Training for the GUCR while in Italy has been a problem. I need long, flat runs, and flat speed work. Long runs around Venice were a problem because of the number of canal bridges, long runs around Siena were difficult because everywhere’s hilly, long runs around Amalfi were difficult because the roads were death traps (and hilly), it took hours to drive anywhere, and the only local lengthy stretches of trail involved huge numbers of steps (see previous blog posts).

So getting to Rome, and its relative flatness, was a relief from a running perspective. After 7 days of carb-loading on spaghetti and pizza, a long run would finally be mine. My plan was to do 15 miles total, 10 miles of easy and then 5 miles of decent effort, leaving myself feeling fatigued and happy before further carb input.

I knew that I had propensity to get lost, so I checked Mapmyrun for routes that I could upload to my Garmin. I found one that looked good at around 15 miles, and then found that the export button on the site didn’t work. 20 minutes of research down the drain. I tried Mapometer and found a good-looking route of about 12 miles, and altered it to suit my start and end points down by the Colosseum.

I set my alarm for 6:15 and went out at 7am, ran 3 miles easy on a route I’d run a couple of days before, and then hit go on my new route. All set. Except for… people. And traffic lights. And traffic. And more people. I couldn’t get any kind of rhythm with all the stopping and starting. Even my semi-aggressive London running style didn’t work so well here, where a slightly wrong move could literally get you killed by the vehicles that hare around the streets. Even the green man at a crossing doesn’t mean you’re safe, cars can go through if they see it’s clear – so a rapidly moving runner can surprise a motorist when crossing the road at speed on a green man, and I was always wary of collisions.

Added to this, I got lost around the Vatican. The route had a way into the city-within-a-city somehow, and I couldn’t figure out how to get in. There was a crossover of route at one point too, which was tricky to navigate on the Fenix 2, and I ran the wrong way a few times.

On the positive side, Rome is stunningly beautiful on a warm cloudless morning like it was today, and without my run I wouldn’t have seen the river Tevere so closely, I wouldn’t have seen the wonderful view of Rome from the Piazza di San Pietro in Montorio, and although I’m neither a Catholic nor religious in any way, it was good to see the ol’ Pope’s residence and the majesty of the Vatican’s architecture. (We later further celebrated this by purchasing a Pope-themed fridge magnet for Sarah’s brother, which I thought was fitting.) Also positively, in terms of effort I managed to up it for the last 5 miles as planned, so although from the Garmin data it looked like a washout, I definitely feel fatigued, ready for a rest and a recharge, then back to England before getting back to a normal running cadence on Saturday.