Race Date: 15th June 2019

Having run this race last year (with her sister when they were both pregnant!) Val invited us along this year to experience a local Italian race. Myself and James made the trip over to Jesolo to join Val and enjoyed a long weekend making the most of the sun, sea, pizza and ice cream!

The race itself was on the Saturday evening; luckily for us the sun wouldn’t be so hot and we were hoping for slightly cooler conditions by the race start at 7:30pm. We relaxed during the day and fuelled with more pizza and ice cream. As we headed to the race James and I were mostly discussing the heat and we were both managing our expectations of what time we could run. When we arrived we were both surprised by how big the race was, we had imagined a ‘local’ race would be like one of our local evening races and here the race village was very busy, lots of runners and supporters, beer and hot food available and a big stage where we later watched live music, it was a great atmosphere. The Italians certainly know how to put on a good race!

This was the second running of the event and a different route to the previous year, which had been around 11k. This year the course had been advertised as 11k but later turned out to be around 10k. We did a small warm up and soon we were off, I tried not to set off too fast knowing from previous experience I can’t cope in the heat. We enjoyed a very scenic flat run and coming through the race village at halfway the support and water was gratefully received. I struggled in the second half and focussed on runners in front to pull me along, at this point it was still 29 degrees. Even Val said it was hot and I’ve never heard her say that before! As I turned a corner, expecting to have another 1k to go, I was more than relieved to see the finish line and be able to throw water all over myself and try to cool down! Watermelon has never tasted so good.

I had a fantastic time on a beautiful route and enjoyed the pre and post race atmosphere, it was like a party. I look forward to returning another year!

Full results aren’t published, only the top 3 male and top 3 female times are recorded. The winners received mountain bikes! I finished 3rd female and won a fantastic trophy as well as a 50 euro voucher for the running shop sponsoring the race. Val discussed with the shop, on my behalf, if I could spend the voucher online which was a negative reply. So I quickly picked out a sun visor and some t-shirts to try and squeeze in to my already rammed hand luggage before sitting down to enjoy some food, beer and discussion about the race!

3 Striders finished the race: