This RTVE Play YouTube channel is a good one to watch for the Running of the Bulls. They also put up other videos where they do slow motion replays and breakdowns of the encierros.
Showing posts with label encierros - pamplona. Show all posts
Showing posts with label encierros - pamplona. Show all posts
July 18, 2024
Hanging Up The Jacket: A Farewell To Arms
(by Alexander Fiske-Harrison fiske-harrison.com July 17, 2024)
On Sunday in my beach café in Sotogrande in Andalusia I opened the Spanish newspapers to see myself and my bull-running jacket – originally my old secondary school athletics ‘colours’ blazer awarded for running the 400m when I was 17 and which just so happened to be in the traditional red and white of the world famous Fiestas of San Fermín in Pamplona – being discussed in the national newspaper La Razón under the headline, “Why are there young men who run the bull-runs of Miura wearing jackets in San Fermín?”
After eight days of bull runs, the legendary and totemic Miura bulls, as feared as they are revered, bring a climax, with the permission of the “pobre de mí“, to the San Fermín festival. The six bulls from the Sevillian ranch (raised on the Zahariche estate in Lora del Río) return for another year, now for the 42nd time, to test the runners who dare to position themselves in front of the herd.
This 14th of July 2024, the Miuras mark their 42nd bull-run, a breed that never disappoints with its challenging behaviour. They are especially dangerous in the final barriers and at the entrance to the bullring, due to their skill in orientation.
Moreover, this is the ranch that has caused the most injuries of all types in the history of San Fermín: 225 in total. In the last bull run of 2023, fortunately, there were no injuries from bull horns, but there were six cases of trauma. The duration of the run was two minutes and 14 seconds.”
For those who follow the bull-runs on TV, there is one image that particularly stands out: a significant number of young men dressed in jackets, instead of the classic white shirt and red scarf. We wonder why this is:
As journalist Chapu Apaolaza recounts in his book ‘7th of July’, it was a trend started by the American spy Keith Baumchen, known as ‘El Bomber’: “Bomber and his friends decided one day to run the bull run in jackets, as one would attend Sunday mass in the USA, as a sign of respect.
“This custom is still maintained today in the Miura bull runs. Bomber’s jacket was ivory-coloured. All kinds of blazer models parade down Estafeta Street, including the red with white stripes from Eton College worn by Alexander Fiske-Harrison,” Apaolaza reports.
However, as I said, I was drinking an café cortado on the other side of Spain and my jacket was hanging in a wardrobe at my family home in East Anglia.
Since I first ran with the bulls – the bulls of Miura in fact, in Pamplona – fifteen years ago almost to the day, I have run over a hundred times, in a dozen different cities, towns and villages in Spain.
Even before that I ‘fought’ – meaning faced with the two-handed cape and the one-handed red cloth – bulls, including those of Miura, at their home. However, I have only ever killed one with a sword, a three-year-old, one third of a ton bull of Saltillo with the Miuras in the ring.
I trained with, and currently work alongside, the matador Eduardo Dávila Miura, nephew of the brothers Eduardo and Antonio Miura who run their fighting bull-breeding ranch in Zahariche as their forefathers have for over 175 years going back to their great, great grandfather Juan Miura Rodríguez.
Last year, Eduardo Dávila Miura and I trained 70 Americans in rudimentary cape-work outside Pamplona and put them in front of a dozen young bulls in a private ring in the blazing sun, which was not only a personal record for me both in terms of hours spent in the ring and animals fought, but the largest number of amateur bullfighters ever put through such a class.
This being despite the fact that my left arm was fractured after four men and a bull landed on me running in Pamplona two days previously. I did not notice at the time as it was not a displaced fracture, although my arm did turn black.
It was following this that the great fine art photographer, whose work with animals has garnered him such international recognition, David Yarrow, contacted me about photographing a fighting bull to add to his ever expanding collection of iconic images of noble beasts.
Of course, I took him to Miura, where they gave us the unheard of honour of bringing the 8-year-old, two thirds of a ton giant ‘Pañolito’ – fighting bulls in the ring are by Spanish law between 4 and 6 years old – into their private ring this February past.
This bull is a semental, a Sire of Toros Bravos, and never has been, and never will be, fought. Which meant that how it would behave in the ring was a complete unknown. It did not disappoint, charging at anyone and anything for over an hour, and leading me to break my ankle to line it up for the perfect photo. It then returned to its breeding herd without a hair on its hide having been even touched.
