San Fermin: Running down the dream of Running with the Bulls

Growing up and to this Day my dad has always been in to self help and motivating speakers like Tony Robbins and Harvey Macka and has even started a blog of his own to help inspire others   and one thing they almost all say is  that you should make a list of the goals you want to achieve.  One of the other major principles is  having reminders  around  you to help you move towards those goals.  I have combined both of these things in  in to one and taken a wall of my Apartment  and painted my “Bucket List” right on to  it, so  I have a daily reminder when I walk past it that I need to keep working towards those things.  and  after more than a year  I am finally able to cross another thing of the list.

This month I took a two week trip to Spain with a side trip to Morocco.  Often when I travel I describe my vacations more like adventurers than sitting on a beach relaxing, and this  trip was about as adventurous as they come.  On July 6th I flew in to Madrid with my cousin only to spend the night before heading to Pamplona the next morning to Get ready to run with the bulls.  As you can see above  at #18  Going to the running of the bulls has been staring back at me for a couple years now and although I listed it as just going I have always secretly wanted to do it. But this is also a key point in goal setting make sure you are setting achievable goals. its good to set a challenge for your self  but you don’t want to set your self up for disappointment.  This being said at #34 I have be Knighted which many have laughed at me for having on my list but I have a whole life time to cross it off.
Any way back to Spain, Getting on the Train to Pamplona, We we sitting in the train car right behind the one with the Bar on it, as we sat there  half sleeping as the small towns passed. the crowd in the train car ahead  grew to the point where the door between cars couldn’t close letting the sounds of laughter and drinking songs pour in to our open car.  The most energetic of the  of the people was a Spain red head who was  3 sheet to the wind about half way there, and would often walk in to our car and try to talk to a Canadian  that didn’t under stand a word she said ( she had been asking him if he was going to doing the running).  Their conversation  soon was reduced to her mimicking the bulls hooves  with her hands  and a childish clip clopping sound every time she passed him.

As we pulled in to Pamplona the bar  patrons erupted in cheer. we were finally here and it was time start preparing for the run.  We  went down to the city center to get a scarf and sash  to complete our traditional runners outfits. We walked  down the path of the run at least three times  to get the feel for just how narrow  it was and to my surprise  it was also up hill. as we walked through the streets of wine soaked festival goers  we ended meeting a lot of good people, and the first question was always either  have you run or are you going to. The best people how ever  were the guys we met the morning of the run.  The shuttle from the hotel to the city left at 5:45 and we met to Scottish guys around our age that once we got out of the bus we all ended up running all the way to the start of the course as a good warm up. but like Tommy petty says waiting is the hardest part, and we had two hours to wait till they let the bulls go. While we waited we talked to most of the people around us but the most memorable were four Irish guys  that looked like they had been friends for a long time, one of them had sent an email to the rest with a subject line “who’s got the Bullocks?”.   “when you get an email like that you can’t say no” one of them told me

after two hours of waiting  it was that time It got relatively quiet down on the street with the runners and then you here it, the load cracking explosion of the rocket, the bulls are on the same street as you and will be charging at you  in less than 20 secs.  The Video  below is my account  of the run from the almost start to just after dead mans corner.

 

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