Giancarlo Simion: Reggio Emilia Marathon 2012

Me and Dario Rognoni before the start.

Unfortunately, math is a well known science which does not fail in almost any circumstance. Perhaps, more additional long trainings during my preparation time would have allowed me to avoid the crisis I suffered in the last kilometers of yesterday's race.
The hot comments right after the race (or tweets, in the nowadays IT-era) are often focused on regrets, rather than satisfaction. By the way, if I think in general about my current season, I can be glad of the race I ran yesterday. In September, when I could hardly run the Council Half Marathon in 1h12m, I was quite far away from being able -both physically and mentally- to face a marathon, in which I could express my last season shape (Torino, 2h19m33s). However, after my Master graduation, I decided to get ready for a new experience on 42K before Christmas. I think that in the next future it will be hard for me to prepare a marathon for the month December again, for a number of reasons: firstly, the cold temperatures (I've always claimed to be more oriented towards a Caribbean climate rather than an Alpine one). Then, darkness which is not a good training partner.
In general I can say that last November was a sort of solitude month for me. In addition to the cold weather and the coming snow, this year during my November training sessions I have literally taken buckets of water that often made me think "Why am I doing this?". However, after Venice Marathon, where I had good sensations, I should at least try to run fast the Marathon of Reggio Emilia.
In the end, what I can say is that I was ready, but not ready enough.

I can easily split my yesterday's race between three phases, which could also represent a sort of standardized journey of any marathon runner during his performance. In fact, the marathon is almost the only competition where your flow of informations, thoughts and feelings can bring you to live some distinct phases which differ a lot one to another.

Yesterday the temperature was very cold, bringing the thermometer below zero throughout the whole course, but the humidity wasn't fortunately the same indicated by the forecast. So, there were still the conditions for having a good performance.

Maratona di Reggio Emilia.

The careful start of the African runners has allowed me and my friend Buccilli to lead the competition, building a good gap in the first part of the race. My condition was totally good if compared to the last week. The legs were light and I could run easily on my target speed (i.e. 3m15s/K), without any feeling of heaviness. The frozen roads brought some control problems, but nothing that wasn't expected. After a climb of about 7km, me, Buccilli and another Maroccan runner crossed the half marathon in 1h09m16s, approximately one minute before the second group. Our crossing was built up by regular partials and just right with my expectations. The feeling at that moment were great and in the hilly kilometers after the half marathon I could personally verify that I was actually more fresh than my fellows, so I started to increase my speed and lead the competition from the 30th kilometer. I was running alone and waiting for the African runners of the second group to come. I was still relaxed and I believed I could slightly increase my speed during the last 10K. The Moroccan runner Zain, who then won the race, caught me in the 33rd km. His speed was actually too fast for me at that time, so I waited for the followers (the Kenyan Talam Kipkemei and Moroccan El Barhoumi). The followers speed was the right one for me, so that we could run for several kilometers right behind the leader Zain, who drastically decreased his speed after he passed me. Those were definitely the best kilometers I ran yesterday; El Barhoumi seemed to be clearly tired (he was definitely knocked out around the 35th kilometer) and Kipkemei didn't seem to be able to increase his speed. On the other hand, I was just fine. For a long time I hoped to be able to achieve a top three position.
However, when I came to the 36th kilometer something radically changed in my body. Just 6km far from the finish line my legs became incredibly heavy, also starting to give me some muscular troubles. The gas was over, giving me no chance to run fast anymore! From that point my agony began. It was like I was running in slow motion (or even backwards). What the hell! I slowly watched the gaps that I had built with so much effort becoming smaller little by little. One by one, the runners passed me without I couldn't have any reaction. Since I wasn't able to run faster than 3m40s/K), it was my defeat.

I finished resigned at 6th place, with the (still good) time of 1h19m49s, just 21 seconds from third place.
Reggio Emilia's race left me a lot of regrets but, as I said before, today I am satisfied about my third marathon experience, especially for the brave race I did.
At last, I would like to thank my several supporters who were watching online my race and believed, as I did, in a good performance.

And now? Just think about Chrismas time...