Roma Ostia 2014 | e-Tinkerbell

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.