San Fermin - Pamplona 2015

[Moiser]

I've wanted to participate in the Running of the Bulls for a couple of years now, I couldn't tell you the reason why, it was just something I always wanted to do. I ended up traveling to Pamplona alone, spent hours trawling the city looking for a place to stay.

I ended up staying in a hotel about 20mins out of town, paid well over the odds and had to arrange a taxi to pick me up in the early hours of the morning. I'd been told by several people I could lock my bags up in the city's train station, but this turned out not to be the case when I arrived there at around 0530 on the morning of the run.

This is just one of many moments where it appeared that the universe was conspiring against me, I'd had trouble getting to Pamplona in the first place and lost a day and the additional cost of a hotel in Barcelona due to the trains being full.

Undeterred, I caught a cab down to where the run would start... I had approximately one hour and thirty mins to find somewhere to store my bags and make it back to the starting line. I tried a couple of hotels, all of them unsympathetic to my struggle, which at the time was becoming very real.

Finally I happened upon a large hotel about five minutes away from the starting point, after explaining my situation to the guy behind the counter he agreed to take my bags, but not before we had a conversation about how dangerous the run was... I was already nervous, and his pep talk didn't really help, although I'm sure he meant well. He handed me a traditional red neck scarf and we shook hands...

I bounced back down to the start of the run, surrounded by drunk people that had been up all night partying... I had a good thirty minutes when I arrived at the starting place so I decided to get a feel for the course which is around 800m of street, a sweeping bend, a sharp right known as dead man's corner before a long straight and a final sweeping bend before the choke point into the arena.

I was a bag of nerves, I had several thoughts about just fucking the whole thing off, when I couldn't get out of Barcelona, when I couldn't find a hotel, when I couldn't find a place to store my bag, the logistics didn't work, it was dangerous and three people had been gored the day before, one of the people was in critical condition.

But I was still here... wandering the streets.

I passed the time talking with drunk tourists, and I do mean drunk. I attempted to get the run down of how everything was going to pan out. I bumped into a group of four UK lads on tour, after chatting with them for a couple of minutes they invited me to join them on the run... I wasn't going to decline the chance to pass the time with some idle conversation and so we started to move back up the street to the starting point.

The run itself was a total blur, a massive rush of adrenaline and thoughts regarding exactly what the fuck was I doing. The biggest danger appeared to me to be the mass of people pushing and hitting and kicking their way forward, seemingly fighting for survival... that was until I saw the first group of bulls, maybe four, running right up the middle, passing by me at around 1.5m, close enough. Just after they passed a guy falls hard a couple of meters directly in front of me, he stops moving with his back facing me and I haul him up, running on pure adrenaline... as soon as he's up, he's off like a shot, didn't even look back to see who had helped him, I can't say I wouldn't have done the same. The rest of the bulls passed me shortly after, I'd maid the mistake of stopping to look behind me, another group was close, I pressed my back to the wall as they passed at what I could only guess was less than 1m. From there I sprinted the last 40m into the arena, managing to get through the bottleneck without incident. Cue a couple of minutes of elated celebration before a single bull was released into the area, then another and a third one at a time. Three bulls was enough for me, and from what I understood the Matador was going to enter the arena soon, and that was something I had no interest in seeing.

So there it is, I survived... whether I would do it again is another question.

I found this video on YouTube of the day I ran, but you might find it tough to spot me and everything looks a lot slower than I remember it happening on the day!!

[Syrrah]

Holy shit, dude! I can't believe this is a thing.