Rome Marathon: 3h05'22''

I had declared that I would be happy with a time under 3h15’ but that the real objective was 3h. In hindsight, I'm glad as if I had reached the target for the reasons I will explain later. It has not always been the same in the past: sometimes when I hadn’t achieved the objective, I had a sense of dissatisfaction, which began already during the race. Not this time, running I perceived clearly that I was managing the situation well and that there weren’t the conditions to do much better. Probably this has avoided me a big crash at the end.

Let's go to the story:

17-19 March workouts

This is the marathon week, so I planned a few of tapering, eliminating the Saturday session educing miles of all other sessions (-20-30%). But rhythms will be unchanged.

These are the first workouts of the week:

Monday rest

13-16 March workouts

Training in view of Sunday's marathon continues regularly. I'm not really fresh, the aftermath of the 2^nd of March half marathon is still there. This was widely expected: fully recover after a half marathon requires at least 3 weeks.

Let’s go to training of the second half of last week:

Where I come from - 3 - My first race. Appia Run 2011

April 2011. Already seven months of resumed training, according to the scheme explained here (link). Helped by a colleague, I joined a running club and I'm ready for my first race.

To complete the picture, these are the training sessions of three weeks before the race: 

Where I come from - 2 - September 2010 April 2011

Second episode of my athletic history.

In the previous post (link), I described how I had come to the last act of resumption of running activities. Last because since then I have never stopped again (except for short periods). I did it not because the story itself was interesting but to make it clear that I had not had a previous completely sedentary life and that I had already run for example ( without ever racing) in the past  at 7'12'' for 5 km.

We are in September 2010, I am 38 years old, I’ve completely stopped running for more than a year, about 13 kg overweight and with limited available time. But the unconscious is again sending me another stimulus, without even needing reasoning on the fact that I was overweight for example. To me it's almost a biological fact, at some point I feel the physical need to move. 

Running in Rome

Last Sunday, as described in the workouts post, I had a long slow run, about 3 hours. When I run so much and slow (and for me it really means slow), I almost always  go downtown , looking around, time passes more quickly and I don’t feel tired (this is not correct, indeed at the end I feel tired, but I'm almost back home! ) .

I'd like to share what I experienced:

Wake up at 6 a.m. (I hear a chorus: "even on Sunday”! Eh, even on Sunday, because later I’d like to have time for my family ... I don’t want be short of anything!)
Sparing breakfast: tea, 4 little pieces of bread and jam. Completion of due formalities, dressing, today everything quietly and at 7 a.m. I’m on road.

6-12 March workouts

First of all, I’d like to talk a moment of my next race: the Rome Marathon. Until a year ago I felt totally unprepared for such a long distance. Then I increased mileage by lowering the rhythms and slowly I began thinking I could participate just to do experience. I postponed the decision at the last moment, and so near the due date for registration, the day before the Roma-Ostia I gave the application form to my club. The day before, to avoid having doubts the due date for registration week when the post-race could have left some injury.