running

Uncertainty surrounds election over who will be able to form coalitions and who will hold the highest office

New Year's Eve event along coastline will have special safety measures in place

October 25 the new date for the run originally scheduled for next Sunday

The honours recognize outstanding individuals and teams from across the globe

Victories for Barça but contrasting fortunes for Catalan basketball sides

Here is a rundown (pun intended) of races in Catalonia over the coming months

Disappointment for Espanyol, while Catalans conquer Mont Blanc and the Basketball World Cup

Catalonia also saw success in MotoGP, kayaking and mountain running this weekend

Jogging has, without a doubt, become a phenomenon in Catalonia. The number of marathon runners doubled from 2008 to 2013 and now stands at 57,000. In 2012, the Barcelona Marathon saw record figures with 16,000 finishers, compared to the 138 that completed the first race in 1978. The rise of running is "something spectacular" and "studies show that 10% of the population are runners and this is certainly going to grow," says Eduardo Grimal, who completed a Master’s in Sports Management. You only have to go one day to the seafront of Barcelona, to the Carretera de les Aigües in Collserola or Montjuïc, stand there for ten minutes and count the number of runners that pass in front of your eyes. But what motivates the runners and is it just a passing fad?

Núria Picas was born in Manresa, in central Catalonia, 39 years ago. She considers herself a “daughter of the Montserrat mountain”, where her parents brought her climbing as a child. Since she was little she established a strong bond with nature and is now the ‘number 1’ woman in mountain trail running. Last year she won the Ultra Trail World Tour, a competition with ten races (twelve this year), of at least 100 kilometres each. Last season, Picas ran four of these races winning three times and coming runner-up in the fourth. In 2015, however, her “main goal” goes beyond the running world. She is on cloud nine with her new challenge and will soon be literally closer than ever to the clouds: in the spring she is going to attempt to climb an 8,000-metre peak in the Himalayas.

On Friday early morning the 10km metro tunnel of Barcelona that links Universitat and Gorg stations became the track of the second edition of Discovery Underground. This is the only urban underground race in the world going through the centre of big cities and it is an original idea of the Spanish television channel Discovery MAX. 300 men and women with background stories that assimilate the channel's premise "ordinary people living extraordinary experiences" ran for about 1.45h, with the first two people arriving at the minute 39. 2014 Discovery Underground Barcelona marks the beginning of the celebrations of the 90th anniversary of the Metro of Barcelona.

The Barcelona Half Marathon took place on Sunday in the Catalan capital. At exactly 8.45 am the first group started out on its 21km run followed by two other groups, five and ten minutes later. Only one hour and four seconds later the first runner reached the finish line: Eliud Kipchoge, from Kenya. With a time of 1 hour, 7 minutes and 32 seconds, the first woman passed the finish line, Atsede Baysa, from Ethiopia. The 14,325 participants registered for the 2013 run set a new record in the race’s history.