I entered this race back in october to take advantage of the lowest price, then during the winter months I decided to concentrate more on speed and to use the Rome marathon as a motivational run to start a new marathon training cycle. Two weeks ago I had a great experience with a fast half marathon, so I didn't have any expectations from this race beside trying to have a good time. The course this year changed a little bit to avoid Saint Peter square that is a red zone until next tuesday, but the rest of the course was the same and the whole organization did an incredible job to convince the city to maintain the date and the time in spite of the uncertainties related to the new pope election. I woke up at 6:00 am, at 6:45 with a couple of friends we were driving to Rome. We left the car near a subway station and with the train reached the starting area. Everything went smoothly and at 9:00 we lined up in our corral. I had as a real goal to finish uninjured and trying to stay under 4:00. As soon as we started I tried to stay above 5:00/k and for the first 10k it was really hard to do that, I was full of energy and 4:50/k was somehow my cruising speed. I had to be careful, in the last year I never went above 16 miles, so if I wasn't careful I would pay for it later in the race. I was caught around half way by the 3:45 pacers and I decided to join them, I was feeling good but I was uncomfortable to reach the unknown zone above 20 miles. Then at 20 miles I realized I was still feeling good, I said goodbye to the 3:45 pacers, and tried hard to finish in 3:40. I was moving faster than anybody around for the next 5k, then during the last 5k we were in Rome downtown with narrow streets ups and downs, left and right, and my pace was not so fast anymore and closer to 5:10/k. I was really happy to be able to finish in 3:41. In the afternoon after keeping my feet for 20 minutes in cold water I felt regenerated, my quadriceps were tired but no pain. No problem at all going down the stairs. Overall I enjoyed this race, without racing it. The weather was on the cool side with a cold wind from the north, but overall the conditions were perfect. I am really looking forward to start training hard again.
| 