SRC in Milan

Report by Alexa

Friday 22^nd November 2019

Being a serious ‘affalete’ and all that, I started my Milano21 10k prep 2 days beforehand with a trip to the gym at 7am, just to ensure I got my strength and conditioning in. More to the point, I’d not done any real training for the event (insert excuse here_______) and I was more excited by the prospect of pizza, pasta and tiramisu!

Less than 4 hours later, Yvonne, Neal and I were on our way to Manchester airport where we negotiated car parks, security, duty free and boarding very simply and soon touched down in a very wet Milan; rather reminiscent of the Manchester we had just left! Emma and her husband Paul were also on the same flight and hotel, and a bus and a metro later, we checked in then found a small local café around the corner where the waitress understood a little English but not very much. I’m still impressed that I remembered “acqua” = water! Acqua naturale = still water if you’re not a fan of the sparkling stuff, and wine is even better (sparkling or still.)

Saturday 23^rd November 2019

Parkrun Rourism

Only Neal and I decided to try Milano Nord parkrun so we arranged to meet in reception at 8am. Thanks to an “alarm malfunction”, Neal finally made it downstairs at 8:10am just as I was composing a message on which metro to take and where to get off if he didn’t make it down soon. However, only minutes later we were on the metro and disembarked at the end-of-the-line Bignami station, which my phone indicated was about 10 minutes from the start line. A congregation of runners in a park before 9am on a Saturday morning is often a good indicator!

Obviously, I needed a cheesy tourist photo next to Milano’s official parkrun sign – it took me 7-and-a-half years to run 50 parkruns, and there I was at number 51 in Milan! We bumped into 2 Steel City Striders who had been on the same flight the day before: representing Sheffield between us. The course was very flat but the recent heavy rain had left some big puddles on the route, which had to be negotiated over 2 laps. 27:28 later and I’d just completed my first foreign parkrun.

Expo

Back to the hotel to change and we joined Yvonne, Emma and Paul to pick our race packs up from the expo which was about 10-15 minutes walk from the hotel, and next to the race start & finish lines. The expo was a big dark conferencing space with some stalls in it, but we collected our race bags & numbers from one desk, and t-shirts from another. Italian sizing is quite small but they let us hold up the t-shirts to gauge if they would fit or not. The official race bag contained tons of stuff! Wandering around the expo, we tried espresso (Yvonne found it a little strong!!) and I acquired another bag and a stress reliever?!?

Il Duomo

Race packs safety back at the hotel, we ventured into central Milan with the first stop being Il Duomo. The system just to get into the cathedral was overly complicated – as if they didn’t actually want visitors there – but 3 queues later we were in the huge entrance doors gazing up at the architecture and stained-glass windows (or perhaps that was just me?)

As we reached the apse of the cathedral, Emma received a text from Easyjet to say our return flight on Monday was cancelled. A quick discussion ensued but there’s not much we could do inside the world’s third biggest cathedral, and other priorities such as lunch were calling (it now being around 2:30pm.) We found one of the outdoor cafés – basically a greenhouse in the middle of the street – where everyone else had sensible meals like lasagne, and I had a sweet Buddha bowl with banana chips, nuts and coconut yoghurt. Ulterior motive: I’d discovered there was a Venchi shop nearby that sold very nice and very expensive chocolate and persuaded everyone to humour me for 5 minutes while I bought some of the said very-expensive chocolate.

We wandered into a very busy Galleria Vittorio Emmanuele to gaze up at the Swarovski-sponsored Christmas tree before getting back on the metro to Szorfesco Castle. I could tell you the history of the castle, but Lonely Planet does a much better job here. Dusk was approaching so we only saw a small part of it before it got dark, so we went back to the hotel where we spent an hour sorting alternative flights for Monday. Easyjet had rang us to say “book another flight and send us your receipts”; basically, you’re on your own! Once sorted, we met up for a pre-race meal at a small local pub that served pizza and chips. Carb-loading Italian-pub style!

Sunday 24^th November

Race Day!

The rain that had barely ceased since our arrival (my new catchphrase on Saturday became “f***ing umbrellas”), finally abated somewhat as Jane joined the rest of us and we made our way to the start. The race instructions said the bag drop closed at 8:50am but we joined 100s of other runners who’d not read that bit either. Yvonne wasn’t running after advice by her physio so she went to find herself a decent spot at the side of the road near the finish while I headed to the worst portaloos I’ve ever been in. Usually I’d be stressing still being in the queue at 9:27am when the race started at 9:30am (perhaps that’s what the stress reliever was for?), but we were in Italy and it was guaranteed to start late (which it did!) The course was very busy until the “split” where the HM runners turned left and the 10k runners carried straight on, and from the busyness of the first 5k, suddenly the 10k felt tranquil as I ran an out-and-back section in front of Sforzesco Castle.

“I can do this”

Past 4 miles I started to tire but I was over halfway and with the 10k route being less busy, I was actually speeding up. I developed a mantra at this point that I kept repeating to myself and it must have worked as I then ran my quickest mile of the day. I finished so fast that Yvonne didn’t have time to get her phone out after spotting me on the final straight! 54:12 – the exact same time as my last 10k; at least running less and eating lots of food remains consistent. I collected my medal, a poncho (it was raining again), a bottle of water and a small panettone (only in Italy!) and after entering the expo to collect my bag, there were many more stalls than the previous day where I picked up even more items to add to the race haul! I found Yvonne and Paul (Paul had also run the 10k) and waited inside until we reckoned Emma and Neal were due to finish in the next 10 minutes and headed out back into the rain again. Emma ran a PB of 1:54:07 and Neal wasn’t far behind in 1:55 – sadly his chip malfunctioned so his result shows his gun time and chip time being the same.

The Last Supper

Sunday evening Jane and her daughter joined us and we went back to the same pub as the night before. I had another delicious pizza (I’m sure my body composition by now was 50% pizza) and the Italian version of French fries, which weren’t French at all, but a cut above your standard food fare. It being our last supper together, I decided to toast it with that Italian beverage of grappa which burned somewhat and would be much improved with a soft drink! Then we said our last goodbyes as we were taking different routes home.

Monday 25^th November 2019

Extra time

Thanks to “flight issues” Yvonne, Neal and I discovered via Lufthansa’s rather cool chatbot that we would be travelling back to Manchester via Frankfurt in the evening, leaving us at least 4 hours of extra time in Milan. We went back to see Il Duomo in the sun (it had finally appeared) and another trip to the expensive chocolate shop – some of the SRC runners may have found a new addition thanks to my bad influence! We also went back to see the castle and walked through Parco Sempione to Milan’s version of the Brandenburg Gate (Arco della Pace = Arch of Peace), before saying goodbye to Milan and heading off to the airport. SRC trips are always a good laugh and if you appreciate your food and architecture too, Milan is a great place to visit (just beware Italian air-traffic controllers going on strike!)