pickupthepacepaul

On 16th March 2025, I took part in Rome Marathon for the 4th time. On the 30th anniversary of Rome Marathon, the field more than doubled in size, with 28,000 runners signed up for the marathon. It was my 164th marathon (plus), and my 121st event as an official pacer (58 marathons). It was also my 99th Sub 4 marathon.

My family absolutely loves coming to Rome, it is one of our favourite places. But after 3 years in a row and other adventures planned, I decided to go for a quick trip with a friend and fellow pacer instead.

This year, with so many runners starting in Rome Marathon, we had a brand new course with a new finish line, a new route, and a new starting setup. Whilst the run started in 4 waves, the final wave was broken into two sections, so realistically, it was 5 waves. I was starting in the 5th wave, and there were overlapping pacers of 5 minute intervals. There are some narrow sections on the route, and I knew I would need to overtake a lot of pace groups from earlier waves, so I was nervous about this. However, I was pleasantly surprised, and in my experience, the start felt less congested and smoother than ever before. I started in the last wave, and there were double the number of runners as last year, but I was able to run each mile on pace without any delays.

Rome Marathon has one of the most beautiful race starts in the world. And certainly has more pacers than any other race I have ever taken part in.

When we got to our start time, we made our way to the start line. Each wave was more spaced out than normal, which meant more waiting around, but it certainly felt more organised than ever before. I was pacing 4:00 hours with Kimmie, and we have a huge group of runners with us.

From start to finish, we had a great time pacing Rome Marathon. Kimmie and I worked together well as a team and kept a really steady pace. We started over taking pacers after only 6 minutes, and first, we overtook the 5:30 pacers from wave 4. We must have overtaken 20 groups of pacers throughout the marathon. Mostly, this was painless. The pace group ahead stayed on the right, and we passed on the left. There were obviously a few areas that this was more difficult and some pace groups took up the whole road, but this didn’t cause any delays and it was nice to cheer each other on as we passed.

Being the fastest pacers in the last group, it meant we were not overtaken by anyone. We had a number of runners stay with us from start to finish and guided them through the beautiful course. It really was a great group of runners.

The finish area was so much better than normal. Because of the new setup, it meant there was space for a runners village, and it was easy to navigate and leave once finished. I already loved Rome Marathon, but I love it even more now. It was even better to finish in 03:59:42 achieving my time and 99th Sub 4 Marathon.

After years of being a sweaty mess after a race, I took my fussy roll on natural deodorant with me to smell fresh at the end of the day.