THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO
BULLRUNNING PART TWO
The clip below show the bullrun on the 10th July 2008 which was a
Thursday another midweek date hence less people so it should also be a quicker
run assuming no mishaps. Although the clip lasts over 4 minutes the run was
only about 2 and a half minutes. The extra footage at the end shows that the
bulls get entangled with some runners about 15 yards into Estafeta
and one bull falls. This results in the bulls being a bit strung out as they go
up Estafeta.
I think that because the
city now puts anti-slip paint on the corner of Mercaderes and Estafeta the
bulls no longer fall at the curve but instead their velocity will carry them
well over to the left hand side just after the curve. I think over the years
there will be more entanglments just past the curve
on the left. While in years gone by when the bulls would fall after crashing
into the barrier at the curve, they would get up and generally charge up the
middle of Estafeta or charge into the crowd. Nowadays
it might mean that one should avoid the first 20 years on the left on Estafeta. It was never a safe place to be anyway.
The other points to note in
this clip, is the guy in the red shirt getting knocked over in the town hall
square. He seems frozen and certainly is not going with the flow. It was only 10
yards back from there that Tassio got killed in 1995,
knock down and gored as he stood up in the path of a bull. This guy was lucky
that it was not a horn that banged into him; the bulls were going at just under
14 miles per hour fast enough that the horn impact would have killed him. He is
some lucky fucker! It is obvious that he knew fuck all about what was going on.
Hopefully because you are reading this, it means that you will not become
another ignorant tourist joining the run with no idea about what to do.
For those of you interested
in the speed the bulls are at their fastest in Santo Domingo going at 18 miles
per hour they slow down in the town hall square and Mercaderes
to 13.7 mph and when the are into their stride in Estafeta
they are going at 15.5 mph then slowing down to 13 mph in Telephonica.
Either way the bulls are fucking fast!
The next clip is from the 11th
July which was a Friday and the crowds will have got bigger with some people
making it a long weekend but it will still be manageable unlike the weekend to
come. The bulls in this run were very fast and the run would have been over in
just over 2 minutes but one of the bulls stopped and turned and then took a
while to be enticed into the arena by the divinos.
But it eventually went into the bullring causing little damage.
The next clip is the bullrun on Saturday the 12th July and the first
run of the weekend. You have to remember that everybody and his brother descends on the fiesta for the weekend. Half of France and
all of