Race Report from Valeria Gasparini

Race Date 1 July 2017

On its second edition this brand new race organised by Venice Marathon Team offers 3 distances: classic marathon 42km (1242m+ and 1543m-); trail 26km (448m+ and 1198m-) and the 6.5km Family Run (267m+ and 267m-).

I ran the middle distance (adding 5km at the end) as training for the Trans D’Havet trail marathon (40km with 2500m+ in the “Small Dolomites”) in late July and it is always really amazing and emotional to run in such beautiful places, looking at breath taking landscapes (when you can afford not to stare at the ground to avoid falling over on some rock or root). I had a pretty steady race, keeping a consistent pace throughout (for however consistent it can get with this kind of elevation anyway), took a fall too – probably as I stop staring at the ground for those two seconds J just few scratches and bruises so didn’t stop me from getting up as quick as I could to avoid further humiliation.

The race started in the little mountain town of San Martino di Castrozza, situated in a natural bowl surrounded by the Natural Park of “Paneveggio – Pale di San Martino. We left San Martino behind and from here we were running along the forest road leading to Malga Crel; the race course then leads to “Passet Calaita”, the highest point of the track. At this point the athletes cross the “Piana di Calaita”, skirting the lake that has the same name. A mountain road on a slight downhill gradually leads to the finish line in Fiera di Primiero, passing over the towns of Mezzano and Imer.

Weather was great if not perfect, sunny interval and pleasant temperature between 18 and 25 degrees (towards the end of the race).

I completed my race in 2h 18’ placing 14^th lady.

A total of 1005 participants completed the 26km (plus 243 running the same course but on the non-competitive option) and 558 the full marathon.

I would highly recommend this race and would very much like to run it again myself.