PART ONE: I have to begin this post by telling the events of Saturday night. We went to eat at Paul’s barber’s house, Francesco. The group gathered at this ridiculously nice apartment overlooking the sea consisted of Paul, me, Francesco and his wife, Claudia (who is American), and Giuseppe and his wife Silvia, friends of Francesco and Claudia. Since they live about 20 minutes out of Naples and we have no car, Francesco took us and we were to spend the night at his house. We arrived at about 9 but did not start eating the enormously large T-bones until 11. That would be 11 p.m. folks. Now, considering I was running my first 5K the next morning, this was a pretty hefty meal. But, not wanting to be rude, I ate most the the delicious T-bone. Around 1 a.m. I had to go to bed, so Paul and I excused ourselves and went to sleep. The others, however, stayed up until 4 A.M.!! We awoke the next morning and Francesco, bless his heart, drove us back to the city and dropped us off at the race.
PART TWO: This was my first 5K and I was pumped. I showed up and had no idea where to go or if I needed to do anything other than stand around and wait for the warm-up time. After asking around I figured out that I just had to stand around and wait for the warm-up time, which was…well, I could have warmed-up better alone. Afterwards, I just followed the mass of women (did I mention this was a race for women) to the starting line, thinking, “I’ll just go where they go” because if you think trying to understand a different language is hard, try doing it as people are talking over a microphone with loud music in the background. So, as my adrenaline started pumping I made my way with the other women to the starting line and waited….and we were off!! After making my way through the mass of women I finally got in my stride. I fought back the temptation to go faster when I was passed and kept to my pace. Going through the last stretch, which was up a hill, I thought “This is crazy!” But then I saw the finish line and I picked it up a little. As I neared the end I got really excited…and then a 12 year old girl came breezing past me! WHAT!!! I did not even see her coming. A 12 year old beat me by mere seconds. Here’s some humble pie, want seconds?? I finished with an unofficial time of 26 minutes and 12 seconds. Not bad.
PART THREE: After the race Paul and I had to walk to the bus. We could not take the metro because I conveniently left my metro pass at home and we had NO money. So we walked to the bus stop and got on a bus. Turns out the bus had already gone to our stop. Apparently buses here don’t go around and around in circles. When they get to the end of the line, you gotta get off. So we get on another bus to take us back to where the race was, walk back down to the bus stop (this is my third time to go down this street, so I am getting so know it really well.)and wait for the bus that finally takes us home 2 1/2 hours later.
Ran a 5K in less than 40 minutes, got to see parts of the city I didn’t know, and I got to eat a T-bone. All is a couple days work.