Running a Revolution

Sunday was the day of the 10k race I had entered myself for. It was the 26th of May, and what I hadn't know when registering was that the 25th is the national day in Argentina. The race ("Fiestas Mayas") is named after the national holiday preceding the competition.

The Argentine national holiday celebrates the first step on the road to independence from Spain (the 9th July being the actual independence day). After Napoleon invaded Spain, deposed Ferdinand VII and appointed his brother king, a group of revolutionaries in Buenos Aires declared themselves loyal to Ferdinand VII and decided they would rule themselves his behalf. The 25th May 1810 was the date the group formed the first home-rule government in Rio de la Plata (broadly speaking what is now Argentina, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay). Despite Ferdinand's return to the throne in Spain a few years later, the leaders in Buenos Aires decided they had had enough of Spanish rule and on July 9th 1816 officially declared themselves independent from Spain, hence the 25th being considered the most important date of the movement towards independence.

The significance of the Fiestas Mayas and the race name didn't mean a lot to me until Saturday, which was the national holiday when there were plenty of blue and white flags out. At the start-line of the race there was a rendition of the national anthem under an enormous Argentinean flag, and the start was marked with an explosion of blue and white confetti.

I was impressed with how well the race was organised. Whilst the inscription had been a bit of a pain beforehand (had to do it in person), everything ran very smoothly for the race (which had nearly 7000 people taking part) - secure storage for belongings and plenty of refreshments during and after the race.
The course was not fantastically exciting (along streets - but then perhaps I've just been a bit spoilt in Switzerland) but was nice enough and did get to run besides some of the city's parks, and the weather was pretty much perfect.

In the white t-shirt...

My time was 43.40 which was okay, but probably also reflects that I haven't been training so much in the last 2 weeks. I placed 33rd woman overall out of 3131 and 3rd for my age group (19-24). Anyway, it was a fun race and nice to take part in a race abroad.