San Geminiano

Yesterday was a holiday here in the city of Modena: San Geminiano, the patron saint of the city. Besides all the schools and public offices and stores being closed there are two events that celebrate the deacon saint. The first is a fair that covers every street of the city. On San Geminiano, always the 31st of January, you can buy anything and everything from street vendors that come for the event. The second is "La Corrida" which is a 13km footrace. This was my second "b" level race for the year and I have to say I'm very pleased with myself. First of all, my back is feeling better. About four days ago I noticed that something had changed, mainly that my gimpy left leg was no longer aching. Then I looked in the mirror and noticed that my shoulders aren't slumping to the right as much as they used to. Probably a 80% improvement there. This means that I'm more in balance and am probably able to use the left leg better when I'm running. The first two kms of the race were a stroll through the market, literally. There were about 5000 participants, a lot of UNtrained people up front blocking everything. I must have walked about half of the first mile. Finally we got passed the market, center of town and onto wider streets. I ran the whole way (yay!) and around the 7th km I passed a shorter big haired lady. I think she didn't like that 'cause after about five minutes I saw her pass me again but then she gave herself away. She look back at me. HA! I'm really good at letting people go but making sure that I'm close enough to them so I don't lose them. So I let her run herself crazy for two more kms and then I concentrated on picking up my turnover. I passed her again and just kept trying to run smoothly. Mission accomplished. Again, don't know what my timing was but my HRM read between 164/169 the whole race so whatever it was, the effort was there.
The best part of the day inviting FIVE women runners over to my house for tea and cupcakes afterwards. I know y'all in the anglosaxon countries are used to it but it's taken me twenty years of running to be able to have five women friends that run and race all in the same town. I made walnut cup cakes with molasses buttercream frosting. Congratulate me that I only ate one!

This morning I swam 2000 metres which felt really good for working out any residual muscle aches. Now I just have to get back on the bike...It's always something.