To say that, as someone from the Anglophone – the ‘English-speaking’ – world I have integrated into el mundillo de los toros, ‘the little world of the bulls’, is to understate the case. In the words of Chat GPT 4: “El aficionado anglosajón vivo con más categoría en el mundo de los toros en España es Alexander Fiske-Harrison.” ‘The most distinguished living aficionado from an English-speaking country in the world of bullfighting in Spain is Alexander Fiske-Harrison’
And yet, despite having a train ticket from my home in Andalusia up to the capital of Navarre, and a place to stay with my great friends – and heroic bull-runners – the Barbarians shirt-wearing Welsh legends that are Bryan and Tony Hoskins, I was not there.
At first I thought my reasoning was my physical condition as a runner – my ankle has still not fully healed having been badly damaged by the father of the very Miura bulls I intended to run in Pamplona.
However, even a short sprint by a practised veteran runner who knows which stretch to pick and since 2017 has taken clients running ranging from the board of directors of NASCAR to billionaire Hollywood film producers – some of whom come with their own Special Forces bodyguards – is not asking the impossible.
Then the dog belonging to my fiancée and myself fell terminally ill, and spending time and money to go on a vacation to run with bulls and drink and dine with old friends seemed wrong.
However, I still might have gone for the night if only it had been to drink and dine with old friends, but the thing about San Fermín is that would not be the case.
Since the time Ernest Hemingway first arrived in Pamplona 101 years ago the fiesta has been used by the Anglo-Saxons – as the Spanish refer to anyone English-speaking – as a hedonistic haven to indulge their excesses away from the prying eyes of their moral peers at home.
It’s not for no reason Ernest’s grandson John Hemingway titled his novel Bacchanalia: A Pamplona Story (one of the three protagonists is loosely modelled on me and hence has my father’s first name, Clive.)
You can see it in the behaviour of the characters in The Sun Also Rises just as clearly – they are with one possible exception moral bankrupts. And since that possible exception is telling the story himself, one suspects that in reality he is actually no exception at all.
As one Professor of American literature described them in the journal of The Hemingway Society, they are, by turns, compulsive, manipulative, moody, impulsive, hostile, distrustful, superficial, possessed of an intense need for personal power, uncertain regarding sexual identity, terrified, self-pitying, masochistic, catastrophic, emotionally starved, imbued with low self-esteem, obsessive, aggressive, self-centred, evasive, denial-prone, fearful, lonely, intolerant, self-destructive, and emotionally and physically impotent.
(From ‘Alcoholism in Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises: a wine and roses perspective on the lost generation’ by Matts G. Djos in The Hemingway Review, March 22nd, 1995)
Personally, I have head it said – and witnessed – that the morning bull-run reduces the incidents of violence among the drunken revellers on a statistical level compared to sporting events, in a similar way to the fact that rugby matches in the UK are witness to infinitely less conflict among the audience than football (‘soccer’) matches are since the bloody struggle is never sublimated.
This may be true.
However, this combination of moral abandonment alongside a daily test of masculinity attracts people with far too much to prove, with far too great a gaping void in soul and too great an absence of intellectually developed impulse control for the bulls of Spain to ever heal.
The damaged young men from the corners of what was once the British Empire seem to expend their unmitigated male instincts in the encierro, the ‘bull-run’, in contests of recklessness – seeing who can run closest to the points of the bull horns – while claiming to imitate the indigenous Basque and Spanish runners who do this because it was the culture into which they were born.
You will never find those ‘serious men’ born in Spain drunkenly collapsed in a chair while boasting about their ‘scores’ in the encierro as though they were trained athletes in a regulated contest – an American competitive import – nor will you watch them lose all manly fortitude and dignity in pursuing bitter rivalries, spiteful gossip or petty jealousies over status. Not for them bragging quarrels over how close they were to the animals, how many columns inches they achieved in the local press as a result, or how many seconds they can managed to get on local TV pretending to speak Spanish or mouthing for the 100th time Hallmark card mottos about honour, courage and alegría.
It is no coincidence that those Anglo-Saxons who rise above such things are happily married – the Belchers and Hollanders, the Centurions and Hoskins, the Masis and the Carrolls – to name just a few of the excellent and visitors and dear friends who continue to attend. The trouble is that every time I see a photo of them in a group on social media, there is always someone there who I would not sit around a table with if I could possibly avoid it, let alone travel for the privilege of doing so.
