Imagine yourself running as fast as you can as a half a dozen enraged beasts are hot on your tail. These one-thousand-plus pound animals are equipped with long, pointed horns that are ready to impale your body if given the chance. Finally, even if you’re staying one step ahead of the rampaging animals, you are continuously getting bumped around, bruised, and possibly pancaked against dozens of other people doing the same thing. This scenario is not some horrible nightmare you may have while you sleep, but rather an event that participants willingly enter for both fun and tradition. This is the “Running of the Bulls,” and to make it out unscathed, you need some tips and tricks for a bull-free experience.
Centuries Old Tradition
The running of the bulls, although immensely popular today, actually began over eight hundred years ago in northeastern Spain. Back then, however, it wasn’t a competition. Cattle herders who brought their animals from the countryside or water-transported barges needed a quicker way to get them from their starting point at the outskirts of the city to the city center, where they would be sold primarily for bullfights or other needs.
Time was money, even centuries ago, so sellers would constantly try to speed up the process to get them to market as quickly as possible. Owners would use a variety of tactics, such as fear, noise, and animated gestures, to spur the large beasts onward through the streets. This was practiced by many, and soon it evolved into a friendly competition among young men as they began to run in front of the bulls and try to reach the pens before the stampeding bulls overcame them, and thus, the Running of the Bulls was born.
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The Basics
The “Running of the Bulls”, or Encierro, occurs during the San Fermin Festival in Pamplona, Spain, between July 7th and July 14th. The “run” happens each morning of the festival and includes six fighting bulls (which will be fought and killed in the bullring) and six steers that run to “nudge” the bulls onward through the streets. Unlike many events of today, there is no fee for the runners.
No tickets, reservations, forms, or medical examinations are required to assess your ability to complete the physical task. You only need to be eighteen years of age or older, and you’re good to go. If you want to run with the bulls, then all you need to do is show up to the event. Now, keep in mind that over a million spectators come to Pamplona for the festival each year, so you’ll definitely be dealing with large crowds.
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Avoiding Serious Injury
When you combine stampeding enraged animals weighing more than one thousand pounds, hundreds of competitors running ahead, behind, and with the rampaging animals, and winding tight streets that offer a confined course, there are going to be injuries incurred by the participants. If you want to take the run, you’ll be facing a slew of possible injuries. Bumps and bruises from falling on the hard ground or bouncing against other runners are just the tip of the injury iceberg. An interaction with a raging bull can result in being trampled or, worse, gored by its pointed horns.
Though not as common as you may think, being gored is the leading cause of death for some runners at the event. Since record keeping began in 1910, a total of fifteen people have been killed by being gored by the bulls. Direct contact with the bulls is not the only way a runner can get seriously injured or killed. A crowd crush is another deadly possibility.
This “crush” occurs when the street narrows near the end of the run, where the pens await the bulls. If a participant, or several, fall, they can create a pile up and then either be crushed by the pack (resulting in asphyxia, in which the lungs can’t get enough oxygen) or be gored by the bulls ramming into the stacked-up pile of runners. The risk of injury or death is well known and should be taken into consideration when deciding whether to run or not.
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Survival of the Fittest
When preparing for the event, you need to remember two important things. First, like the name says, it’s a run, so you need to prepare for the “run” part of it, and second, there’s the addition of a lot of beef stampeding behind, in front, and to the side of you, so you need to learn how to deal with that. For the physical run, stretching well ahead of the race is extremely important. A pulled calf or thigh muscle could mean the difference between making it to the end or ending up in the hospital.
Jumping, squats, and loosening up your muscles are an absolute must before the 8 a.m. start time. It should go without saying that a good night’s sleep (if you can shake the pre-race, lying-in-bed-with-your-eyes-open anticipation) the night before can only aid in adding some pep to your step on race day. You should also try to arrive early, at least an hour or more, on the morning of the race.
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This will allow you to shake off any jitters (if that’s even possible) and will enable you to survey the route and find the best place to start. Once the run begins, the simple advice is to run like hell and not stop. Like being chased by any vicious animal out in the world, you don’t need to outrun the beast, but just be faster than your other participants. If there is a body to be gored that day, you’re fast feet will ensure that it won’t be yours!
Scary Good Fun!
The Running of the Bulls is both exhilarating and terrifying at the same time. These mixed emotions, with a massive dash of adrenaline thrown in, are what drive people to do this irrational event. For the locals, it’s tradition, and for the tourists trying their hand (or more specifically, their feet) at it, it’s a story they can tell and a memory to hold for decades. Just be smart, be prepared, and be ready to run like you’ve never run before as the huffing breaths of the beasts thunder behind you.
