Let me start by saying that I was asked here for a race logo, and the one I chose is not official but how can you choose anything other than the Colosseum? That dominates your experience. When you finish, you can say that you are an OFFICIAL GLADIATOR. After all, you are starting and finishing where the great athletes of Roman antiquity were most revered, and there are even gladiators in gear at the finish line ready to take a medal photograph with you. ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED!!!

My overall experience was a dream trip of a lifetime. My wife Lisa's father is from the Puglia region and she had not been to Italy since she was a little girl, so I told her this was her trip and just let me get my marathon thrill at the start of it. The race was wonderfully organized. The Expo is a bit farther from the race epicenter than I had expected -- 8 Metro subway stops to get there -- but once you are there it is an above-average expo with lots to enjoy. You sign a long autograph wall and there great photo opps, as well as a bib reader that displays your name/country on a monitor as if it's a leaderboard. Cool!

You arrive right next to Circus Maximus, and you are transfixed by the history of Julius Caesar's massive oval that still exists surprisingly in good shape. Bag check (they call it "Left Luggage") is very easy with a long row of trucks well-numbered. Then after a bad portapotty bottleneck, you herd your way past the sign that says "ENTRANCE ATHLETES" and you are staring at Colosseo. OMG -- that was the coolest moment of the whole race for me. You feel the spirit of the gladiators, and it makes for a nice race mantra: "Gladiators let nothing man or beast stand in their way of survival to another day. They destroyed anything in their way and survived. I will too." The start corrals were well-organized, sending runners off in three waves, which are featured on the overhead start board with the gun clock listed for each wave. You come upon an emperor statue (Augustus I think?) pointing in the proper direction to run, and then you are off. Now a word about this part...

The part I didn't like about this race was one of the most beautiful and classic/proud features to Romans: the Sampietrini stones. They are dark, cube-shaped paving stones laid long ago, and they represent 7% of the total course. That 7% is especially around the most famous landmark areas including the start/finish. They also are around St. Peter's Square, which you reach after 17K. These stones, while dramatically beautiful, are typically VERY undulating and they beat up your feet. By the last 5K my feet were on fire. I had ASICS GEL-Nimbus 18s, only a month old at the time -- as cushiony as I can get. I needed inserts, so I would recommend you GO HEAVY CUSHION for this race - priority. I don't want to overcomplain because we loved the sightseeing on those stones, but they are hellish to run on and one of the reasons I had my slowest marathon (mainly because of 3 months of respiratory problems). It's not a fast course. And we had perfect weather; the previous year was rainy, and those stones are famously slick when it rains so in bad weather it's a slower course. I'd reduce that 7% to even less if I were the race organizers.

The landmarks blow away any other marathon in the world except maybe for the NYC Marathon, which I'll be running a fourth time this fall. But of course for historic, breathtaking landmarks throughout a marathon course, nothing tops Rome. Not even Athens, not even close.

Beware very intensive elevation for the entire 28th K (roughly around there, give or take a K) as well as a really frustrating uphill TUNNEL in the last 5K for about a quarter-mile. I wasn't expecting that one and it basically killed whatever energy I had left. For the most part, the rest of the race was flat, and overall the non-paving-stone surface of the marathon is in really excellent shape.

A word about fluid stations. They are too infrequent, about every 5K. I meant to buy a new fuel belt with bottle capacity at the Expo, but I forgot. I relied on the fluid stations, and in the last 2K I actually left the course to ask a med staffer if they had a bottle of water I could take. But once you do get to their aid stations, they are among the best in the business. They are clearly marked with aqua, salt (their version of Gatorade, a little too sweet) and solid (bananas, orange sections...really great stuff!!!). I'll get it above-average for their aid stations but they lose points for infrequency. Give me one EVERY K or mile, please. It's not that big a deal and to me I need a ton of liquid out on the course. I ran into this problem at the 2012 Paris Marathon as well...is it a Europe thing?

Video cameras capture you just about every 5K, which I wish I had paid more attention to before the race (nothing like seeing yourself walking past a landmark!). Photos were way above average in terms of photog volume and choice. They take way too long to upload pics, though -- it was a week and a half for me to see them start to roll in. I had even done screengrabs of video just to get one early. Most good races get you some pics the day after the actual race these days.

The medal was sweet, and nothing can compare with holding it up for a selfie against the Colosseum as I did.

The race was our fourth day in Rome to start a 12-day journey in Italy. The Monday after the race, we rented a Volvo automatic at the airport (Thrifty, only 180 Euros for a week!), and my highlight was driving the Autostrada all over Southern Italy in the days thereafter. Our first stop was Matera, a village of caves called "Stassi" that was the "shame of Italy" in 1950 (then a 50% infant mortality rate) and yet now the comeback of the world because it is "sustainable" and now celebrating its choice as the 2019 Europe Culture Capital! We stayed at the awesome L'Hotel in Pietra, a cave hotel, and our unbelievable cave room featured a massive jacuzzi. Imagine recovering from the Maratona di Roma one day later in that jacuzzi in a cave, before enjoying a full-course feast and red wine at a cave restaurant. The thing about the Maratona di Roma is, it is part of a much bigger experience and by the time you return home you have just done something for yourself that is world-beating. So when you measure this marathon, measure it by its place within a trip to Italy. Amalfi Coast...olive gardens of Puglia...Matera caves...Rome...we just covered the southern half of Italy and we were blown away.

GRAZIE ITALIA! #AreYouNotEntertained