Rome Marathon 2013

Thank you Kirsty. Very helpful update, as always.

All big city marathons (including this one) raise very substantial sums of money for charity.  I think it would be only decent of the church authorities not to put that in jeopardy by holding a ceremony that delays the start time.

I hope the Holy See will "See sense." 

On a lighter note, I hope you get to enjoy a nice relaxing evening meal on the Sunday. Apparently, most bolognaise sauces consumed in Rome's restaurants are horsemeat free, so they certainly do things differently over there!

Just seen what they have put on the Rome marathon website - ahhhhhhh a 4 pm start not trained for that, don't know how the body would cope.

Finding it all very annoying, surely the organisers have it all planned the route is booked in as is the road closures.  My club has all this booked in for our local half months in advance.  What right as the pope got to uproute all of this, I will be totally going off the Cathlic Church if they disrupt the marathon. 

And the marathon organisers will go down in my estimation for letting it happen - sure it's not really in their control but should not be allowed.  Think I may just go of Italy for a long time if 4 months of training, resulting in me being in the best shape I've ever been gets thown a curve ball by a 4pm start.

Can live with change in route course - not what I paid for or entered but can live with it, but trained for a morning start.

Also really not impressed with the uncertainly 2 weeks before the race - they should be saying no the marathons in for 9am - the pope can do his thing a week later.

Rant over, dreading the busy city, horrid feeling that my other half will say a definate no to any more overseas marathons if this goes pete tong.

Just sent an e-mail to the Vatican letting my views be known

The e-mail address is:-

vis@pressva-vis.va

I can't help but think all that 4pm start stuff from Amanda is a little tongue in cheek 

Physically it would make no difference what so ever, phycologically I'd prefer a much later start as I'd actually be awake by then, I always run mid day to afternoon, I don't do mornings! lol 

Overall I think it woud be cool to say "yeah I did the Rome marathon that started at 4pm and half of it was in the dark!"

Maybe I'm alone in this view but I also feel quite lucky that so much is going on in Rome whilst we're there, what with all the sporting events and mainly the Pope business, I'm a devout atheist, but I can appreciate the momentous occasion, coming from a tiny hamlet in the sticks it's not every day you get a story to tell the grandkids (when you're older!) about how you were in Rome when blah blah blah...

For me it's almost part of the parcel of going to Rome, I'm going for the history, now we're making it. If it was just another city marathon I wouldn't be interested, this is going to be awsome!

I got an email from the race about the different scenarios, i'm assuming everyone did? I'm going to Rome next saturday, so I'll be there a full week before the race, it will definitely be a memorable holiday, the sort that leaves images in your mind forever.

I'm actually pretty impressed with the organisers for how early on they have put together not just plan B but also plan C and communicated it to everyone. It's not their fault this has happened and I think they are trying their best in difficult circumstances. At least they aren't just saying "well, we'll postpone it and do it in a month's time when this has all blown over" - personally, that would be awful as I've paid for cheap flights, paid for hotel, arranged for my daughter to have time off school and been sponsored by many people.  There is only one scenario in which we will have the 4pm start (and they have put another message on their facebook time explaining why in detail), and I'd fully expected the route to be diverted as soon as I heard that the Pope had resigned.

Ironically, I am running in aid of the Catholic Children's Society and so I think the Pope drama has gained me more sponsorship!

Amazing planning, and will make it all the more memorable, but if there are people running dressed as Nuns as per usual how will we know if it's a gimmick or not

What gets me is that they have to change it at all if you have an event booked and all thet road closures in place - unless (as in New York last year) it's a total bolt out of the blue and a natural disaster then you can understand.  But the pope has a choice they can enthone him another day....

To all these who have practiced running at different times of day - lucky you, I've never done anything except train for the last 4 months for a morning start, practiced what I will eat the evening before, what I will have for breakfast and yes the 4pm start would totally throw me. 

What about all the slower runners out there, they could be finishing the marathon really late into the night, not ideal!!!! Finish 10 ish get back to hotel, all places to eat could be closed - just not good.  Or to these who have arranged to fly/train back home that evening - what do they do just run faster......

So no my post about the 4pm start is not tongue in cheek - think it's pretty pants, and think the organisers realise that given the option of postponing places till 2014, 2015 and 2016 races.  

Can't help thinking that it would say a lot about the Catholic Church if they do anything on the 17th which affects an event as big as the marthon.

lol Ekgo depends on your point of view,  yes they have been around slightly longer but we had our event booked in before them.