At the end of the day, millions of words have been published in the English and Spanish press – some by me – about how Hemingway, that Colombus-in-reverse, spoiled San Fermín with his ‘discovery’ of the encierro. But it is not the numbers of those crossing the endless sea of Ne Plus Ultra, but the quality of character of these self-proclaimed Conquistadors who crossed the Atlantic in the wrong direction who are the root of the problem. (And some who crossed the Bay of Biscay too.)
For that reason, and that reason alone, my jacket remains within its wardrobe, and when you next see me with a bull it will be alongside those born to it, or those who employed me to show them the necessary respect for the culture which bred it.
July 16, 2024
Pamplona doesn't have to be dangerous
So, if you are in Pamplona for the running of the bulls but you don't want to actually get out there and mix it up with the bulls here is a great option.
Somewhere in Pamplona they have a space where you can take pictures with taxidermied bulls and get some great shots to take home to show your family and friends.
It is much safer and you won't get in the way of the real runners. I'm sure they would appreciate it too.
July 14, 2024
These people travel all this way only to stand there and watch
What is the point of going to Pamplona only to watch as the bulls run right past you?
Look at the guy in the red sleeveless t-shirt standing in the doorway.
I can imagine him saying to himself, "okay, okay, I'm going to start running. I want to get out there and mix it up with the bulls. Okay, okay, opps, there they go. Dang it, they're gone. Crap, I spend thousands of dollars to get here, took a week of vacation off work, traveled thousands of miles, and there go the bulls. Well, maybe I'll get out there and run next year. Wait, I told my wife if she let me come to Pamplona this year we would go to Disneyland next year. Wow, I really messed up."
Love the name of that restaurant
I bet they have some good steaks in there.
But what a wasted opportunity, look at all that empty space in front of that Jose Escolar bull. That guy in yellow is just standing there looking behind the bulls.
And what about the guy in blue? He's looking way up the road. Dude, the bulls are right in front of you, run with them!
July 7, 2024
July 12, 2023
10 years ago today
10 years ago today Utah State University student Patrick Eccles was seriously gored by a bull from the El Pilar ranch during the running of the bulls in Pamplona.
The above photos, which I had somehow previously missed (I thought I had scoured the web well enough to find all the known photos of the occurrence,) show young Mr. Eccles receiving emergency first aid while still grasping on to his cell phone.
Mr. Eccles took some flak for running with a cell phone which is strictly prohibited. At this point however I think he and everyone else is just happy he is alive. His goring could have been fatal but he got lucky, he only lost his spleen.
I've been keeping an eye on his Facebook and Instagram pages to see if he would say anything today on the 10 year anniversary but he has not.
I was kind of hoping he would post the video from that cell phone.
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(link to my original post 10 years ago)
https://blogplazadetoros.blogspot.com/2015/08/logan-man-2-spaniards-gored-during.html
July 6, 2023
July 11, 2022
July 3, 2022
March 19, 2022
My review of the book Bulls Before Breakfast by Peter N. Milligan
Two years ago I posted a review, by Tim Pinks at sanfermin.com, of the book Bulls Before Breakfast by Peter N. Milligan.
(see post here) https://blogplazadetoros.blogspot.com/2020/02/bulls-before-breakfast.html
Shortly after that I got my own copy of the book in the mail and started reading it, I couldn't wait to read another good book about the world of the bulls.
Overall it is a great book, one that every American thinking about going to Pamplona to run with the bulls needs to read. There is indispensable information in the book about what to do and what not to do in Pamplona. For example what things will get you thrown out of the running course by the local police even before the run begins. And what things to do to give yourself the best chance for a safe run.
And there is a lot of comedy in the book too. One laugh out loud moment I had, while reading the book in the Las Vegas airport which made some other people look at me oddly, was a story about what happened to Mr. Milligan's new, clean, tailored, white pants the moment he first put them on and stepped outside the hotel and onto the sidewalk. Very funny.
And this description of the course really took me there;
(from pages 130-131)
When the bulls arrive, in their mum-chanced cloud, your senses five notice before the message reaches your brain, like fingers touching a hot stove.
It is then the Street of Dreams. From the wooden and stone paddock at the top of Santo Domingo, uphill to that little dangerous hump at the peak; through the wide plaza, the lazy, listing left around calle Mercaderes, to the sunrise, to the sawdust of the acid-scarred stones or whatever new corner trick of the year, and the hard right onto the long and morning man-making stretch of calle Estafeta; past the door hiders and window hangers, past Carmelo's store, onto the pavers, taking my favorite left in the world onto Telefonica, past where Daniel died, past where Ari was gored, and squeezing through the Callejon and past where my ankle snapped; every morning the bulls and runners disembogue onto the bloody sand in my favorite city, and into the greatest arena in the world. Deo volente, I've asked that my family scatter my ashes in the Pamplona bullring sand in the end, but don't deny me a single summer in those streets until that faraway time. Dumping me in a pile in front of my beloved Pamplona streets with the giant hoses, would be an acceptable alternative.
The encierro course is around 825 meters long (that is over nine football fields or over one half-mile), and every bit of a hike even without the bulls. There are steep climbs, sharp turns, lazy listing turns, stone walls, doorways, inconceivably hard wooden barriers, wet cobblestones, manholes, slippery drains, curbs, metal gates, boarded storefronts, hirondelles (the swallows that fly over Pamplona), TV towers and cameras, clock towers, drainpipes, dangerously crushed plastic Coca-Cola bottles, and all manner of dross, flotsam, debris, sawdust, flags, bunting, pavers, sand, urine, blood, screams, cheers, flashing cameras, the morning and dawning sun, and a sea of humanity. And it all disappears when the beasts bear down on you. Poof: It all disappears.
Now for the bad. I do have to bring up two issues though with the book, one relatively minor and one very major.
The minor issue was when he gave information about the bullfight for those who don't know anything about la corrida.
Now, he does mention in the book that he is still learning about the bullfight, but this was a rookie mistake. He should know better.
(from page 235)
We encourage our English-speaking friends to act respectfully during the corrida, and sit quietly for la hora de la verdad (the moment of truth), which is the act of the matador using his sword to pierce the bull's heart. It's their event, and we are mere interlopers.
Ummm... one of the first things you learn about the bullfight is that the matador is not trying to pierce the bulls heart, but rather he is going for the aorta. (Los rejoneadores I believe are going for the heart since they are sitting on horseback and are up above the bull's body when they insert their sword. The matadors on foot though don't have that luxury and I'm sure that is who the author was talking about.)
So that little section made me scratch my head and wonder if the author had anyone proof read his work before it was sent off to the publisher.
The next bit though is more major, one that actually made me put the book down and stop reading it for a couple of weeks. I don't know how he made this mistake, unless he did absolutely no research and just repeated something that he heard from others in Pamplona. Which if true would be appalling.
And that is his write up on the death of the American Matthew Tassio on July 13th, 1995.
On pages 87-89 he lists all the deaths that have occurred during the running of the bulls.
July 13 1995 - Matthew Peter Tassio, 22, from Illinois, died from a goring in front of the Plaza Consistorial. He was running in flip-flops.
And then on pages 104-105.
On July 13, 1995, American Matthew Peter Tassio stood up after falling and was gored to death. Matthew came to Pamplona on a lark, wholly lacking knowledge of even the basic rules for running, and wearing only flip-flops, with his sweater tied around his waist. He was unprepared.
This is grossly inaccurate!
Yes, Matthew went to Pamplona on a lark with friends during a European summer trip. And yes, he probably was unprepared, but he was not wearing flip-flops. It is almost like the author was making fun of him. And he obviously has not seen any of the photos of the the goring because it is clear he was wearing shoes, no flip-flops.
It is sad looking at those photos but what is even more sad is that the author obviously hasn't seen them because you can clearly see he is wearing running shoes or maybe basketball shoes. But definitely not flip-flops.
So after I took some time to recover from that bad taste in my mouth I continued to read the book till it was finished.
Again, overall it is a great book, one that is very fun to read. And if you have any plans to go to Pamplona definitely get a copy and read it for yourself.
April 17, 2021
Gored by Spanish bull, Utah student feels ‘nearly nothing but gratefulness’
(sltrib.com August 1, 2014)
University of Utah student Patrick Eccles caught a "quick glimpse" of a brown bull and saw runners fleeing ahead of him on a crowded Pamplona street before he felt a "thud" and his feet left the ground.
The moment he was gored went viral, captured in dramatic photos of the sixth running of the bulls at last year's San Fermin festival in Spain.
After hitting the ground, "I wasn't really certain what had happened, but was in excruciating pain and soon realized everyone was looking at me somewhat horrified," remembers Eccles, 21.
After his initial recovery and overcoming a painful complication months later, Eccles is preparing for his final year of work on a degree in computer science at the U. He recounted his story in an email exchange, with excerpts edited for length, as the annual festival highlighted in "The Sun Also Rises" by Ernest Hemingway wrapped up in Spain.
Eccles had been participating in an eight-week internship program through Barcelona Study Abroad Experience when he realized he would have free time to travel during the San Fermin festival. He decided to take his "cheapest option" — traveling alone mid-week. But in a fortunate coincidence, he ran into a friend from his hometown of Logan just before the running of the bulls began.
Tribune: Did you consider that you may end up injured?
Eccles: I had ... but more I considered myself a healthy, athletic, non-dimwitted person. I had also spoken with some of the people from Barcelona I'd come to know over the previous month and it seemed that with caution, care, and spry feet I would be fine.
Tribune: Describe the scene on the streets. Where were you positioned?
Eccles: There were tons and tons of people in the streets and on the sides of the streets looking in from outside of the fences. I had decided to be near the beginning of the route, a ways past the first hill and bend.
Once the rockets sounded, the runners and the observers crane their necks down the street. ... Then slowly, as the crowd gets moving, everyone turns and begins running down the street expecting the group of bulls to be following up quickly. And that certainly happened. Very quickly.
I suppose I was running with them for zero seconds prior to being caught.
Tribune: Can you walk me through those moments when it happened? Did it hurt as much as it looked?
Eccles: Normally [the bulls] are packed together as they run up the street, but this bull had broken out on its own and took the first bend very quickly with its momentum carrying it to the side I was on.
As I was turning for my glance behind, I felt a thud as my feet lifted off the ground and watched the wall opposite me move past a bit quicker than normal. With another thud I smacked onto the ground and crawled out of the lane underneath the thick wooden fence.
Turning over I lay on my back. I wasn't really certain what had happened, but was in excruciating pain and soon realized everyone was looking at me somewhat horrified. ... My entire self was focused on handling the pain and handling the overwhelming feeling that this totally sucked.
[An emergency worker reached Eccles "almost immediately" and he was transported to a hospital by ambulance. The phone that he appeared to be clutching in the photos was a video camera, he said, and it was lost. His friend from Logan made the initial call to his family.]
Tribune: When were you first able to contact your family?
Eccles: At some point [in the hospital] a nurse brought a phone over to me and that was when I first spoke to my family and first learned about what had happened. My family [members] were justifiably upset, scared, and worried. It was a difficult phone call on a number of levels.
Tribune: When did you hear that your spleen had been removed?
Eccles: I think it may not have been until later that I understood that my spleen was now gone. The horn of the bull had entered through my side into my abdominal cavity and luckily exited the same way. Someone told me that the thrust of a bull is two parts, the initial thrust and the second toss. This quick action effectively split my spleen in two. ... I am completely blessed to even be alive.
Tribune: How long did you remain in Spain?
Eccles: I spent a full week in the hospital. [My roommates were] a kind elderly man from Spain who had recently underwent surgery, then a younger Spanish boy who had been trampled by people during a run a few days later than mine. [Providing] a strange camaraderie, the hallway in the hospital was used to house a number of other victims of the run who I visited with.
After that week my father [who had arrived to assist me back home] and I spent a few days resting in Barcelona.
Tribune: Were you aware of the media attention here and was it similar there?
Eccles: I had heard a few days afterward that it had been everywhere in the U.S. and even internationally elsewhere. Definitely, for the first few days American and Spanish reporters and strangers visited me, though I had little energy to talk with them and was still heavily drugged. ... For the first number of days in the hospital I did not see the pictures, though it was offered. And when I finally, briefly, looked at them it was certainly a surreal moment.
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Last fall, Eccles felt stomach pains and began vomiting. A small undiscovered abscess had grown, he said, and he underwent another abdominal surgery to remove a foot of twisted intestine.
"I spent a week unable to eat food, another week in the hospital," he wrote. Down 30 pounds from his weight before his departure for Spain, the 6'3" Eccles weighed roughly 145 pounds.
With no further complications, "I've spent my time avoiding strenuous activity while keeping up the energy to attend classes and am now able to play soccer and ultimate Frisbee and also lift well more than 20 pounds, which had been my advised limit," he wrote. "And luckily, besides a number of new health risks, I can live normally."
Looking back, Eccles wrote, he feels "nearly nothing but gratefulness. Gratefulness for the medics who acted instantly. Gratefulness for the doctors who saved my life. Gratefulness for the friends who showed their support. Gratefulness for my family who showed their love. And gratefulness for the many amazing strangers that showed their kindness."
Eccles doesn't plan to run with the bulls again, though he doesn't want to "sway people towards or away from it."
But, he added, "The week-long Festival of San Fermin itself is something so incredible and unlike anything I have ever experienced. And that experience is one I would encourage others to have."
