After 20 years of written history, Granollers-la Garriga-Les Franqueses Half Marathon stands out as the most important one in Catalonia as well as the best-regarded one by the 8,000 athletes who take part in it on one of the first Sundays in February.
This race has plenty of factors that make it possible. On the one hand this race perfectly mixes elite athletics providing sportive excitement with popular athletics and thousands of runners who make up the final part. Well-known top athletes have taken part in this race, for example, Samuel Wanjiru, who beat the record of this race as well as the Spanish one in 2008 with a mark of 00:59:26, also Haile Gebreselassie, Marta Domínguez, Estefano Baldini, Gianni Poli, Martin Fiz, Alberto Juzgado, Charlie Spinning, and so on. Counting with this brilliant list of names in the first rows has been one of the most important sportive incentives. But behind these international top class athletes there is a popular crowd that have managed to complete the race between Granollers and la Garriga thrilling many citizens who have this Sunday already marked on their calendars to go out to the streets to encourage the thousands of runners that fill all the itinerary.
On the other hand, the Half Marathon organisers have not rejected other less competitive events and that is why they have been organising, for many years now, the Quarter Marathon for those who do not want to run more than 5 kilometres, and the Mini Marathon for the youngest ones who will eventually become the runners of the Half Marathon.
Therefore, the Half Marathon, the Quarter Marathon and the Mini Marathon make about seven thousand athletes of all age groups in total run. These always receive the support of hundreds of volunteers who work unselfishly just for the excitement of taking part in a great sportive and popular event.
