Where Do I Go
To Run?
Well for starts don’t just turn up at five minutes to eight in the morning and expect to run or a helpful policeman to point the way. You can only enter the course through an official entry point (a temporary break in the barriers where the runners are allowed to enter the course). These are only near the start of the course.
Since you have followed my advice and will have talked and walked the course previously with someone who has run before you will already know the location of these enter points. Don’t just try to climb over the fence at any point because the police can be very persuasive with their batons to get you to climb right back over the fence. The run can only take place in ‘reasonable safety’ and they watch for people that have had to much to drink and appear to not know what they are doing, and will clear such people from the course.
Those runners in the street before the run starts that are not in the official starting area will be cleared from the course as well by the police, if you find yourself in part of this crowd, that the police are pushing from the street, just go with the flow and leave and run the next day. There will not be enough time to get to the starting point and get through the barriers for you to be able to run that day.
I have seen the crowd of people trying to resist leaving the course and they often end up bloody from the baton of a policeman or in handcuffs.
As to the mater of running when you are drunk. First it is against the rules to be intoxicated during the encierro. To be realistic most people are intoxicated most of the time when they are in Pamplona for San Fermin, so it is more a question of degrees. If you are so drunk that you are a danger to yourself and more importantly to the other runners no way should you run in the encierro that day. Hopefully even if you do have a lot of booze in you, the fear and adrenaline will sober you up fast. If you are really serious about having a good run and you have traveled hundred or even thousands of miles to do so, then stay sober, get some sleep, know what you are planning on doing, and ask San Fermin for his protection.
Runners being cleared from the streets on Estafeta