The Pisa DNS

I was at Heathrow Terminal 5 to drop my luggage for my flight to Pisa, when I scanned my boarding pass and saw “wrong terminal” on the luggage belt screen. It felt like all forces of the universe were against me. Well, that is a tad dramatic. What I did think was, where to go with my self anger. Why did I not double check the terminal? There was not enough time to go from Terminal 5 to 3, since the underground only ran in erratic ways that morning and did not offer trains to Heathrow but had rather stopped at Hatton Cross. So I had to take an Uber from Hatton Cross to T5, the British Airways terminal. All BA flights had been going from here since I can remember. I had then to wait 20 minutes at the automated bag drop. Not sure if that is normal for such a short queue, I almost never check-in luggage, but wanted to make an exception this time to have the option for bringing Christmas shopping home. And now it turned out that my BA Pisa flight went from Terminal 3.

I got immediate assistance from friendly BA staff: I am indeed too late, they are already boarding (I had still an hour!). But I can of course rebook. Wait, no, not today, but tomorrow. But it’s £600, after deducting £50 for my missed flight. But I could go to Rome, or Milan is nice! What about Venice!? My BA assistant was sweet and compassionate, but he did not know that there was a marathon to run and what it means to me as a runner to have my first DNS (did not start) in my marathon record. No! Not after all the booking and re-booking of ever more illustrious COVID tests. Since we are in the middle of an Omicron wave and both, the UK and Italian government, just changed the rules the day before, it resulted in some additional logistic complexities.

My head was spinning: Rome, Florence, Venice? 3-hour train rides to Pisa? Feasible? Not when you arrive late at night. Flight next day? That would mean yet another COVID test, which had been hard to arrange the day before, when I had just learned that Italy reduced the acceptance of lateral flow tests from 48 to 24 hours. This whole Pisa last-minute trip seemed to become more and more a nightmare: the UK now wants me to quarantine until my 2-day PCR test is done, which can take several days. Plus lateral flow test before you enter British soil. I felt close to a nervous breakdown. I then realised that I just don’t want to accept failure. I failed. Terribly. Rookie-mistake not checking the terminal. And I don’t give me slack for it and just say: Ok then, that means my first marathon DNS. Try to learn from it and move on. And that is exactly what I then did. I decided not to do this, accepted I cannot run, even cancelled my hotel and went on my way home.

This is how the story could have ended. So how come I did run it in the end?

Once I hit the couch, I started envisioning the new agenda for the weekend. Beside more time for family and friends it felt a bit empty. I tried to welcome the emptiness, when a friend Whatsapped me and did not accept that Pisa was over. YOLO, he educated me… I had to read it up. I am not street. Once I knew what it meant, it felt like a permission to do the unreasonable. I checked non-BA flights for next day. Still available for a reasonable price. Flow test: one slot available around Oxford Circus – 20 minutes tube. Planned tube strike: the flight was not super early, which would leave for a buffer. Almost remote controlled I booked the flight, additional test, got another test kit for re-entering the UK, and then the PCR 2-day thing. Oh, and I phoned the hotel, and they reversed the cancellation just like that. So, all was set.

From then everything unfolded like clockwork: Still a bit of time with family on Friday, off to Gatwick on Saturday, landed in Pisa without further hiccups, found my hotel which turned out to be just at the start line of the marathon (a first for me!) and gave me a room with view on the Pisa Cathedral and Leaning Tower. It felt like a dream.

The dream continued: I literally rolled out of bed to the start line, not having to travel, schedule or plan anything else. The crowd was as great as I remembered it from 8 years ago – not to large, not too small, and with just the right level of enthusiasm. Off we went: a lovely few kilometres through Pisa, along historic buildings, crossing the river and with the mild morning sun in our faces. The route continues through calming countryside all way down to the seafront. It was exactly how I remembered it 8 years ago, when I did my first sub 3:30 marathon here. Back then I stuck to the 3:30 pacer team, and they were great. I believe it was the first and only time, that pacers worked for me. This time I boldly tried to stay around the sub 4:00 hours team. If you had told me in summer I will run a sub-4 marathon in 2021, when the longest distance I was able to do was 15k and even that not in a marathon pace of under 4 hours, I wouldn’t have believed it. Heck, I still don’t. But I did it. And the pace felt alright, and the pacer team was great and everything just seemed to fall in place.

Around half marathon distance an elderly guy (probably my age) talked to me, saying I would run a great consistent pace and he had been sticking to me for a while. Really? I were not aware, but yes, I did feel quite in the zone (up to that point when someone makes you aware of it, I guess). But it was a welcomed distraction, which continued when I ran along another guy from the Italian part of Switzerland, and we talked about Locarno and how much I loved it, and that he was the part of the race organisation and now I learned why they only do a half marathon, after having tried a full one for some years. Simple, just not enough people signed up. I call it a marketing mishap. Anyway, I continued running, slowed a little bit down, but had enough extra minutes to play with to finish in under 4!

The final kilometre was the hardest, but also the most fun. Back, running through small streets of Pisa, to where the tower is, with a good crowd cheering and encouraging you. I took my phone out and went live on Instagram, made sure I get a nice view of the tower and the cathedral and of the finish line clock, that clearly showed at 3-fifty-something time just before crossing it. I got the medal, goody bag and friendly vibes all around, collapsed on the lawn before the cathedral and was still not quite sure if that was all for real.

Well, the video and pictures document it, if I am ever doubting. This was the first marathon, where I decided not to start – where I accepted the first DNA in my running record. Yet, it came all different. And not only different, but in such an uplifting, encouraging and impossible sub-4-hours way. It feels, the crucial bits were not down to what I did. Of course, I played some part, but hey, I had decided to let it go. Weird how things sometimes turn out. I’ll try not to overthink it and am just grateful for yet another against the odds great marathon experience. Thank you!