Race Report: Firenze Marathon (Florence Marathon)
– Would’ve been a great pic of me holding my 16th marathon medal at Firenze Marathon had I only held the medal facing the front *eye roll* –
Firenze Marathon (or Florence Marathon) is the second largest marathon in Italy, only second to its capital, Rome. I had heard about how beautiful Florence is and, having never visited Italy before, I was simply over the moon about this trip where our itinerary included Cinque Terre (a place in my bucket list! Woohoo!), Venice, and Pisa too. At the same time though, I had never been more anxious for any marathon than this one.
You see, I’m a forward-looking, obsessive, control-freak who always plans ahead for anything, especially my marathons. I always have a program to follow and I stick to it as if my life depended on it. Doing so gives me confidence that not only will I finish the race but I’ll do so without bonking, crawling, or cursing myself the entire time and, most importantly, I’ll cross the finish line with a smile.
For this training period though, I had three bouts with the flu and/or fever, which completely messed up my training schedule. By the time I discovered that all my illnesses were actually due to allergic rhinitis, it was too late. I had missed my 32k run. My longest run was a back-to-back 24k on Sunday and 13k on Monday just 2 weeks before race day. Lord, heeeeelp me. (more…)
