High tide in Venezia

Last weekend I travelled to Venezia to participate in Venice Orienteering Meeting. I thought it would be a good training for the WOC 2014 Sprint, that probably will be arranged in the east part of the city, and the race is also one of the most challenging and fun race I have been running. I have been participating in 2008, 2009 and 2010, with the results 1st, 2nd and DSQ, so I wanted to change the negative trend this year.

Saturday a open race was arranged in the area around the San Marco Square. I was choosing the longest course that was 5 km, so it was almost the double distance of a normal sprint race. I took it as a good training, without pushing too hard. The course was nice, but could have been more challenging. Results and splits

Sunday the traditional long distance race was arranged, with almost 4000 participants. In the early morning the tide was getting really high, and the organizers delayed the start one hour. When I was going to start as one of the first runners the water was still reaching to the middle of my legs in most of the streets, and over my knees on the middle of the San Marco Square. The organizers still decided to start people, but it was changed to free start time, so the time was taken from you did the start punching. They recommended the runners to take it easy, and walk where it was much water, and the elite runners to wait starting until the water had gone down.

But the race was unfortunately stopped by the police before half of the runners (and most of the best) in the mens elite class had started, due to that the early starting runners had been distracting the tourists and the locals trying to get the water out of their houses and shops. We where still able to get our maps, and I was running the course as a training (in 69 min), after the water had withdrawn from the streets. (In the splits I have got correct split times to all controls, except to the 1st one, where I have approx 3 h 30 min too long time, since the time is from I cleared my SI card before my original start time. The runners who got a time in the results started earlier then I did, when the conditions were worse due to the high water.) The course was really nice this year, so it was a pity the race was destroyed by the high tide. It was also perfect running conditions when I was doing my training, since it was not too much tourist in the streets. So if the organizer had just delayed the start some more hours I think it could have been a great event, but many would than probably not have been able to run before their planed travel home. Results and splits for the runners who were allowed to start, and had quite variable running conditions.

My pictures from Venezia gives a good impression about how it was in the city when the tide was high.

Politiet stoppet gateorientering i Venezia, orientering.no