In the beginning of September, after a welfare state related conference in Budapest, my Finnish colleagues run the Budapest half-marathon. I went to cheer on the runners and got immersed in the great sport atmosphere. DJ was playing samba and YMCA and excited runners ready to cross the city were shouting and cheering themselves as well. I wanted to be part of the group. Instead, while the thousands of runners left the park for their 20 km tour, I went to do my own tour in a nearby flee-market and had a beer in the fresh autumn air. I was obviously a second class tourist.
Feeling the adrenaline-filled atmosphere, I got inspired by the idea of running in such a mass happening myself, and when I saw the poster for Corri La Vita, 12km run in Florence to raise money for the fight against breast cancer, my opportunity had occurred. I went to sign up immediately to a closest sport shop. However, they had already closed the inscrizione and I left with two pairs of shorts instead making me even more motivated to run Corri La Vita.
I have done jogging about five times this year so I felt I needed to do some emergency exercise to see if I was able to run 12km in the first place. So, I put on my new professional high-tech running shorts and a Harvard t-shirt that I was a bit embarrased to wear (yeah, no wonder some people think I'm Americana...). I run up to Piazzale Michelangelo and instead of doing my usual tour I continued up on the hill (beautiful!). It became dark and it started drizzling a bit, a car honked at me in the lonely street. I was almost sure that I had already got lost when I was suddenly back in Piazza Pitti. At home, quite dead but not dead, I checked out every runner's favourite web site Gmaps Pedometer and found out that I had run 11,3 km. I was ready for Corri La Vita.
Well, not quite. In Italy, you need a medical certificate proving you can do "agonistic sports" in order to participate in a running competition. I didn't have one so when I was signing-up (the second time, I managed to do it), I told that I wanted to do a non-competitive 12km run. Not possible (although their website said it was). I was only allowed to do a 5km passegiata. I don't know if I was disappointed or relieved. Sunday morning I still put my jogging stuff on (this time a Salvatore Ferragamo sponsored Corri La Vita t-shirt) and headed to Piazza Signoria. I asked two stuff members if I can run 12km fuori competizione; they didn't know. There was an announcement that I didn't understand but most probably it explained the organisational issues that I was desperately trying to figure out.
It was 9h35 when the shutgun finally announced the start of the competition. I was still trying to find out where I should start and if I was obliged to do the 5km family walk. I followed the masses of people and asked once again if I can run the longer distance. "Tutti lo fanno", replied the older man, so I was all set for the tour despite the poor (and excellent example of) Italian organisation.
It was great fun and running with 20 000 other people felt somehow very humble. We were all doing this insane agonistic sport and were connected by some weird solidarity. Those participating in the competition were far ahead of me and the people around me, so I mostly saw people taking it pretty easy, enjoying the sunny Sunday morning; rather smiling than grimacing out of agony. After a steep descent from Forte del Belvedere to San Niccolo we had to do a huge and equally steep ascent up to Piazzale Michelangelo (some grimaces were now visible). The best runners were already coming down from the hill when I started climbing up. 7km had passed and I wasn't the only one to walk up this hill (who ever thinks that Tuscan hills are charming should go jogging in this street).
My time was 1h10. The best woman arrived 30 minutes before me. But it didn't matter, I was glad to have made it, to have a discount coupon for La Perla lingerie and receive a Salvatore Ferragamo t-shirt (well, made in Haiti...). I'm actually thinking again of doing a half-marathon, though I liked the non-competitive character of Corri La Vita and the idea of collecting money for cancer rehabilitation (it collected 270 000 euros). Maybe I'll make it an annual tradition, a great excuse to come to Florence.
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