booked Riga’s half for
May. That left one race for the
entire year. Out of nowhere our friends
Paul and Mimi told us they were doing the Barcelona
half on Valentine’s Day. I began the
airfare search, wary that it would be too late for a good fare. I got lucky.
Vueling Airlines: 110 Euros per person.
I always book the plane ticket before the hotel and the race
registration because my experience has shown that airfares are not final until
the transaction is complete. Too often I check ticket prices and see them change when I go to book. You know what I mean, the dreaded message: “fare
unavailable”. A few times I have found the
actual bookable fare has been three for four times more than original search
result. I don’t risk it anymore. I get the plane tickets first. The other stuff works itself out.
Well, most of the time.
In this case, Vueling Air was for
real at 110 euros so I booked the flight and a 1 star hotel for 70 euros. Then I tried to register for the race and
found race registration was closed: maximum number of entrants reached. What does this mean? Can you enter a race without being
registered? It was worth a try.
The plan was simple.
It involved a device known in the race fraud industry as a photo copier
and the following equation:
(Real Race Number + Photo Copier) X 2 copies = Greg and the
Attaché in the race.
Enter our travel buddy Paul.
Paul was registered for the race because he knows how to plan
things. The night before the run we followed
Paul to number pickup and snagged his number.
Normally you get a plain old race number like 2410, 3307, or 894 (other
examples available on request). My
theory was that no one could possibly recognize two (or three) “2410” racers on
the course of thousands. But for the Barcelona
half-marathon we found the numbers were not just generic old numbers but the
person’s name followed by the number.
In our case: Paul 502.
That made it interesting.
Can we pull off running with three identical race numbers, all with Paul
502? Bigger yet, can the Attaché pull it
off as a female running with the name Paul? In our favor was the mass of five thousand
other racers. Against us was the fact
that there are no color copiers in the whole of Spain. It didn’t stop us. We used the hotel photo copier, burned a
couple of crappy black and white photos of Paul’s number, and off we went. To tell you the truth I was hoping a race
official would see Paul and I running together with the same number and try to
disqualify me (or him) just for the blog value of it. Too bad. No one seemed to care, not even when
we all posed at the start with the same number.
We had some bad weather when we arrived. We had to find our puny little hotel while it was sleeting.
Race day the weather was only a little bit better. The Attaché finished the race notching her
eighth country. No, she didn't set a
personal best time; in fact, she was fourth from the back. They sweep the course with a couple of chase
vehicles to be sure no one has died and the ambulance kept trying to pick up
the Attaché and tell her to quit. She wouldn't let them. That’s my girl.
The trip to Barcelona
was short and sweet. It was Valentine’s
Day weekend, and Carnival, so Barcelona
was lively. We ate tapas and paella, and
visited a small local bar where an old lady in a bath robe serenaded me. You know, normal Spain
stuff. In all a good trip.
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