A couple of days ago ,searching the web for the 100K del Passatore, I came across my own RR for the first 100k  I ever ran ,where I mentioned this race. Hard to believe that now, 3 years and almost 50 races late, I have actually accomplished the deed! and quite an adventure it was!!

Italy is my birth country: even if I left it a long time ago, it takes me no time to feel back at home the moment  I step foot on it , I love the more relaxed life style, the food...real cappuccino, real pizza ...friends and all....the running over there ..not so much : too competitive, on roads full of speeding cars driven by aggressive motorists.... ,

For some reason this 100K race betweens the cities of Florence and Faenza has always had a magic pull. Beautiful course even if entirely on road , tough conditions with a 3pm start in hot weather and  long climbs  and descents that require some smart  "legs management", yeah a classic race to be done at least one in a lifetime.

I traveled to Italy a week before the race, wanting not only to get used to summerlike weather (coming from Seattle where we've had so much rain and cold temps through May that  was a bit of a concern) but to take care of family visits and a lot of business related travel, all of  which kept me on the move and not exactly taking it easy for the entire time before race day.

I spent the night and morning before the race in Florence with a couple of friends who live 100 yards from the start line, soaking in the very festive atmosphere of people coming in from all of Italy, and many other countries as wel,l for this race  that was the Italian Championship for the distance.

About 1600 people were signed up for the race , about 1500 at the start line.As usual, only a fraction of them  being women. I had decided to wear my MM singlet and yellow socks to match, hopefully that would make me slightly more visible to the cars in the darkness of the night...I was also carrying my hydration pack, quite a weight on my back but I figured the very many aid stations would be really crowded particularly in the initial stages of the race and I would appreciate having my own water in the very hot weather conditions.

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And off we go!!!  The first 4Ks are in the city of Florence, very slow pace , lots of people cheering along the sidewalks, sun pounding down on us,32C...close to 90F... happy mood all over...then the first climb starts towards the town of Fiesole....hot....no shade on the open road but beautiful views of Florence and the hillside...I am running/walking with my camera and I don't hold back, stopping to take pictures of the view and the runners .

I try not to look at my watch, and stress over it,I  know I can cover the distance one way or another and I am fully intending to enjoy the experience.

 I stop at every aid station placed about every 5ks...the food is not exactly what I am used to during trail ultras....lots of  sweets...cookies of all kinds ...lots of coffee and tea   and bread and mortadella of course.....I also need to take off a shoe and remove a bandage from a toe very stupidly injured with my street sandals....(yeah in Italy one feels under preassure to dress up more, even when one knows better not to...like before a 100K run..!!!)and causing more injury to the toe next to it.....oh oh....not good...... Anyway I keep trucking along the endless downhill and than the even longer  10mile climb to the top at over 900mt..(over 3000') which is also the 48K mark.

It is getting dark by now and cold. Fortunately I have a change of clothes in my drop bag, long  shirt...MM sleeves, hat and gloves..by the time I take off after the longer than planned stop I have already been on the road for a little over 7hours.....I have already encountered a few challenges: typical of races in Italy....no toilets available.....I had to visit a "gelateria" and a coffee shop in two villages we passed through with no insignificant loss of time.......and my feet started to feel on fire....the heels and the bottoms .....I had been focusing on a  "walk with a purpose"  pace that  had kept me going at a pretty good clip on the uphills but obviously the constant  pounding on the hard surface was taking its tolls on the feet...

The volume of traffic on the narrow winding road was scary.....non stop at times...all support vehicles....and motorcycles...and bikes....speeding by no more that a couple of inches from the runners....yikes....I probably was in a very small minority of runners who were doing it entirely "solo".......I kept leapfrogging  some fellow runners with whom I would chat briefly....always a lot of explaning with me being not quite American ...not quite Italian....I found myself doing as everybody else and constantly crossing the streets cutting the corners on the sharp turns on the road.....yeah dangerous business ..now that I think about it.....My feet kept getting worse,....I could feel  the blisters all over the place...both feet ...occasionally a sharp pain of one popping....and a lot of miles to go....I keep moving ...running was  hard , small consolation knowing  so many others  around me were hurting as well....

A fellow runner started  tagging along impressed by the way I was able to keep a good solid walking pace so  we decided to stick together and run/walk  for the last 25 miles....chatting and pushing each other helped a lot ..particularly during those last endless flat 10k....Dawn approaching ...we were  going to finish with daylight afterall.....we  decided we would  cross the finish line running .....and we did!!.... the clock  in the distance  about to turn  to 15h  so we sprinted  trying to beat it.....no....didn't make it by 9secs........it is exactly 6am..

My feet were toast. ...couldn't even walk......I had drag myself to to the shuttle that took the runners to the showers and recovery room and once there it literally took me 30 minutes to munster up  the courage to remove shoes and socks.......ouch ouch ouch....never in my life ..not even  with races in mud and water  for hours and hours, I had ever messed up my feet so badly....now I have a new respect for pavement...valuable  lesson learnt..

After a short uncomfortable nap in the recovery room I crawled back in the shuttle to go back to the finish line where I went to pick up the well earned 3 bottles of wine every finisher received, and timed it just right so that I could see the award ceremony ..the winner, a very amazing cab driver from Rome won the race for the 6th time straigh and a record time of 6:25....one of the highlights for me...getting a picture taken with a Brazilian champion who had won the race 20 years ago and also  holds the fastest time for the infamous Badwater 135M race.

Despite thinking ,while in the thick of it , in the middle of the night and blister inferno, that I probably like trail running better....I definitely am now hooked on this Passatore race and will be back next year.....anybody out here interesting in coming along?

and btw, my chip time was under 15.......14:58:48....

Thanks for reading !!

Francesca

Francesca - for some reason I am unable to post under the above quote, but I just wanted to say, ouch, ouch, ouch!  I hope your feet are feeling better soon.  As for the rest - 3pm start time, dodging traffic on narrow roads - and 100K - WOW!  You continue to amaze - way to go, tough girrrrlll!

franc, you and the others who ran this race and others like it are just amazing.  I can't really get my mind to understand what you've done but you have my utmost admiration.

TomS

Francesca, you are amazing.  thanks so much for your report, and for inspiring all of us.   Please take care of yourself & heal!!

... with deepest respect & admiration! 

And you want to do it again next year?    Maniac, indeed.   Congrats and thanks for the RR!

Three bottles of wine!!! Well, who wouldn't want to do it again next year!  If I ever had an ultra in me, this would be the one I'd want to do...

--Robin

Congratulations, Francesca!  This really is an impressive accomplishment.  The distance, very different conditions, different food, blisters, heat, traffic...all of those things are hurdles you had to overcome to finish successfully.  That requires tough mental skills. 

Still, there must be something wonderful about it if it has you coming back for more.  I'd love to use a marathon as an excuse to get to Italy one day.  But 100K is out of my league.

Rest up, get those feet healed...and find some softer surfaces to run on for awhile!

P.S. I had to put that winner's time into a calculator: 6;12 pace. 

Thanks for the great RR, Francesca.  The only thing more amazing and unbelievable than your race is that you want to do it again.  You are one tough ultramarathoner.