Spain's San Fermin bull-runningfiestaattractsall manner ofthrill-seekers.

"I've never been seriously injured. I lost mykidneyone year," said Bomber, a 56-year-old Californian, after one early morning run.

Fellow American R.J. Smith of Spokane, Washington, ran with the bulls in Pamplona for the 31st time this year, despite a long white scar from a bull's goring on hisbuttockand a false hip beneath it which bear witness to his bull-running addiction.

Some come to San Fermin for the fiesta and never see a bull, some come to see their friends and others to follow writer Ernest Hemingway's footsteps. But for many the bull-running fiesta, which takes places from July 6 to 14, has become ameccafor adrenaline junkies from all over the world.

Smith, a 67-year-old former air force pilot who still hang-glides on skis, says bull-running isobsessive.

"It draws you. Once you do it you want to do it again and again and again." That seemed to be the case for hisgodsonwho came to Pamplona for the second time this year, despite swearing after his first experience he never would.

"I got out and I said I'm never doing this ever again. It scared me so damn bad," Daniel Voltz told reporters the night before the first of this year's runs. He ran the following morning along the slippery cobbled streets and survived unscathed.

That day, in an unusually clean run, only five people were taken to hospital.

Bomber says he has missed only one fiesta in the last 33 years.

"It's very very difficult, your adrenaline ... and your imagination (are) running and it's very hard not to run."

Extreme sportaficionadossay there's nothing quite like a 1,300-pound beast pointing his deadly horns at you with no one there to bail you out.

"I've done bungee jumping, parachuting, parascending, diving ... always finding the next stupid thing to do ... This is the best so far. I'm not sure what follows," said Mark Kinder, a 31-year-old information technology manager from England.

"I'm a little bit of an adrenaline junkie."

(Agencies)