March 12, 2021
Congratulations to Patrick and Torill
Congratulations to Patrick Eccles and his now spouse Torill.
Married in Hunstville, Utah on November 5th, 2020
Wedding photos -
December 31, 2020
October 27, 2020
Pamplona 2017
A runner gets hit and flipped on top of a Miura bull at the entrance to the callejon.
(Check out the UTAH t-shirt at the top of the photo.)
Here is a link to watch this run.
September 13, 2020
How to survive running with the bulls in Pamplona
Acclaimed British author and bullfighting expert Alexander Fiske-Harrison has been running with the bulls at Pamplona for the last eight years and has participated in dozens of bull runs across Spain. He shares with The Local his top ten tips for survival.
(by Alexander Fiske-Harrison thelocal.es 7-5-19)
What you should know before you arrive:
1. Pamplona's population swells more than sevenfold during the Fiesta de San Fermin to one and a half million people and the hotels hike their prices by exactly that multiple. Of course, many tourists make do with benches, parks or gutters. Unluckily for them this year the forecast is for rain.
2. Even though this is the best and biggest party in the world, it is also a feria for the (co-) patron saint of Navarre, an autonomous community of Spain sometimes regarded as a part of the Greater Basque Country, but also a part of the Kingdom of Spain. This means a little respect and sensitivity is necessary - the politics, the religion, the patriotism and the tribalism, they all have their darker side. Speaking of respect: just because everyone else litters - in the case of the French with their bodily fluids - you don't have to.
What you need to know when you arrive:
(3) Pickpockets abound. In fact, the only thing more evident on the streets, day and night, are loud, distracted and extremely drunk people. Hence the pickpockets. You have been warned about both.
(4) Instrinsic to this fiesta is the Feria del Toro. Pamplona is about bull, and not just the stuff spoken at the bars. Large Spanish fighting bulls, toros bravos, from the most historic ranches in Spain stampede down the streets every morning at 8am. They come by the half dozen, and each evening, they are individually danced with, dared with and despatched in the plaza de toros. This is the corrida de toros, mistakenly called the bullfight - it is not a fight, nor meant to be, but a three act tragedy culminating in a ritual sacrifice: the bull always dies. A throwback to a bygone age? Perhaps. But remember, that is how they'll view the steak you eat with no dietary need in a hundred years time...
What you need to know about running the bulls:
(5) Read my book! The Bulls Of Pamplona is the official guide in English language to the Feria of San Fermin. The foreword is written by the mayor.
(6) Plan! Watch as many videos as you can and realise that you must be physically, psychologically and technically able to run between thousands of idiots, among which will appear, as though by magic, half-ton-plus wild animals with swords attached to their heads. They have never seen a human being on the ground before - they are ranched wild from horseback - so they may view you as a fellow herbivore fleeing the same predator and ignore you, or they may work out that it's humans who are the danger. Then God, and Saint Fermin, help you.
(7) As a result of (6), if you get knocked down, STAY DOWN, in 1995 an American runner died trying to get up and thus putting his vital organs at waist - i.e. horn - height. The pastors - herdsmen - in green polo shirts who run with canes will intervene to take the bull off you as will the experienced runners.
(8) Experienced runners grew up with the bulls. There are practically no truly experienced foreign runners (I discount Joe Distler who ran every run in Pamplona from 1968-2012 and co-authored our eBook.) We are all just amateurs from outside Spain, no matter how gifted. The Spanish and Basque contributors to our e-book have run an estimated 10,000 encierros between the four of them across the entirety of Spain. Do not interfere with their work, their commands, and whatever you do, do not interfere with the bulls - DO NOT TOUCH THEM! Some people seem to think it's a game to hit them with newspapers. This is a game that leads to people in wheelchairs or the grave. Also, no cameras are allowed on the run. Fifteen people died in bull-runs in Spain last year, in at least one case while they were taking a selfie. An experienced Spanish runner died in Pamplona the year I first came in 2009. This is for grown ups.
What you need to know about after the running of the bulls:
(9) You have been a part of something remarkable. It is hard for the brain to process that. You will become - in this order - speechless, repetitively boring, drunk (this is necessary, otherwise the adrenaline makes you ill), overly affectionate to people including bemused waiters, and finally,wild in your exaggerations. We've all been there. No need to blush the next day, but tone it down a bit if you can.
(10) As a result of the above, you might like to come back. Do. It gets better. And you don't have to run the bulls every time by the way, but it's certainly better than espresso.
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