City 7 done: Eat, play and run in Rome….

Ciao!

The plan had been to take part in the Rome half marathon today.  Being in the perfect place to stock up on carbs via pizza and pasta what could have been better the following day than running the half marathon going past the Coliseum….

However; about two weeks ago I thought I would check the route of the race so went onto their website to discover it had a message in the header saying “save the new date  - 3/2/13”….WTF?!

Surely the date couldn't just randomly change?! As per the t-shirt that Madonna once sported “Italians do it better” so I presumed this would extend to the organization of an International run which would attract runners from all corners of the Globe?

But after a frantic email from me questioning that I must be mistaken about what I read the below response was received:

“Hi …unfortunally the Italian government decided to run the election day the 24^th of February and we had to move the race to the next Sunday, the 3 of March. Hope this is not a problem for you..”

Not a problem?! Are they kidding?!

Anyhow; within an hour I had organized a private run with a tour company that do running tours around Rome (www.sightjogging.it) so a run in the Olympic City of Rome was back on….

My guide took me on a 10km run around the city taking in sights like the Coliseum, Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, Castel Sant Angelo and over some beautiful bridges with views of the Tiber and St Peter’s Basilica.

Pictures from the run below (complete with the usual flag one):

Eat:

 Play:

Run:

So not quite a half marathon but still a good run in the city none the less J

Until Paris next week arrivederci!

City 6 done: Barcelona Half Marathon

Today I completed the Barcelona Half Marathon....my sixth Olympic City :-)

The day started well with a local breakfast I picked up from the corner shop of Bimbo (brilliant name for a bread) with Apricot Jam:

I came 225th out of 14,325 in a time of 1 hour 20 minutes and 7 seconds...

Another personal best time which I am very pleased with given the following reasons....

Firstly; last week I bought a new pair of trainers to run in today. On Monday I went for a run and realised that they did not cause blisters but more had ripped the entire layer of skin off both my ankles...lovely! So after emergency plaster buying and wearing the trainers all week to wear them in (including at work which I am pretty ashamed about) I reached today feeling confident that my feet were repaired and ready to go...

However; lack of ankle skin drama over and the race started well....up to the 5km water station when the guy behind me accidentally tripped on my foot and sent me flying to the floor. Giving Bear Grylls a run for his money and proving I can be quite tough (?!) I got straight back up and carried on without looking at my knees....as you can see from the below picture at the end they were a little bloody but I still managed the following 15km in record time:

Thought I should follow that photo with a slightly nicer one of my patched up complete with finisher's medal below:

Have had a lovely weekend in Barcelona and am looking forward to being back here in July for the World Diving Championships (not performing but just hoping for a glimpse of Mr. Daley)!

Some pictures from the weekend....

City view:

Local door:

If you look hard enough you can see the nod to the Barcelona '92 Olympics below the bottles:

That's it until Rome next week!

Some nice Tweets from Team GB athletes (including an Olympic Gold Medalist) on my return congratulating me on my time: