Day 103 – EU – Italy [Pisa to Fucecchio]

04/06/20

38km

  From Pisa (Italy) to Fucecchio (Italy)

Europe

How sweet to be back on the road – Freedom and the open road at last!

Nearly 3 months have passed since I made my way to Pisa, on 10th March, on what had been my longest day on the road. I was getting comfortable, back then, and started to get a sense that I could run longer days. I had gone through some adaptation phase and my body had become quite resilient.

Well… It’s not all lost, but I got to be patient and let my body get used again to the daily regimen of marathon running! Today’s conditions were ideal for a re-start. Temperatures oscillating between 15-20 degrees Celsius, light rain and a pancake flat course.

I found my legs as soon as I hit the road, overwhelmed with joy and a sense of freedom that was very empowering and exhilarating. I was as excited as a child about to start school again!

I will have to slow down tomorrow and watch that my excitement doesn’t translate into speedier runs. Today was my fastest run of the World Run, at a sub 6mn per km pace. It would not be alarming in the context of standard training, but in the view of a 2 years+ journey of marathons and pushing 30kgs, I have to keep my pace at a sustainable level – even when it “”feels”” totally fine.

Today I started my way across Italy, cutting West to East towards Ravenna. The road will take me across the Apennine Mountains range over the next few days. Tomorrow is another fairly flat run towards Florence. Then things will get serious.

I will cross the Tuscan-Emilian Apennines, which is way up North from the Abruzzi Apennines that I had originally intended to cross. Abruzzi being the homeland of John Fante, one of my favourite writers, I had been looking forward to a little pilgrimage around the places I read about in his books. So long. I am sure the new route will be as beautiful and full of surprises though, so no regrets to be had 🙂

How sweet the taste of freedom, how essential to our wellbeing and how utterly disheartening to be deprived of it.

Check my daily run GPS data on or

Here is the map of today’s run: