... was excellent. We had a great time and the race was very good for me.
As this is really the only race that I've actually concentrated on since the summer, I thought that I would write a few short comments here. Venice is definitely one of my favourite races, and I seem to be back year after year to give it a bash. I think, however, that we might give 2008 a skip this time as with two kids, one of them still very small, I'm not sure if we could manage it.
The race itself was good. I knew that my training would last for maybe 30 minutes of hardish running, and then I would be just trying to keep a good, stable walk-jog to the finish. I think that this type of racing has always been my favourite and I always look for a good result at Venice, so I did not want to disappoint again.
Many years ago (1997) when I first went to Venice I was given various "top" tips from runners who had run this race many times before. Since then I have developed my own strategies, which seem to work very well here, but one thing I never seem to be able to solve is the tourist problem. And this year was not different - so many people - so crowded - it was like ... well ... Salzburg at Christmas!
I had a mid morning start, so I knew there would be tourists, and I planned that in, and got off the main street as soon as possible on the way to 1. I was lucky, I had optimal route choices (no errors at all - even route choice) until 9 - 10, where I bumped intro a young Swiss guy and lost concentration for a second, and took the slightly longer route, so lost maybe 10 s here. Every thing continued going well, except my knees started to hurt, and my ankle was not feeling so good.
Approaching 16 I made a 3 / 4 s error, and leaving 16 I miss read the map, didn't see a bridge and ran round a block of buildings on the left, instead of the right. I guess it cost me 15 s. The last small mistake was the exit from 20, where I went north instead of south and this cost me maybe 10 s. So all in all a good, error free run. After about 14 / 15 my running abilities got less and less and I wasn't able to push anymore.
When I finished I was in 2nd place, and eventually finished in 12th place, which is great for the condition I'm in. The winning time was 65 minutes and I was less than 10 minutes behind. I made a total of 60 s mistakes, which I think is great, and pushed as hard as possible most of the way. There was no stopping and no uncertainty - a good race for me.
I ended up with a KM pace of about 5:35 min / km which is almost 40 seconds down on my KM pace from last year, and a full 2 min (and more) down on my best KM pace (when I was still running Elite), just showing how unfit I truly am at the moment. I'll be back - the question is when!
Maybe I'll see some of you in the next years in Venice! Here you can find the website!
Keep well,
Richard.
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