Venice, Italy Marathon - October 22, 2006

The best part of the Venice Marathon was the last mile when we ran into the city along the canals with the incredible architecture and wonderful gondolas full of cheering people. The worse part of the Venice Marathon was the last mile when we ran into the city and discovered there were FOURTEEN bridges to run, or hobble, over. Those little bridges over the major canals seemed like climbing a small mountain at that point - and they keep reminding you of how many bridges you have left when you come off of them - "Only Twelve More to Go!".....

Logistically, this was a somewhat difficult race. I ran it independently rather than with a group, so I was on my own completely - and I don't speak Italian. We landed in Venice on Saturday morning around d 10am and took a water taxi to our hotel, the Bauer on the Grand Canal. After getting situated, I went out, armed with my map and some broken directions, to travel the 45 minutes out of town to the expo and to retrieve my race number. One water bus and taxi ride later, I was there and quickly got my number and packet. The chip, interestingly, was applied to the back of the number worn on the chest rather than tied on the shoe.

I went back to the hotel and Linda and I went out for a wonderful meal - the best pasta party I've ever attended!

The next morning I was up early and headed to the location to catch the bus to take us to Stra, the town where the marathon began. It took about and hour and a half to reach Stra, but I still got there about 90 minutes before the race, so I found a great little coffee shop and drank espresso until about 15 minutes before the start of the race. The weather was pleasant - cool and somewhat overcast. I moved into position and waited for the gun.

The first ten miles of the race were beautiful, along a river and beside some of the most beautiful old country villas I've seen. I later found out that the most impressive villa was Malcontente, considered to be Palladio's finest work, a house many magazines have called the most beautiful home in the world. (Linda and I later returned for a visit).
There were about 6,000 in the race with water stops every 5km and wonderful fresh fruit and dates available from the halfway point.

At the halfway mark we entered a rather industrial area and continued there for the next eight miles. Finally, we ran onto a four km causeway linking Venice proper to the "suburbs", and then it really got gorgeous.
The hazy sun cast an incredible blue tone on the water which was dotted with sailboats in a regatta. The skyline of Venice was in front of us, so we knew the end was near. But that's about when the bridges started.
Narrow bridges so that only single file was possible (not that I was zooming by that many people at that point in the race...). The soon we were running by San Marco Square with the tens of thousands of tourists cheering and curiously watching us. We finished to blaring music, got a medal in the shape of the gondola's rudder (which is the symbol of
Venice) and headed out to find Linda and to go out for an even more impressive pasta dinner with some fine Italian wine. Good race. Well organized. Enthusiastic fans through part of the race. Nice long sleeved cool max shirt. I'd highly recommend it.

Linda and I then spent the next ten days driving from Venice to Padua to Asolo to Verona to Milan - visiting duomos and museums and restaurants and shopping and generally celebrating another great marathon finish.

Next up - Dubai in January!

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