Fuengirola Media Maratón Draws 3,000 Runners This Sunday Fuengirola hosts the ninth Media Maratón on Sunday 8 November with 3,000 runners and temporary bus route diversions across the town. Fuengirola puts on its running shoes this Sunday, 8 November, when the ninth edition of the Media Maraton de Fuengirola brings 3,000 registered runners onto the streets of the Costa del Sol town for one of the biggest mornings in its autumn sporting calendar. The entry list closed with every place taken, making the race one of the largest mass participation events of the season on the coast. Runners will take on the half marathon distance, 21.1 kilometres of running, along a course that plays to the town's greatest natural strength: a long, flat, sea-level profile that keeps the effort honest and the scenery generous, with the Mediterranean never far from the side of the road. For athletes used to racing in northern Europe in November, the appeal is obvious. Mild temperatures and a course that never climbs seriously make Fuengirola a fast proposition, part of the reason the Costa del Sol has become a winter training base for runners, triathletes and cyclists from across the continent. On Sunday the town becomes the venue itself. The race will reach well beyond the running community. The Consorcio de Transporte Metropolitano de Malaga, the body that operates the metropolitan bus network, has confirmed that several routes will be affected on Sunday by cuts and diversions while the race is under way. Passengers travelling to, from and around Fuengirola on Sunday morning should expect temporary changes to stops, diversions along the coast and delays to normal running times, with services returning to their usual routes once the course is dismantled and the streets reopen. Anyone with travel plans that touch the town this weekend would be wise to build in extra time and check timetable alterations before setting out. The disruption is, in the end, the point: for a few hours on Sunday morning, the roads belong to people on foot. For spectators, the day offers one of the more relaxed sporting mornings of the year. A half marathon packs its drama into a couple of hours, and the coastal geography of Fuengirola means friends and family can move between several points of the course on foot, catching their runner more than once. The seafront between Los Boliches and the port is the natural grandstand, a stretch of promenade lined with cafes and terraces that do steady business on race morning whatever the weather decides to do. Above the western end of the beach, the silhouette of the Castillo Sohail, the town's Moorish fortress, gives photographers their framing. Three thousand runners rarely arrive alone. Partners, children and clubmates follow the start lists, filling hotel rooms and holiday lets on the Saturday night and the terraces along the course on the Sunday. For a resort that measures its autumn in quiet weekends between the summer season and the Christmas programme, a full half marathon is a welcome engine of trade: pasta dinners the night before, late breakfasts after the finish, and a town centre with a reason to feel busy in the second week of November. Runners and spectators travelling by rail have an alternative to the diverted bus routes. The Cercanias line that links Fuengirola with Malaga and the airport runs along the coast and serves the town directly, though crowds of tired runners and their bags should be expected on the trains back west after the finish. Now in its ninth year, the Media Maraton has become a fixture of the sporting autumn on the western Costa del Sol, an edition that again combines a full field, a fast course and a town that has learned to host race day with something close to routine. Sunday's start will send 3,000 runners along the seafront, and by early afternoon the barriers will be stacked, the buses will run their normal routes, and Fuengirola will go back to waiting for the next weekend of racing.