Sunday 20th May 2018 Riga Half Marathon No 7 Latvia

Sunday 20th May 2018 No 7 

Richard 01:55:33 Jackie 02:13:11

Our first time in Riga and our first time in Latvia , and what a brilliant place it is.The weather was lovely the flowers were out , plenty of bars , restaurants and shops . It is small compared to other cities we have visited but plenty too see and easy to get around . The high light for me was Riga Central Market, one of the biggest in Europe .  The main structures of the market are five pavilions constructed by reusing old German Zeppelin hangars . The market is 72,300 square meters wide with more than 3,000 trade stands. Everything was on sale from 400 euro tins of Caviar to home made 3 euro slippers .

The Riga Marathon is a relatively new tradition , but it now attracts top professional athletes and is the only race in Northern Europe with a Bronze IAAF label and is hoping to achieve Gold label by welcoming 35.000 participants from 70 countries . The economic impact for 2017 was calculated at 4.5 million Euros , attracting 4000 runners from overseas generated 2.5 million Euros. Each overseas runner brings 1.2 travel companions staying in Latvia for an average of 3.4 days .

 

35,000 participants

 ^{Riga is a fairly small city and the route covered most of it crossing the river twice and going through the Old Town . What I really liked about this event was it also included a Marathon a 10k and a 6km . Every race was competitively run but the shorter distances allowed families and children to take part . The event started at 8.30 am and ran through till 4 pm with closed roads for the whole time so we had a lovely traffic free afternoon after our race finished .}

The 21k route

We are in the Rochdale Harriers vests , often mistaken for the German Flag .

On the route

Fiercely contested 10k 

Relaxing afternoon

Lovely City

Well done Jackie

The start