Instead going running alone and slow I went with a couple of friends at night to do this race. I wanted to try some fast km and see where I am in terms of fitness and consequent foot pain the morning after. We drove at 7:15 pm to the small town of Barbarano where the city decided to organize this race to start the festivities of the "snail", for three days from the afternoon until midnight there will be some kind of fair serving food and the snails, cooked in different ways, are the main dish in most of the food stands. This was the first edition of the race and we didn't expect many people, instead there were some 100-120 runners (that is a good number for a local race in the middle of the week on a first edition) with some national level athletes. The race organizer knows many people and this helped to have some fast competitors. After registration we went for a warm up to explore the course that was a loop of 1650m, measured by a biker, with a short climb of about 30m and the rest was a gentle uphill and gentle downhill, with 6 sharp narrow corners in the section going through the old part of the town on cobblestone. Overall we were pleased that was quite flatish for our local standards and was going to be faster, actually probably the second faster race in terms of course in a radius of 50km. At the start was announced that the loop has to be repeated four times and after some more chat we started. I wanted to try to see if I could finish at 4:10/km and one of my friends, faster than me, told me he would be glad to come with me and pacing me. We started on time at 8:30pm and after some elbowing on the narrow road we spread out and we did the first km at 3:49/km that is a little bit on the fast side, but to escape the crowd was necessary, second km was 3:53/km still fast but more reasonable. After that my friend and I got separated by a couple of meters and I couldn't hear his splits, I was running "naked", but just by feeling we slowed down to a more reasonable 4:0something. After the second lap we stopped passing people and we maintained our positions until the end. We avoided being lapped by the top runners by 1/2 km and successfully finished in 26:56 at 4:04/km average pace. I was happy about the outcome, this morning (I am writing this on friday morning) my feet are still locked in pain, but with some walking around they should be back to a more manageable status. My legs are fine and I don't feel too fatigued (in spite less than 5 hours of sleep). This race had a great organization, there was a coolmax type of shirt and socks as race package (the registration was 10 euros so overall a good deal), I got 8th in my age group and got another shirt, different style, and then after some light refreshment right after the race (cookies, pizza and watermelon) there was a huge pasta party and wine on the streets of the town for all runners and all the people who were there watching the race. Great feeling overall.
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