They are supposed to think of others, be good people etc etc so perhaps they should look at the bigger picture.  How many others will want to travel to rome to see the election of the pope - all the hotels already booked, flights booked solid already - if they did it a different weekend just fits everyone.

I'm already planning an emergency stash of food in case can't get anything malt loaf travels well and does not mind getting squashed.

i imagine for the election of the pope they have to fly in officials from around the world.....the security and the organisation will be a nightmare......Rome gets millions of visitors every year from the Pope and the vatican.........

i think a marathon is very very  small fry in comparision.............at least they have contingency plans in operation........

You have to stop thinking negative about it or you will talk yourself out of doing a good marathon time.........lots of it is mental..

just look at the positives and move on 

From the facebook page:

"WHY THE ROME MARATHON AND THE POPE’S ENTHRONEMENT CAN’T OCCUR AT SAME TIME

Among you, many have asked why the marathon start at 9:00 would be incompatible with a simultaneous Enthronement ceremony.

The Apostolic Constitution "Universi Dominici Gregis" does not set rules for the Papal Inauguration. However, the Enthronement may be considered as a Coronation - with all that this implies in terms of ceremonies and Protocol.

More than 200 Presidents, Prime Ministers, Royalty and Spiritual Leaders are expected to converge on Rome from all over the world. Hollande, Obama, Putin, Merkel, the Royal Families of Belgium, Spain and England, the Orthodox Patriarch and the Dalai Lama - just to mention a few. This causes a sort of militarization of the city. On the eve of Enthronement (Saturday 16, in our example) the whole city centre needs to be cleared of security threats. Police forces oversee every corner of the center to guarantee safety to hundreds of thousands among the faithful and curious. Hospitals and doctors would are alerted for possible emergencies. Roads to airports, stations and embassies remain clear. A no-fly zone extends all over Rome.

This state ends around 2:30pm. Since that time, we will have a bit more than an hour to set up the marathon course with fences and tapes, positioning services, refreshment stations, medical tents – with thousands of volunteers and police forces who quickly need to reach their positions, in order to guarantee safety, comfort and a great race experience to all runners.

We would very much prefer not to need to implement this. But, if ever, such a challenging eventuality would mean “running through history” for real."

The new Pope has to be enthroned well before Easter week as this is the primary event in the Church's calender so no - they can't really just do it the following weekend.

Amanda, are you an elite runner? 

It's not about me being lucky to run in the afternoon, if that's the case then I should have an awful race if we run at 9am. 

IT DOESN'T MATTER WHAT TIME YOU TRAIN ,OR WHEN YOU RACE! 

It's the same as people who think doing their lsr on a saturday is going to affect how they run on a sunday, rediculous! 

If the enthronement is that morning and we have to run at 4pm, it will be like a festival, running the marathon will be like a celebration, remember I'm not religious, but they'll be thousands of extra people in Rome that day who will no doubt cheer you on more because of the historic day. 

Amanda on the basis they tend to this about every 40 years I'm happy to nudge up a couple of hours.

Consider it all, Paddy's day and the lingering Irish from the pre-easter pilgrimages and also the Rugby against Italy.

The Football on the Sunday evening 50,000 fans for Roma Vs Parma,

Add to this the influx of all things and people religious for the Papal thing it is quite an achievement to get a race on at all.  

Also one other point, maybe a bit late in the day for experimenting but I noted the time change to 4pm and a comment about how that would affect if I'd been doing morning training. So I went out today later than usual at around 1:30pm for my run, I did 11 miles and found it good despite not feeling great, I came back nearly 1 minute per mile quicker than I usually do, What's happening?

problem with a 4pm start is the temperature drop when it starts to get dark, just when we start to slow and body temperature drops it'll start getting cold..not nice!

I did a HM today in 1 49, nice and steady slow pace and I did a few miles either side to get a decent mileage in.

 Hoping for a sub 4 in Rome.

I wouldn't worry about the temperature, it'll be a lot warmer there than here and what we've been used to running in, their night time temps are looking like our day time ones.

....which begs the question....

How have you been training for the different temperature Amanda? Surely running in 12°C higher than you're used to would affect you more than the time of day?

Graham, I've seen studies in the past where it was proven that bodies work better between about 2-5pm, something to do with the circadian rhythm.

I can understand Amanda's worries.........the uncertaintity and late changes can make it hard to get your head around........

a race I did last year changed my start time by 3 hours.....no big deal but it meant i was out until 1 am on the second night so effectively meant 2 nights out racing........

I let it get to me for a few days until i realised i was letting it sabotage my race ......and made myself look for the positives in the changes.......

you need to get yourself a positive mind frame for these things