The Venice Marathon

Rob finished the Venice Marathon!! A huge achievement given the horrible weather which turned out to be as bad as predicted - Il Meteo got it right again,unfortunately.

The amazing thing is that Rob ran it faster than last year (4hrs 30 corrected time) and said that he would have done it faster but for  around 60kmh winds on the Mestre Venice bridge. 
Sarah and Paul cheered Rob on at Zattere, it was a nice surprise for him, and Jules and I were at the end with warm clothes etc.

At our apartment at 5.30am -we had to catch the train to Mestre so that Rob could catch the bus to Stra

The bus was packed, standing room only

The woman on the right must be from Alaska -it was really cold and windy

I think that every bin in Venice was full of umbrellas -we saw so many like this

This runner was doing everything he could to keep the rain off and stay warm -including running with a plastic bag on his head :)

It was exciting to see Rob coming over the last bridge at the end of the race.

Rob ran over to us and high fived Jules. We were all really happy

Nearly there

I don't know how he does it but Rob still has heaps of energy after a race. We walked back to our apartment in San Barnaba,

I was trying to smile but was just frozen :)

After this photo Rob put on a few dry things and then back to San Barnaba for a much needed hot shower

Aqua alta

There is aqua alta for the next three days in Venice -around 1. 2metres.  Jules and I went out when it was at the peak this morning. We bought wellies yesterday but I still manged to get wet feet from the waves on the Zattere.

The gondola was at the same level as the campo

Water being pumped from inside a shop

The marathon is supposed to be going through here tomorrow morning

and running through here as well :(

The squero/gondola workshop was very watery

Someone left a pile of cement :(

No junk mail Italian style

On the vaporetto & Piazza S Marco

A beautiful day so we caught the vaporetto to San Marco and wandered around for a bit.

I want a door bell and post box like this!

It is difficult to take a bad shot of this view

Piazza S Marco with Paul busily taking photos

Paul, Sarah, Chris & Jules

A forcola

Venice marathon - freezing, stormy weather predicted

Rob is running in the Venice Marathon again this year. He has been regularly checking the weather forecasts on Il Meteo and they are getting worse by the hour :(







The Bora winds were predicted to be 50kmh but from the rain forecast posted this morning they will be 50 - 80kmh, with rain and the maximum is expected to be 8C.  That's running into a strong headwind, soaking wet and freezing cold. It will be difficult for the runners who finish in just over two hours but imagine how hard it will be for those who take near the cut off time of 6 hours.  I'm so glad I'm not walking!



The marathon starts around 9.30am but runners have to get to Stra for the start of the race. That means we will leave the apartment around 6 so that Rob can catch the bus to Stra. After that he will be hanging around outside in the rain until the start of the race.  He really feels the cold so it is going to be a very difficult race for him.

(copied from  Venice Marathon Facebook)

We went to Parco San Giuliano so that Rob could complete his registration and pick up his marathon pack, he also bought a few warm tops -I think that he will need to wear all of them at once.  There was a buzzy excitement at the place and everyone was extremely friendly. We listened to a presentation  about the course and the runners joked about the weather and the possibility of snow.  How bad the weather will be is an unknown, but no one is expecting conditions like last year.
Photo from presentation

Very few Australians go in the Venice Marathon and after Rob bought some merch we had our photo taken -it will go up on Facebook somewhere so I'll post the link when we find it.