Lisbon Eco Marathon 2023 Race Recap

The 7th Lisbon Eco Marathon (Portugal) took place last Sunday and I raced in it, being my first trail race. As a road runner with only a few trail runs, this race brought new challenges, both physically and mentally, and taught me some valuable lessons.

If you haven't read my post about my strategy for this race, then I’d suggest you read it first here. I also recommend you watch the race video on my YouTube channel.

Introduction

The Lisbon Eco Marathon is a mixed-terrain race and essentially is a (light) trail marathon. This race is not the more well-known Lisbon Marathon, which is a road marathon with thousands of runners. The Lisbon Eco Marathon is a smaller race more geared to trail runners and also road runners that occasionally enjoy doing some trail running. Still, there were a lot of international runners racing in it.

The course

The race starts and ends in Eduardo VII Park, where you can enjoy one of the best and most iconic views of Lisbon. From there, we have a 2 km (1.2 mi) run until we reach Monsanto, a green forest inside Lisbon. The next miles will be entirely inside Monsanto plus the way back to the finish line.

So, the race is held entirely inside Lisbon and only 4 km (2.5 mi) will be outside Monsanto Forest. Inside Monsanto, the course will mix road/tarmac, sidewalks, bike paths, gravel, and dirt roads.

For those who love hills, the course has a total of 1000m (3280 ft) of elevation and we have a nice one before the finish line.

The entire course will not be closed to the public so you will cross paths will people that are just doing their daily jog, runners that are not in the race, and bikes. Don’t worry about the public roads because every road that needs to be crossed will have police officers stopping the traffic for every runner, even if it’s just one at that moment. Nevertheless, we only need to cross roads on 2 or 3 occasions, but we should always be careful and make sure the police officers stopped the traffic before we cross the road.

Regarding the difficulty level, the course has some steep hills and slippery descends, but in general, it's pretty accessible for runners not used to trail running.

There are no watercourses, so unless it's raining, you'll have your feet dry all the time.

Registration

The registration process is quite easy and it’s all online on the race website, but the price could be lower. It’s not expensive for a marathon by any means, but the biggest Portuguese road marathons cost more or less the same. Because it’s a smaller race with fewer participants, I understand that the price can’t be much lower. If you have already raced some of the best marathons in Europe, then don’t worry, this one is very cheap!

The bib can be collected on the previous or the same day as the race in the same spot as the starting line. You should expect no hassle or long queues to get the bib, but it’s always better to go early in the day. You should also not be expecting a race expo for this marathon.

With the bib, you get a bag, an energy jelly, and of course, the technical t-shirt (a nice one by the way).

Accommodation and Parking

And again, this is a small race so you’ll have no difficulty in booking a room in Lisbon in May. The starting (and finish) line is very near to some subway stations so you can choose to stay anywhere in Lisbon and use public transportation.

If you prefer to drive, you have plenty of free parking (if it’s Sunday) nearby.

Starting boxes and pacemakers

Well, there were no starting boxes or pacemakers. But I guess this is to be expected from a trail race.

Intersections marks

This is not a road race so we don’t have a road to follow and because the race is held in public and open (to everyone) areas, the course cannot be closed or delimited. To help runners not get lost inside the forest, there were orange marks (with a fabric tied to the tree branches) at every intersection. This way, all runners knew where to go and where to turn in the entire race.

I can say this was well thought out and the organization added a lot of marks to every intersection to make sure that no one missed the right path. Nevertheless, I missed it twice but only for a few seconds because I knew that if I did not see the orange mark in an intersection, then something was not right. The problem with these ones that I missed is that the marks were only visible after turning to the right path and in every other situation the marks were also visible outside the turning point. So, we need to be careful and always look for the marks in every intersection, because they will be there.

Water stations

This race had regular water stations like the road races. Some water stations also had isotonic, energy bars and fruits (orange, banana, and watermelon),

There is something that the organization needs to improve. The trash cans are only available in the water stations. If we don’t stop, we’ll have nowhere to drop the empty bottles or cups and because of that, there were some empty bottles along the way. I believe that the organization will pick up all the empty bottles after the race, but nevertheless, this should not happen in a forest.

After the race

For me, there are two kinds of races. The ones with free beers in the end and the ones without them. This did have free beers in the end! This is why I run a marathon!

More seriously now, as soon as one ends the race, someone will give us a finisher medal and then we can pick water, fruit, and of course, beer. For those that paid an extra with the registration, there is also a nice lunch served near the finish line.

My thoughts as a road runner in a trail race

Being my first trail race, I was not sure which strategy would be better for the race. Adding to my lack of proper training for this race (check out my post about my strategy to understand why), I decided that I would race only for fun, as I always do, and I wouldn’t care about my finishing time.

Surprisingly, I finished 5th in my age group meaning that it went better than I expected. Despite that, I could have done much better with proper trail training and a trail race strategy.

I applied the same nutrition and hydration strategy that I used for Seville Marathon, but a trail race requires a different strategy. My pace was slower so I guess that I didn’t need the same amount of carbs. In fact, I didn’t take the last gel (36 km / 22 mi) because I felt that my body didn’t need it. What my body needed was more uphill training! Much more!

Regarding hydration, I found the opposite. I never drink that many fluids during my runs, but in this one I felt the need to drink a lot more. I don’t know if it is something related to the trail run, to the dust from the trails, or only because it was a hot day. But in the end, I was anxious for the next water station, and usually, I ignore the majority of the water stations.

I ran the first hills and quickly decided that I should walk the next ones (that had a higher degree of elevation). Seeing other experienced trail runners walking the hills also helped me to understand that I should not be running all the time.

After deciding that I should walk all hills, I didn’t know if I should run a few or save the energy for later. In fact, this was my biggest struggle with the pacing strategy. In an almost flat road race, we know what to expect, even for the less experienced. Now on a trail run it's harder to know what to expect from the course. How many hills are there? Are the hills hard? Should I run or should I walk?

In the end, I think that I walked too many hills and I should have run the ones that were less difficult, but I was afraid to spend all my energy and even the last mile of the race as significant hills to climb.

As I wrote in the beginning, I am very satisfied with my performance, but still, I have no doubt that a road runner needs to do proper training in trail courses. This will bring the needed experience for trail races, of course, but the best part is that with trail running we get to exercise and strengthen a lot of muscles and this will bring obvious benefits for a road race.

I would love to know your thoughts, especially if you are a trail runner! Tell me about it in the comments section below.

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