The bus was loaded up and we moved to the starting line to be dropped off before our cheer team traveled to the finish line to await our arrival.
The starting area was a little crazy. Turns out this event is the second largest in Italy, second only to the Rome Marathon. Running clubs from all over traveled in packs sporting their matching warmups. Leather skinned old men with 2% body fat walked around wrapped in space blankets. Ponchos covered a lot of people and spandex shorts didn't do enough covering in some cases. Some groups out to have fun wore wigs and "CSI" body suits.
As the group warm up started (aerobics instructors on a stage shouting instructions in Italian) the group got moving, or you know, laughed at those getting into it. Runners still milled around the park area, running, stretching. If the competitor was male, there was a 85% he was using a tree or bush as his bathroom. Seriously. If not for all the starting gates and bib numbers this would have looked like a men's urinal rather than a race event. (Shoot, along the course it was more of the same!) Major ick is right!
Having no official time on record most of us LPN folks started in the giallo group or you know, the last one to start. 35 minutes after the first gun went off we were on our way. (Turns out the winner was already more than half way done when we started! Amazing and yet disgusting at the same time- right?)
We made a quick loop around the immediate area of where we started and then headed out town. On the autostrada. Just like Lori said it looked like we were going to be doing. It was a straight shot, with a couple of slow and steady hills. If you want a better shot of the terrain here's my race summary. Please admire the steady pace I kept...slow and steady. Emphasis on slow but yet that's the pace we're hoping to keep for the marathon, plus after 12ish miles it's the perfect pace!
The course was rather uneventful. Lots of people ahead and a fair amount of people behind me! Guess that's one good thing about these major events, they are more like the races back in the states. Around 20km an ambulance was on the side, a portion of the course roped off, and a man being put on a stretcher. Rumor has that he had a heart attack, ma no lo so.
Perhaps the worst part of this race was the cruel and unusual finish line. Luckily I had prepared myself by looking at the course map and saw that there was a loop right before the finish line. As in you could see it, but it was barricaded and you were forced to run out and back before really being done with all 13.1 miles. Well, the map didn't show me that I'd be passing under 3, yes tre, inflatable arches in the process. If they wanted to make sure all their sponsors got proper advertisment couldn't they have used banners? Nothing like seeing the arch but then realizing there isn't a single clock by it so you keep running towards the next one to realize the same thing. Ridiculous.
At any rate, I finally carried my body over the timer sensor and was done! Food, jacket, medal collected while I convinced my body we'd survive I got to watch some fellow teammates cross the finish. Nothing better than screaming encouragment while they too suffer the agony of the 3 arches.
Over all it was a good race and nice to see what my "race pace" is rather than my lazy pace due to any excuse to stop running during the training runs. A weekend spent with LPN is always entertaining. ALWAYS. If it was this much fun for the 1/2...I wonder what the full marathon has in store for us in March.
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