How to Train for the Behobia-San Sebastián

Why pace the Behobia by heart rate instead of watch pace?

On a course that keeps rising and falling, a steady pace means a wildly unsteady effort. Holding your flat goal pace up Capuchinos or Miracruz pushes your heart rate into a zone you cannot sustain, and the bill arrives on the next climb. Holding effort steady instead lets pace slow uphill and recover downhill, which is what this course rewards.

The physiology backs this up. In treadmill tests on ten runners, Minetti and colleagues measured the energy cost of running at 3.40 joules per kilogram per meter on the level, the same at any speed. It rose on every uphill gradient they tested and fell on gentle descents, reaching its lowest, about half the flat cost, near a 20% downhill slope. In practice, the same pace costs noticeably more on a climb and noticeably less on the way down, so an even pace spreads your effort badly over this course.

Heart rate has one flaw: it lags. On a 450 meter ramp like Capuchinos, it will still be climbing when you reach the top. Treat heart rate as a ceiling on the climbs, not a number to chase: ease off before you hit it, and let the descent bring it back down. That only works if your heart rate zones are set from your own numbers, and it is the same idea behind scoring a run by what it cost your heart rather than by pace or distance.

You have about six weeks left. What should they look like?

Race day is 45 days after this guide was checked. Use the next three weeks for course-specific work, run your last long, hilly session about three weeks out, then taper for two. A meta-analysis of tapering studies found the best results from a two-week taper that cut training volume by 41 to 60% while keeping intensity.

For the specific weeks, find a road that climbs steadily for one or two kilometers at a gentle gradient and run it at the effort you plan to race, noting how far your pace drops while your heart rate holds. Add a shorter, steeper rise of a few hundred meters to stand in for Capuchinos. Put the hills late in your longer runs, because that is where Miracruz sits, and practice running the descents loose and quick without sprinting them.

During the taper, your training load should drop week on week while a few short, brisk efforts stay in. Resist the urge to add a big session now: with six weeks to go, arriving fresh buys more than one extra hard workout. If you have missed time, run the race you trained for rather than the one you planned.

How do you get to the start in Behobia and back from the finish?

The start is the puzzle. The organizers describe train plus shuttle as the main route: Renfe to Irun or Euskotren to Ficoba, then a shuttle to the start. Any ordinary train ticket bought in Gipuzkoa, shown with your bib, is valid for the shuttle. Buses also run from San Sebastián and from Bayonne, Saint-Jean-de-Luz and Hendaye.

Bag drop needs planning too. You can leave a closed bag of up to 5 kg at the Kursaal on Friday, November 6, or Saturday, November 7, at the finish area on Plaza Gipuzkoa on race morning, or at the trucks by the start, where the drop-off time is printed on your bib. Every bag is collected on Plaza Gipuzkoa after the finish. The race-day train and bus timetables for 2026 were not yet published when we checked, so look again in race week.

Rehearse the morning on one of your last longer runs: breakfast at your race-day time, a real wait before starting, and the layers you will wear. That tells you whether a late start group needs a small second snack.

What should your watch tell you in race week?

Read the trend, not the morning. Resting heart rate and HRV should settle as the taper takes hold, but travel, a busy expo and nerves all move them. One restless night before the race is common and rarely decisive, and the thinking behind training after a bad night applies here: judge the week, not a single reading.

FitWoody is an iOS app for iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch that turns your watch data into a clear read on how your body is doing. For a race like this, cardiac load scores each run by its internal cost, so a hilly session reads as the harder day it was, training load is tracked against your own baseline so the taper is visible, custom heart rate zones give you your own ceiling, and recovery baselines come from HRV, resting heart rate and sleep. Flyover replays a run along its route, climbs included. An Apple Watch is required, and it informs rather than diagnoses.

Behobia is a race people come back to year after year, and it is kind to anyone who respects its second half. Showing up, in any form, counts.