Lanzarote Marathon, Half, 10k and Santa Fun Run 2022 Results and Report

Report by Angela Jackson

Race Date: Saturday 3^rd December 2022 (Fun Run Friday 4^th)

If you are looking for a winter race in warmer climes then the Lanzarote races are worth considering.  The event is well organised and with a mix of distances there may be something for family and friends as well.  Don’t go expecting it to be easy though, the route does undulate with sneaky hills when you are tired.  Lanzarote is also known to be a bit breezy and you’d be exposed as the route is near the coast – although it wasn’t an issue for us in 2022.

There were plenty of water and food stations along the whole route satisfying marathon, half and 10k distances and well organised bag drops.

The races are on closed roads and footpaths and all finish at the same point by the expo in Costa Teguise .  The marathon is an out and back course from Costa Teguise, through Arrecife to Puerto Del Carmen and back again.  The half marathon is the second half of the marathon so starts at Puerto Del Carmen.  The 10k is the final 10k of the marathon starting in Arrecife.

There are timing chips on the back of the race numbers and I believe the marathoners received a chip time.  For the 10k our times were effectively a gun time as there was no timing mat at the start (and our watch times were a couple of minutes quicker than the official time – wish I’d realised this beforehand!).  I’m not sure for the half marathon.

The Santa fun run is a charity race on the day before the main races from the outskirts of Costa Teguise to the marathon finish and, though billed as 5k, was 4.4k by my watch.

Now my recollections- skip to the results if you’re not interested!

A few months ago our one week winter sun holiday turned into a two weeker when Mark realised that the Lanzarote marathon was taking place the weekend prior to our intended arrival.  Not that Mark wanted to do a marathon, but he was interested in the shorter options, namely the half marathon and 10k.

We mentioned the event to Richard Pegg and Nancy Stuart and they were also interested.  Luckily we had found an apartment in Costa Teguise that would accommodate us and so we were all set – Richard entered in the marathon and the rest of us in the 10k.  We also entered the ‘Santa’ fun run which was to take place on the Friday evening with the main races on the Saturday.

We arrived on the Thursday, weather warm (21-23 Degrees) just as the temperature started to plummet in the UK. We got our bearings and found it was a 3km walk to the expo from the apartment where we would need to go for our numbers the next day.

On the Friday number and goody bag collection was really straightforward.  The bags contained a T-shirt, tube of sun screen, soap, massage cream – Richard also got a pair of socks.  We all decided that we wouldn’t be wearing the T-shirt until after we’d finished as the slogan on the back was ‘Never give up’  – let’s not tempt fate!

We were a little surprised to receive a full Santa outfit with our fun run number for an entry fee of 5 euros – must be the best value race I’ve ever entered, but did we really want to run in trousers, jacket, hat and beard in this heat?

Come Friday evening we’d booked a restaurant with plenty of pasta dishes on the menu before walking to the start of the fun run with our Santa outfits. It was a slightly surreal experience seeing all these Santas gathering by the sea as the sun was setting. They didn’t seem too hurried to start the race and I was a bit concerned for those marathoners having to stand around for half an hour.  Anyway for me it was good to have a jog along the promenade (couldn’t cope with the beard over my face for long when running!) and loosen my muscles after the 4 hour flight – and it was fun to run with a couple of hundred Santas. By the time we finished it was dark – so it was a 3k walk back to home, change and out for the traditional pasta.

Race Day
Start times
–marathon 8am
-half 10:30am
-10k 12noon

You can see where this is going, Richard was up and out of the apartment by 7am so he could walk to the start of the marathon, whereas the 10k-ers had a leisurely start and set off at 9am to walk to the expo area where we were getting a bus to Arrecife at 10am.  It was a glorious morning for sunbathing on the beach with not a cloud in the sky – mmm at least we weren’t wearing the santa outfits today.

We noticed that the marathon timer at the finish line indicated they had started at about 8:15 – Richard later told us that they were waiting for the all-clear that the route was safe and roads closed.

Luckily as the morning progressed the cloud developed so when we got to Arrecife it was a comfortable* temperature as we cheered on the marathon front runners, then the half marathon leaders and then a mixture of both.  There were pacers for both marathon and half marathon distances so when we saw the 3:45 marathon pacer we hoped to see Richard soon after. It was good to see the battenburg vest heading towards us but it was after a rather speedy 4 hour pacer – Richard was not feeling brilliant and he was at the notorious 20 mile spot.

(*I’m not sure the marathon runners were feeling that comfortable at this stage.)

There was a bag drop at the start of the 10k (a van which took the bags to the finish where they were neatly sorted by number ready for us to collect later).

After seeing Rich we made our way to the start (just up a side road from the main route).  At this point there was a real downpour of rain so we dodged under the trees till it subsided.  The rain must have been great to cool down the marathon/half marathon runners.

The 10k start was a low key affair – in fact we didn’t hear any starting gun or horn or shout.  It was just when the people in front of us started to move that we realised we were setting off – I started my watch when I ran under the arch – ah! No timing mat.

The outskirts of Arrecife are a bit industrial and the route took us around this along some closed roads which always felt to be uphill! A lot of the course was along the coastal path which we shared with pedestrians.  There were cones splitting the route but it wasn’t clear which side was for runners and which was for pedestrians!  Most people were there to cheer us on though.

My pace had to drop after 6km because my Achilles started to trouble me.  I walked/ran for the next km but by keeping my pace down found I could run the remaining 3 k.  By this stage we were back near Costa Teguise and the route was familiar, they took us off the path uphill onto the closed main road into the town and onto the finish.

There were finisher medals and free food and drink at the end (including beer) at the expo.  In my mind I thought we’d be basking in the sun with a cold beer at this point but it remained cloudy and we started to feel a bit chilly – time for a walk back to the apartment.  This means that we all covered an extra 6km that day (to/from the apartment) – does Rich get 48km on the LDS for this effort?

I don’t think any of us had a great race but I enjoyed the experience and there was a lovely bay nearby where we could have a swim or two.  Lanzarote is a really interesting island to explore, with some amazing volcanic landscapes.

 Marathon results
First man was CIARAN MCGONAGLE (Letterkenny AC) in 02:33:27 and first lady was YVONNE VAN VLERKEN  (Team Sirius Europe) in 02:55:59.  There were 406 finishers including 1 Strider.

Striders’ results