Firenze parkrun (71)

· by · in Italy. ·

This weekend marks the first weekend of a new chapter of my life after having an amazing time last week getting married!

I am now one week into my honeymoon, which was planned over a year ago, and I find myself in Florence on a Saturday morning. What to do? When we first planned the honeymoon there was no parkrun here so I did not expect to be running today so imagine my surprise then when I saw a post from parkrun Italy a few months ago saying that they were launching a parkrun in the city! It was a no-brainer, I could run without changing my plans and pick up another new country! A couple of my guests for the wedding actually ran at Farfalle (near Treviso) last week and wanted me to go with them, which would have meant that I could have picked up a new country already by now, but it was my stag do last week and had other guests wanting to spend time with me so couldn’t really justify the 2 hours plus drive to get there.

I will still be on my honeymoon next week and will have moved onto another parkrun country (France) but sadly the nearest parkrun looks to be over 2 hours drive so I will not be trying to run again. I do want to pick up new parkruns when possible, but never at the expense of anything else that I would be doing. If all the stars had aligned and there were events closer to me last week and next week it could have been three new events in the wedding/honeymoon trip in two new countries, but I am more than happy with just the one this week. It just means I have them to go back to some other time.

Florence, as well as being a great city with lots of history, is also a great little event. It is mostly flat on an uneven gravel surface with a good amount of shade as you are running through the trees, very much a contender for a PB course in the right conditions. I just again came up against my old nemesis of the heat. Same as with my last run in Florida, I was doing fairly well at the start and going well for under 25 mins but again blew up with heat troubles at about 3km mark. Starting to think that I should get some warm weather training in so it doesn’t keep happening.

It is worth noting that the start line for the parkrun is about 3/4km from the city with no real public transport options, so I had already jogged that distance before the start and knew I would have to do the same back so maybe that was in the back of my mind as I didn’t want to push myself too hard.

COURSE DETAILS:

Firenze parkrun (71)

The event team meet at the finish line near the cafe at the junction of Viale del Pegaso and Viale Dell’Aeronautica before walking down to the start line near the Colonna Del Pegaso. From the start line you head north towards the finish line before taking a left turn off the main path into the park area. After approx 200m you take a right and then left turn and follow a gravel path round the edge of the park. After another 600m you take a left turn back into the park area, followed by a right until you reach the end of the park. From here you take a hairpin left turn to head in directly the opposite direction back to the start/finish area.

This section is on no real path per se, and at times if you are not paying attention and there are no other runners around it might seem like you are not in the correct place, but if you continue to cross over all of the paths and remain amongst the trees in a straight line for approx 1km you find yourself coming back out onto the main path next to the Colonna Del Pegaso at the start line. After you pass the start line again and run in the same direction as at the start, again turning left again at the finish line, you complete the first lap. You then follow exactly the same course again for a second time before making the sprint finish into the finish line.

There are ample signs and marshals at all of the key points, so although the course sounds a little windy and difficult to remember, it is not too problematic and you would struggle to get completely lost.

RUN DETAILS:

  • Time: 26:52
  • Place: 17/51
  • Gender Place: 13
  • Age Category Place (SM30-34): 1
  • Age Graded Score: 48.39%

LINKS:

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