for the first time in 3 years and 6 marathons I wasn't sure I was going to make it to the end. my training had been poor and my motivation quite low. the weather forecast had predicted rain and indeed the night before the marathon I could not sleep because of the noise outside: it was pouring down and the wind was strong too!! I said to myself that if the weather was going to be the same in morning I was not going to race.

when I woke up, though, the weather was really nice and I had no other choice than walk to the start line in piazzale michelangelo (there's a beautiful view of florence from there). but once there, I got literally soaked before I set off for my 7th marathon. fate!

From the first minute of my race I knew I was going to finish...not matter how!!! I had a friend along the course who cheered me on on 3 different occasions: 12km, 25km and 41km; I had certainly something to look forward to. my parents were supposed to come to florence too but decided not to the end, because of the weather.

I adopted the same strategy of my dublin marathon: 5 min run and 1 min walk and despite my lack of training, my lack of sleep and the rain I closed my race in 4:56. not my best time, but not my worst either.

The course was nice, even though the stretch from 32km to 38km was pretty boring and looooooong. I had started to get tired by then but at that point I was determined not to pull out. so I kept repeating my mantra ('till the finish line) and alternating walk and run...by then it had become 4 1/2 min run and 1 1/2 min walk. It was a bit discouraging not to have much support by then and some of the people I met along the route kept saying "they must be the last ones", nice!....but I tried to keep positive and I crossed the line with a big smile.

now I am in Italy, at my parents', until sunday and I am eating a lot and relaxing a bit before I start marking exam!

it's really cold here!!!

two days after dublin I finally have some time to blog.

It was my sixth marathon and my first dublin one. after two years in this city and two years of supporting friends and fetchies I finally got to run it myself. I wouldn't have missed it for the world. so, even if my training was really bad I decided to do dublin and use it as a training run for the florence marathon at the end of november.

that was a great choice!

I have been under the weather in the last few weeks. my uncle, who had cancer, got really worse really fast and he died on thursday. I couldn't make it to the funeral and I was (am) worried for my dad (my uncle was one of his younger brothers). I was not in the mood for a race.

I have also been stressed for work stuff and the job applications to the states.

but when I turned up at the dinner with the fetchies and few other people I started to feel the buzz and on monday morning I was ready to go. I finished the race in 4:47, my second personal worst, but I don't care. It was the best marathon ever. The support of the people was just amazing. I couldn't believe it. I keept saying thank you to everyone who called my name or said GO FETCH GO. I was so emotional that everything made me cry, but I felt also very happy. so basically I run the whole marathon with tears in my eyes and a big smile on my face. weird.

I did the whole marathon alternating 5 min run to 1 min walk and that worked very well. My legs feels great now and I am ready to keep training for florence.

there's so much more that I should say about this marathon, but I can always write another post hopefully I'll do that soon.

I forgot to say that I DNF the half marathon two weeks ago. I pulled out at mile 8 :( it was the first time for me and I hated the feeling. It's not fun cheering on people completing their race when you didn't. I know I did the right thing but I did not like it. that'll teach me :)

september was pathetic. I run a total of 72 miles spread in only 9 runs! dublin was getting closer and I was getting lazier. I didn't want to give up the idea of doing dublin, 'cause this might be my last year in this city and I wanted to do this mara once. I love the idea of a race around the place where I live. so I thought: "I'll do dublin as a walk but THERE IS NO WAY I'm doing florence...."

but last weekend something happened. I went to rome for a "running weekend" with some of the people I met on my italian blog. we are now a community of 60 bloggers who leave comments in each others' blogs and we've decided to form a group (a bit like fetch, but smaller). we are the BLOGTROTTERS. the meeting coincided with a 10k that we all run with the same t-shirts.


it was a lovely weeekend. 3 days of eating, drinking wine, chatting and running. what was great about my race was the fact that one of the faster guy, once he finished his race, came back to find me and push me through the last 2 ks which ended up being the fastest ones. even though my time wasn't good (1:00:13) I seem to have found my lost mojo.




Not only have I been out twice this week I have also entered florence marathon. So now the idea is to use dublin as a long run and try to do florence in a decent time. there will be many fetchies in dublin and many blogtrotters in florence, so it's going to be a nice party too!!

BRING IT ON!!

It's now time for another half-marathon. the adidas race series which included a 5 and a 10 miler ends on Saturday with the half. as a celebration I have finally officially entered the DUBLIN MARATHON. so now, there's no escaping it!! my training has been quite random....

some week I have gone out only once for a 5 miler; some other weeks I have gone out once and then attempted (and succeeded) a long run. two sundays ago I managed a 15,73 miler and last sunday a 18,63 one. I still don't know how that was possible. my legs feel fine really but tuesdays have become tough: I feel tired and HUNGRY! does that happen to me only? are the tuesdays after your LSRs tough??

the new academic year has started already and we are now in week 2! after spending the summer months working on my research in the peace and quiet of my flat, starting term with hundreds of students and colleagues trying to talk to me was a shock to the system. I love being surrounded by people and I love my students. it's just hard to adjust to the sudden change; I feel overwhelmed but I know it will get easier and easier.

this is going to be my last year at dublin university since my contract expires in august 2009. ideally I'd like to either stay here or move back to england but the situation is gloom. languages are not popular with the university power-that-be (probably none of the subjects belonging to the humanities area are). so the idea is now to apply somewhere else, and after ignoring the states for all my working life it's time for me to acknowledge the fact that I might have a chance to find a permanent job over there. it would be such a huge change for me and it will be difficult to explain this choice to my parents: england and ireland do not seem too far any more, but the states are. well...it might come to nothing, but the filling-the-application-form process has now started....scary!!

BUT

let's focus on what's happening at the moment and let's hope that the half marathon goes well. I'll meet up with the irish fetchies and I am sure it'll be fun!

yes, I am still alive but I guess my posting goes with my training and when I am not doing much I don't post much.

in the last few weeks my mojo has been coming and going; then it was time to hit the road with some italian friends of mine and go to Longford. They did the marathon and I did the half. my pb is 1:58 but I knew that I wasn't fit enough to beat that. as soon as we started it began to pour down (as you can see from the pic) and it wasn't pleasant. when the rain stopped I was drenched and tired.

I stopped for the first time at mile 3 and then I walked at every drink station. half way through I realised that I wasn't going to finish under 2hs so I took it easy ending up doing a LSR rather than a race. I finished in 2:06' and I was pleased with it anyway.


the race was on august 24th and since then I managed to run only once. I must have caught something on race day and I have been ill with a silly flu since then. I had to skip my LSR last sunday. dublin is getting closer and I am not ready yet. I haven't run longer than 13 miles. hopefully this week will be better.

my press up challenge suffered too last week, but I keeping at it. I am now on W3 D1 and it's getting really tough. but I can see improvements in my upper body strength and I am loving it!!