The morning dawned to continuous rain. And it continued to rain as we drove to the race and prepared for the start. And it rained through the whole race. But there were still over 200 runners from all the surrounding towns.
The race started on the outskirts of town, took the road that goes around it, and looped back through it. This did not take long; we were out of town before we got to the 1 km mark. Runners might have outnumbered citizens.
The course then followed the approach road to Cesi. There was a long downhill and a much longer uphill, and as consolation we knew that we would be running the same road in reverse for the finish.
I wasn't surprised when the course turned off the main road, nor when the side road was full of puddles and potholes, nor even when the road got worse and worse and turned into a "white road" (gravel). That is normal for races around here. The surprise was when we left the road altogether and started running cross country through grass and Roman ruins. We had arrived at Carsulae, the ruins that Alexandra, Jim, and Rebecca visited three weeks ago!
I finished with a ho-hum time--having thoroughly enjoyed the run--and picked up my race packet. No pasta this time. Just two bottles of wine :)
A run, Roman ruins, and two bottles of wine for 7 euros. You won't beat that anywhere.
Michael
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