Venice 2010

[Mrs H]

Looking forward to it already - hope they have a better T shirt next year

[madmike]

They are better than our technical t-shirts, which have just arrived from the printers with an extra X.

XXXX1st MOV vice XXX1st

Still I suppose we can put them in cupboard for next 10 years........

And to (mis) quote Becks before Jukola:

sono proprio eccitato

[Tatty]

We're the same Mrs H. Roll on next year.

[Becks]

And to (mis) quote Becks before Jukola:

sono proprio eccitato

You what?! I'm just excited? Io non parlo italiano. Or something.

[madmike]

not bad Becks but Io is superfluous

I'm proper excited (idomatic useage!)

[mallory]

Live results at: http://www.orivenezia.it/

[awk]

Well, really enjoyed that!! Very different style to last year, but just as much fun in its own way: less emphasis on route choice, more on finding the way, with lots (and lots!) of micro decisions. Loved every second of it, and am glad to have run M45 to get my money's worth - one of the few races I would ever do that for. Venice was as fabulous as ever (it was good fun too reading one of the Inspector Brunetti series whilst in the city).

The race to get the train north from Kings Cross was even more adrenaline pumping: aside from having to hire a water taxi in Venice having missed the water bus (exciting stuff!), the lateness of the plane into Gatwick meant a mad dash for the London train (just caught OK), an even more heartstopping moment when we found that the Tube had all but closed down out of Victoria (at least as far as Kings Cross was concerned), and jumping on the train with less than 90 seconds to spare after a taxi journey where we convinced for 90% of the way that it was going to be utterly futile (I've never seen so many traffic lights go red)! All that training in Venice definitely paid off!!

I still don't understand why there are no decent weekend flights from and to the north of England. OK out of Leeds-Bradford on Saturday, but sweet nothing on Sunday.

[madmike]

Awesome weekend.

Got back using water taxi, bus, coach, aircraft and finally the car from Gatwick having been via Verona

Awk -how many decisions were there on the way from 11 to 12 on M45? and did you go generally to the right?

some awesome first legs as well on some of the W courses

Roll on next year

[mallory]

My daughter and her friend finished on Elite, caught a water bus to airport, flew to East Midlands and back home (following detour to Sheffield) at 7pm for Sunday dinner! Very organised 18yr-olds

[paul]

Flying back Sunday night would have been the best plan in hindsight. Venice(MarcoPolo) was taken out by strike action today so it wasn't ideal journey to have to be bussed 3 hours to go via Bologna...

Epic courses though - see http://doma.olc-wienerwald.at/show_map. ... ik&map=154 for the Mens Elite. Most courses had at least one butterfly loops (I had 2 and half) meaning that you were kept in the detailed central areas rather than having a break touring the quieter less detailed outskirts.

[Spookster]

We had a 4-hour delay on the trip out on Friday (technical fault on the bmibaby aircraft). Then today's return looked like it was going to be even worse, as 90% of the flights out of Venice were cancelled or diverted. Not bmibaby though, which took off 15 minutes early and got us back to East Midlands 25 minutes early.

Excellent weekend. It's a pity the courses won't go up on Routegadget, because that would be really interesting, if only just to measure the "Rialto or Academia?" route choice options.

[awk]

My daughter and her friend finished on Elite, caught a water bus to airport, flew to East Midlands and back home (following detour to Sheffield) at 7pm for Sunday dinner! Very organised 18yr-olds

Yes, we thought about the East Midlands route, but the timings were too tight. Just as well really - there's no way we would have made that flight, however organised.

Awk -how many decisions were there on the way from 11 to 12 on M45? and did you go generally to the right?

Yes - to the right. Although there was nothing in it distance-wise compared to the left hand route (via the Frari), I reckoned the streets would be quieter (and wider!). It also involved a lot less decision making once you had spotted the route, although there were still a couple of alternatives, as found out when comparing routes with others afterwards.

BTW, reckon I ran a tad under 12kms for the 7.3k course, i.e. 1km straight line = 1 mile on the ground.

[binman]

Awk -how many decisions were there on the way from 11 to 12 on M45? and did you go generally to the right?

I took the RH line as well - possibly the highlight moment of the race making this choice. Everything else seemed to be straightforward although 15-16 gave me pause for thought once I'd overcome my dizziness from getting out of 15! Considered taking the tourist route through the Plaza but opted for an option closer to the line (almost wrote 'straight-line' then but that's certainly not possible in Venice!).

How many decision points? No idea but far more in my 73 minutes-worth than 730 of forest-O - discuss?

First time Venice O experience and it was brill - hope to come back next year without a heavy cold and dodgy hamstring and give it some serious stick!

BTW, I calculate approx. 90 seconds of mistakes (assuming 11-12 was neutral N or S) - is this typical?

[awk]

BTW, I calculate approx. 90 seconds of mistakes (assuming 11-12 was neutral N or S) - is this typical?

Always hard to calculate precisely how much time lost, due to nature of race: when is it time lost and when is it making sure you're going the right way?! I reckon on two 5 metre overshoots at junctions, one 10-15 second recovery when lost map contact whilst trying to plan ahead, and one route choice that might have been slower than optimum (depending on how many tourists were on the street, marked as potentially busy, that I avoided). Aside from that, I reckon it was all in the physical, as had a really clean run technically. I was therefore surprised to record my slowest mins/km over the 4 races I've done, but think that was due to the higher proportion of the race than normal in the narrow alleys. Or I may just be slower than I thought!

[madmike]

BTW, reckon I ran a tad under 12kms for the 7.3k course, i.e. 1km straight line = 1 mile on the ground.

Yes soundsabout right, Roger T had 11.6 or 11.7 Km on his GPS gadget afterwards.