A tough Saturday

Bevilonga 2012: ER-Team from Vicenza

Perhaps, it's hard to understand what is the spirit of Bevilonga if you have never run such a race. The competition is one of the most traditional orienteering competitions in Italy and it usually held in the end of November, when the Italian orienteering season is over. Since I was 19, I haven't miss any edition of the race because I actually love it. It is a good combination between a party and a competition. Furthermore, you can meet some runners which have a totally different mood, if compared to the "normal" race's one. Bevilonga is tricky, competitive, complicated and sometimes impossible to understand. Anyway, this year's edition will be probably remembered as the "shitty" one, not because of the after-race (which was wonderful as usual), but because the largest part of the race was tracked in the middle of a meadow full of fresh shit! Even more; I personally finished my race inside a mountain of shit, where I stayed paralyzed for a few minutes, before I could realize that I was almost able to swim and to pull my body out of it. Bad luck, maybe next time the organizers will let the runners have the right to see where any shitty surprise stands on the map! Good or bad, the race's gone, and after a frozen shower everything was so clear to me that I could start to enjoy the after-race with my orienteering friends...
On Sunday morning I wasn't so fresh, but I decided to run a cross competition to test my legs after a tough week of running trainings. The competitors level was rather low, but the starting sprinters weren't missing and I did the bad choice to start quite slowly. It took to me almost 2km (the race length was 5km), and a lot of energies, before I could catch the first runners. In the last loop, I tried to increase my speed, but at the end I got the second position because I wasn't able to find more energies for the final sprint. Despite the result, I am quite satisfied, because I was really tired and I knew my tough week was over.
Now it's almost time to rest. Two weeks are left before the marathon of Reggio Emilia and I'm not allowed to run more Bevilongas at all. Apparently, this week I won't be as lucky as the past week with the weather conditions. Hopefully for the snow lovers, Winter is coming. The next weekend I'll take part with my friend and team mate Manuel Negrello to the second edition of Prosecco Run, a wonderful race of 25km in Vidor -TV-. Since I don't want to compromise the marathon, I won't run it as fast as the last year.