Running With The Bulls Event

Running with the bulls in Pamplona, Spain is an experience like no other. Lore is that you know when to run when you see the fear on the runners’ faces who started earlier in the course. Adam Massaro, an intellectual property litigator at Lewis Roca Rothgerber Christie LLP, could not pass up experiencing this self-imposed chaos.

Massaro first ran in 2014. “My initial run was all I could ask for: a safe run where I was within a yard or two of the bulls but not too close,” said Massaro. The adrenaline rush, however, left him wanting more, and Massaro believed that what he learned from the first run positioned him well for a future run where he could get within a horn’s length.

This July, Massaro set out to return to the medieval city in northern Spain to run again. “The timing was as good as you could hope for with a litigator’s schedule,” said Massaro. “I had a two-week jury trial in late-spring where I obtained a seven-figure verdict for my client and my schedule was fairly open early summer.”

The daily bull run kicks off each day of the week-long San Farmin festival in Pamplona. The run includes multiple legs, as the course leads from the pens to the bull ring, with runners pooling at the different legs to encounter the bulls. Each leg has its own perils. Massaro chose to run the same leg he ran in 2014: Calle Estafeta, a narrow straightaway framed by tall buildings on each side, with few exits. The bulls reach top speed quickly on this leg.

Bulls from a different ranch run each day. The lineup for the day Massaro ran this July was from the José Escolar ranch. The Escolar bulls are known for their size, aggressiveness and unpredictability. In the past, multiple runners have been scarred from Escolar bulls.