Matew Dowsset

"In which direction run the bulls? “ A foreigner was asking him on his running of the bulls premier, Matthew Dowsset (Leeds, England, 1971). This was on July the 7^th, 2001. At that moment, he knew he was more prepared than the average. As a child, before becoming agent banking, he had seen on the news some pictures of the bull running during the San Fermin Festival in Pamplona and he said to himself: “One day I would do it”. That day, before entering tight mass gathered on the Town Hall at half past seven in the morning, he had done his homework’s and knew every theoretical bit about this famous race.

Back in England he admitted to a friend "I had read a lot, but when only in the moment I heard the rocket I understood everything ... There is no way to get ready for that." He had studied all about San Fermin Festival but there were no books or videos that explain the violence you are faced against in the last meters of the Santo Domingo´s Hill, just at the entrance of City Hall. "A bull slipped and stood for a moment looking at my friend. It was incredible…" The bull run was over, the bulls where already in the Bullfight Ring Corrals and all the runners where sharing their experience, the rush, the amazing feeling they felt but Dowsett didn’t share their feelings at all! He didn’t feel like them.

Once the Running of the Bulls is over, the runners face two possibilities: either you love it or you hate it. Matt, hate it but he was true to his promise: "I swore I'd bring  my mother, my girlfriend and a friend a San Fermin scarf I wore while running with the Bulls. He still had to run 3 times to make his promise. He managed to face the nightmares where the bulls lurked him all night long. The very last day he participated on the running of the bulls he decided to run the last bit and enter the Bullfight ring. This is how he described the experience: "From darkness and total lack of space we arrived into the plaza, and a total new scenario was in front of us. A mass of people under a huge blue sky where sitting on the Bullfight Arena cheering, all that open air, the smell of the beasts and the runners on the arena… This was a metaphor for what the running of the bulls means to me. At that moment I felt that would want to do it for ever”. Since then he has not stopped. He knows very welll Navarra´s festivals and has learned a lot down the path:  "I have been taught to know and control my stress and my fear in the most stressful situations. There is a balance between run and get closer to danger. You learn about your limits and self worthiness"