Roma – Ostia is the most famous half marathon in Italy and one of the most prestigious in the world. The peculiarity of this competition is its route: the athletes have to run from the capital along the Cristoforo Colombo – a scenic road fringed by thousands pines -, cross the beautiful pinewood of Castelfusano, to reach the sea and the beaches of Ostia . Whoever has read my other posts about running can well understand that this race is for my husband Mr Run particularly meaningful, as it symbolizes his metamorphosis.
Despite the unfavourable weather conditions, more than 13.500 people woke up early this morning, put on their training shoes and hop, hop, hop, gathered at Palalottomatica. Among them there were many members of the newly settled Italian government (there is a Montecitorio running club actually), as for example the Minister of Defence Roberta Pinotti, who ended the run in a little more than two hours, and many others. Our new young prime Minister Matteo Renzi is a great fun of running himself, and just recently during the discussions at the Chambers for the vote of confidence, was caught reading The Art of Running by Haruki Murakami to find a little relief from the tedious speeches of the old Mps (subtle irony).
However, my husband had trained for months and months really hard with the goal of breaking his previous record of 1:35:40 and as it always happens before an important meet, had started to produce some excuses to justify a hypothetical failure, which I know he wouldn’t have accepted easily: viruses, muscle ache, hard work…….and many others that I can’t remember (I don’t always listen carefully to what he says). Therefore I decided to made a bet, that sounded actually more like a threat: if he had taken more than 1:33:00, he wouldn’t have found me at the finishing line. After 1:31:50 Mr Run was there.
- Palazzo delle Fontane – The House of Roma Ostia
Mr. Run and the Bib number
Ostia Beach
Ostia Beach
Belvedere
The Winner : Lahbabi Aziz (Morocco)
2nd and 3rd classified : Mesfin Hunegnaw (Ethiopia) and Masai Titus Kwemoi (Kenya)
CHEPKWONY CAROLINE J.
CHEROP SHARON JEMUTAI
KEBEDE NETSANET GUDETA
Here comes the sun & Mr. Run
Mr. Run (1738° classified) and his deserved medal
e-Tinkerbell 
wow what a turnout! that’s quite the running time, I know I definitely would of taken a ton longer lol 😀
Yeah, it was amazing. Glad you enjoyed it.
Cheers.
Stefy
My daughter has just today achieved a personal best time of under two hours at the (admittedly less prestigious) Llanelli half marathon in South Wales, so I was extremely interested to read about this, see the fascinating photos and witness Mr Run achieve his PB!
What a great run to follow this route between the two historic sites — perhaps a full marathon involves a return journey?!
Well, she did better than the Italian Minister , well done 😉 Return journey? Impossible as in three weeks time there will be Rome full marathon, with more than 80.000 athletes. Too close. 🙂
Lovely photos!
I am glad you enjoyed them.
Cheers.
Stefy
Beautiful–I love Ostia!
Thanks a lot 🙂
1:31!!?? Your Mr Run had quite the gigantic metamorphosis. Congratulations to him and to you for being so clever to threaten, I mean encourage him to such success.
I love that your Prime Minister was caught in the act of reading The Art of Running. Better than being caught in the act of other things. 🙂
Yeah, it’s a great time and he is immensely proud. You are right, our Prime Ministers are often caught in the act of doing something else 😉
I was telling my own Mr Run about his finishing time and his reply was ” Wow he is very fast!” Congrats again.
Yeah, he’s just turned into Mr Proud 😉
congrats to Mr. Run – and to all of you for braving the elements for this run! what an inspiring post! 🙂 ~y.
Thanks a lot . I’m glad you enjoyed the post.
Cheers.
Stefy. 🙂
Love the photographs. What beautiful scenery for a run. And I like your form of “encouragement”. 😉
Congratulations to Mr. Run!
Thanks a lot Fannie 🙂
Stefy, what an amazing post. I just pushed your follow button. You’ve been following me for a long time, and I just now got over to see you. And I really LIKE what I see. Love, Amy
Nice post!
It had to have been the”bet/threat” that did it. But my bet is that if he had come in last you would have been there.
I throughly enjoyed this post. It reminded my of my months in Italy some 60 years ago.
I want to thank you so much for letting me know you liked three of my post; Telephone Killer – Excerpt 26, River Congo – Excerpt 38 and Mountains, Oceans and Gods on papermudandme.wordpress.com.
Thank you for stopping by and I will be following you to catch up on things in Italy.
Again, thank you and Aloha from the other side of the world. – pjs –
What a lovely comment! Of course I would have been there, but I know that my husband is a proud , competitive sort of man and I like making these kind of bets. Nice to have here and Ciao 🙂 from the opposite side. See you soon. Stefy.
Oh, you’ve got a destination half-marathon guy there, too! Any other recommendations? I’m not sure how soon we can make it to Italy 🙂
On April 6th, there will be Florence half marathon and on the 25th in Rieti, so you can visit Rome after the race.;)
Hm, ok thanks. April’s pretty soon for this year, but I presume it repeats annually?
Oh certainly, every year. Train well and we’ll meet next year 🙂
Inviato da iPad
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Ooh! Ok, I’m emailing him this post now 🙂 .
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