Spain’s fittest and fastest runners: Where are they based?

AMATEUR marathons, fun-runs, triathlons and ‘uphill-kilometre’ races have long been popular fixtures on local calendars, but are steadily rising in frequency and number of participants, with many non-competitive versions open to anyone and staged for charity, creating a growing interest in jogging and sprinting as a method of exercise across Spain.

Running is one of the most common outdoor sports worldwide, since no special skills and practically no equipment are needed for anyone to get started – and in Spain, with plenty of local competitions to practise at and the incentive of ‘doing their bit’ for charity in non-competitive races, more and more residents are taking it up.

And social media for sportspersons, Strava, has revealed who are the fastest runners in Spain, and which have the most stamina.

Jogging fans in Catalunya can, on average, cover a kilometre in five minutes, 42 seconds, but those in Castilla y León are more speedy, managing a kilometre in five minutes, 41 seconds.

Both are beaten by Basque runners, though, who are the quickest in the country, completing 1,000 metres in five minutes and 40 seconds.

As for stamina, regular joggers in Catalunya, La Rioja and in the Spanish city-province of Melilla on the northern Moroccan coast can typically keep going for 9.1 kilometres, but the Cantabrians have more staying power, keeping at it for another 400 metres, not burning out until they have covered 9.5 kilometres.

And once again, runners from the Basque Country are the ones who can carry on the longest, not flagging until they have covered 9.6 kilometres.

Yet nowhere in the Basque Country is among the top places in Spain or the world as the most heavily-frequented by runners – number one, in the former, is the Avenida Pablo Iglesias in Madrid, and the latter, the most popular jogging site on the planet, is Prospect Park in Brooklyn, New York.

The most common day of the week for people to go out for a jog – and also to go cycling – is Sunday, Strava says.

 

Photograph: Strava