Race Date: 14th December 2025
Race Report by: Harriet Davies

My road to Málaga started around midnight on 1st January, when I decided that 2025 would be the year I got back into running.

True to form, I started late: barring a wavy New Year’s Day parkrun, I didn’t lace up my trainers until February. I don’t really believe in New Year’s resolutions, but this was one I was determined to keep. So in March, after two too many whiskies with friends from Crystal Peaks Runners and in a pre-emptive turning-30 crisis, I signed up for the Málaga Marathon. What better way to enter a new decade and test whether I was indeed back running?

I woke up the next morning riddled with regret, but reassured myself that I had a good nine months to prepare and not to stress.

I therefore gave myself a few months of aiming to run twice a week and entered all the Strider Road, Trail and Fell Championship races. Real preparation could come later. It wasn’t much, but something miraculous happened – I started to not hate running.

With six months to go, it was time to step things up a notch and set my marathon goals. Being my first, I kept them simple: don’t get injured, don’t let it make me hate running again, and sneak under 3:53 (Senior Davies’s PB).

I then devised the equally simple (and Paula Radcliffe-approved) “Three F’s” training plan: every week I’d do something Fun, something Fast and something Far.

In a typical week, the Tuesday fell group gave me my fun, the plethora of Strider championship races gave me my fast, and tacking extra miles onto Heeley and Graves gave me my far. It was fantastically simple and, crucially, allowed me to train by stealth, as my natural running state is “can’t be arsed”.

By all accounts it worked surprisingly well. I stuck religiously to the plan, stayed injury-free, and watched as my PBs tumbled across the board. I knew I was stronger than I’d ever been and I was giving myself a shot at a decent marathon debut.

December rolled around horribly fast and, after a final birthday PB at Percy Pud, it was time to fly to Spain to “acclimatise” and carb-load on beer and tapas.

Maranoia was rife in the final lead-up to race day. I was dithering about everything and wondering why I’d let myself be talked into such madness. By the Saturday, phantom niggles had started. I always thought these were bollocks and rolled my eyes at people who spoke about them, but believe me – they’re real. I was also getting massive waves of CBA (it’s still my natural state) and I’ve never been so obsessed with time: how many hours until the whole ordeal would be over?

In an attempt to calm my nerves, I listened to my second-favourite Paula’s podcast and reread the advice from my running agony aunt:

In the nicest possible way: pull yourself together. You’ve put in all of the required work, you’ve got shit-loads of evidence that you’re ahead of where you want to be, you’ve even learned to take gels.

I felt a bit better but was still aggy and restless, so went to bed early Saturday night. I slept surprisingly well and woke up oddly calm, although it wasn’t long before the nerves returned. The weather looked ideal temperature-wise, but there was potential for some gusty headwinds. At this point though, it was going to be what it would be.

Getting to bag drop/start was an easy 15-minute stroll from the appartment and, minus the horrific state of the portaloos (note to self: always carry tissues), everything was fantastically organised.

I ducked into the 3:15–3:30 starting pen (my original 3:45–4:00 prediction was long dead) and found myself swept along by the atmosphere.

I was still very apprehensive about pace, I really didn’t want to blow up and be carried off by some hunk of a Spaniard (or maybe I did?). At the last minute I settled on the plan: anything under 7:50/mile was great; if everything felt good I’d aim for around 7:40/mile, and I wouldn’t go faster than 7:30/mile.

I mostly stuck to the faster end of my plan and felt like I was holding back for much of the race. Which I think was a good thing, 26.2 miles is a chuffing long way, especially if you’ve not run that far before.

The Málaga route is essentially a sequence of out-and-backs (high on my list of most hated things, just behind running on the flat), but the first one gave me a chance to shout hello to Kate, Kevin, and my Crystal Peaks friends (all but Kevin having sensibly signed up for the half).

By halfway I was feeling comfortably fine, apart from a nagging rub on my right big toe. Working out that, if this were 2024, I’d have just run a half-marathon PB distracted me from my toe, and I was enjoying the thinned-out crowds now those with any sense of self-preservation had peeled off.

The next few miles passed uneventfully. It wasn’t until I saw the athletics stadium that I had my first strop. I knew we ran through it later, so to flirt around it before starting the longest ever two-mile squiggle was sole destroying. Physically I was fine, but mentally I was well and truly fed up. The wind was also picking up and it looked like we’d be running straight into it for the final stretch. I tried not to think about that, so naturally my mind drifted back to the rubbing on my big toe. This thought was even more painful, so I took out a gel to hold in the hope of some motivation (my stomach wasn’t in the mood for any more gloop).

After an age we eventually weaved back to, and finally into, the stadium. Half a lap later we were unceremoniously chucked out into a moderate headwind. Not ideal conditions for the final four-and-a-bit miles of a marathon.

I remained very stroppy until a man behind me yelled, “Just over a parkrun to go. Let’s do it for Yorkshire!” This Abbey Runner snapped me right out of my funk. I was fine, more fine than I should be, so with “just over a parkrun to go” I stopped consciously holding my pace back and drifted into comfortable cruise mode. It was around this time I saw Ben and shouted some encouragement at him – the poor sod still had the squiggle of doom ahead of him.

Despite the headwind, the final section felt like a breeze and I was the most relaxed I’d felt in days. Rounding the last bend, I managed to squeeze in one final mini-strop before I saw the finishing arches. I’d stopped looking at my watch at “almost a parkrun to go” and almost cried when I finally crossed the line under a big 3:20-something.

Everything after that was a blur: phone call to my mum and (very proud) dad, medal collection, downing electrolyte drinks, obliterating orange slices, forgetting to collect my bag, meeting up with the Crystal Peaks lot, going back for my bag, discovering a sixth toe/blister on my right foot, cheering people in, shower, beer, burger, beer, Málaga light display, whisky, and finally bed.

It’s going to take some time to come down from my runner’s high. It was really strong run with some very sexy splits (no graph of shame here), although that nagging itch that I could go faster has already started. Luckily there’s a pretty big marathon at the end of April that I’m hoping will satisfy it.

Looking back to the start of the year, when I drunkenly declared that 2025 would be the year I got back into running, I could never have imagined it would turn out like this. Particularly after my near-death experience at Bolsover 10k in February where I scraped under 46 minutes, the idea I’d run a 3:18 marathon eleven months later is something I’d have bet heavily against.

To quote my agony aunt once again: Everyone thought Oasis was the biggest comeback of 2025…

Roll on 2026!

Marathon Results
The fastest women was Misgane Alemayehu Wolteji in 02:24:44. The fastest man was Mande Bushendich in 02:06:08.