It’s been two days since I got back from Turin, and I’m still high on the feeling of running the marathon there. I smashed my personal best (by over 30 minutes!), ate a lot of very fine pizza, drank some wonderful wine and Lemonchello and enjoyed a great city under clear blue skies; what a great way to spend a mid-November weekend! I’ll speak about the actual marathon running experience later but first, here’s something about the race details and organisation. The event website (www.turinmarathon.it) is in English (and Italian, French or German) so finding out about the basics, such as how to register and what to expect from the route, was simple. The organisers also speak excellent English so any questions I had were answered easily by email. Talking of email, after we’d signed up for the race we received regular emails, about 6 or 7 in all over the months, detailing everything from how the medals looked to how to travel by public transport from Turin airport to the city centre to where online we’d find the race photography after the event. The only hassle I had was having to provide a medical certificate showing I was fit to compete, which my doctor charged me for (£12; lucky he didn’t actually have to examine me, that would’ve cost over £100!). That’s not the race organisers fault though, it’s just the Italian national athletic association rules (it’s the same in France ...