Five in Five

The Five in Five Epilogue entry

2009-04-18T17:09:00.000-07:00

Last november after I had finished NYCM I was thrilled to be running marathons again. After the two year layoff with my back and rehabilitation I wasn't always really sure that I would be able to ever run for long distances again. But here I had finished a marathon and was already planning the next. The first thing I thought of was of course how to improve. The next thing that came to mind was my weight. The "five" in fiveinfive. When I started this blog over four years ago it was only supposed to last the amount of time that it would take me to take off five kgs...and it's been four years. I knew that if I wanted to run smoother I had to take five kilos off and get back to my old weight. I didn't know if I could do it. During my FiveinFive battle I had taken the weight off once, but it didn't last for more than a month. Now I was (am) in menopause my metabolism had changed and it seemed impossible for me to lose any weight. But I made a deal with myself: I would go back to the dietician and have her follow me for awhile. If by going on a diet regime that she put me on she concluded that THIS was my new weight and that my metabolism had slowed down and that this was a good weight for me, I would make peace with it and I would not worry about my weight for one more minute.

Plus, I had this wacky theory. I don't know if it can be scientifically proved, but here it goes: my back problems originate from a 30% slip in my L5. I also have a pretty pronounced lordosi. This, I think , comes from the fact that when I gain weight it is mostly in my hips and in order to counterbalance that weight, I shift my posture. Less weight, no posture shift, less back pain and better running.

NOVEMBER 10, 2008
The dietician is the same doctor that has seen me for the last eight years. The first time I went to her was in 2001 when I was preparing a 2km/66km/14km triathlon. Oddly enough I had just turned forty and had gone through my first metabolic shift. I'd gained weight and couldn't drop it no matter how much I tried. I followed the eating plan that she gave me and lost every ounce I needed to. But I didn't keep it up and after the season was over I gained the weight back. The next time I saw her was a few year later when I had miscarried and then still had some weight hanging on from the interuppted pregnancy. Again, I took some weight off but then didn't follow through. This time it had to be different. I told her that I was frustrated in not being able to lose weight on my own no matter how much I tried but that I was willing to accept this to be my weight if she came to the same conclusion. One thing that was really important to me was not so much the losing of the weight as much as the maintenance. Whatever weight I lost, I wanted to work on maintainence so that I wasn't constantly going up and down. I wanted that part of the whole weight experience to be done and over with for me. I know how to lose weight, I have become an expert at it over the years. What I don't always know how to do is maintain the weight I do lose.

The other important incentive for me behind losing weight was also in my athletic endeavors. I spend so much of my time running or biking or swimming and now doing yoga. It seemed silly for me to not feel in my best shape in order to get an even more positive experience during my races.

She wrote me out a regular diet and when I looked at it at first I said "I'm going to gain weight with this, it's too much." She assured me that it was approximately 1500 calories and that it was the least amount she could give me. She added in more calories on days that I worked out more. I decided then and there that SHE was in charge. I totally put the responsability onto the doctor rather than myself. Whether I gained or lost was not MY problem, it was hers. My responsability was to follow the diet and see how my body reacted.

A week later I came back for my first visit and was surprised when I saw that I had lost 1,4 kg. Part of the whole "the responsability is hers, not mine" was in not weighing myself at home. All I had to do in our "experiment" was to follow the exact instructions of the diet. Weighing in was not my problem, it was hers. I know I've said this twice but it is a really important point for me. I had become too emotionally involved with whether the scale went up or down rather than looking at it as a physiological consequence. I would think it was my "fault" or my "merit". Not weighing in helped me concentrate on just eating well rather than worrying if my weight was up or down.

As the weight came off my running started to feel smoother and I felt SO light, like I was flying...which I wasn't, but just the fact that I didn't feel like I was nailed to the ground made me want to run even more. By Christmas I had taken off all 4 kgs Byt the end of January I was down 6, 5 kgs total = 14 lbs. Now came the hard part: maintenance.

ME and MY HISTORY

I distinctly remember the first time I started using food for comfort. It was my first year in high school. I had a totally sucky family life (in one sentence: my mom had died in a car accident two years before, my father (an alcoholic) had remarried to a younger women who split after a year, then quickly gotten together with a new woman who had two children that moved in, my sister had just moved out and I was going through puberty...good enough?) . I had made friends with a girl named Stephanie. After school we would walk downtown (really small town), hang out and eat. Mostly cookies and ice cream and tiger-milk bars and baklava. I remember getting really sick on the Baklava...too sweet. I found solice in the food and I remember that everything started to get tight and I didn't care. I would bake cakes and eat them all by myself. I would ride my bike (my only transportatin) twenty miles just to go to a certain pastry shop and gorge on sweets. I was also physically active. Lots of biking and running and surfing and hiking. That kept me from getting too big and sort of kept me in check. But the overeating and getting totally sick from all the sugar was something I did for many years. Years and years. I've never gotten too big for two reasons. The first of course was the physical activity. I've always LOVED to move and walk and hike and if my eating got too out of hand I would calm it down and lose the pounds. The other is that I did have a little vanity in me somewhere. I liked to feel and look pretty and that also helped in not letting it spin too far out of control. But it has always been there , present and waiting in the background. In the past few years it's almost come to a halt, but it was still a habit that definately kept me from achieving my best weight for me. No fiveinfive for me unless I could get a handle on it.

With the diet the dietician gave me I had a few food outlets. Once a week I could eat pizza and once a week I could eat a dessert. Holidays I had free reign for the day. These were the occasions where I learned my most important lesson. That I could blow it once, or overeat, or eat the wrong thing or whatever...but that the next hour, the next day, I was back to my eating plan. The eating plan gives me a lot of stability and comfort. Five meals a day - three main meals plus two snacks. It's very balanced and healthy and I've been able to loosely stick to it in any social situation. I've never had to say "no thanks, I'm on a diet". I eat a little bit of whatever is put in my plate, match it mentally to what I should be eating and go from there.
Staying on an eating plan also helped me realize the times that I am searching for something to eat when I'm not hungry or when I've already finished my meal. It's usually a sign that something is wrong (I'm nervous, I'm worried) and so far I've been able to stop and ask myself "what is it that you're really looking for?" It's also a regime that I've been able to use to my advantage in training. I've had no problems in adapting it to whatever training volume I had in any given week, marathons included.

I track my weight once a week and I've stayed within a two pound range now for four months. This is huge for me. I don't think I have ever in my life been at the same LOW weight for more than a month or so. I feel 1000% confident that not only will I be able to maintain, but that I'll be able to continue to change the body fat/muscle percentage with time.

Thus ends the Five in Five story. I hope you've enjoyed it (whoever you are out there!).
I still want to blog but with a emphasis on my new positive outlook. Or may it's my "old" positive outlook...yep, it's always been there :-)

http://pensiero-positivo.blogspot.com/

Here, above (look up!) is new blog!

Paris III

2009-04-14T12:20:00.000-07:00

Until I get the photo thing understood I'll just have to post a few photos...so, I was saying...the first 2 kms were great because, besides having to dash around the tourists that had invaded the course, I was pretty much by myself. Then around 3km I met up with the tail of the race. For the next 10km it was a question of trying to get around every walker or slow slow runner in the group. There were a lot. At 5km we had our first refreshments and then a HUGE traffic jam because there was a ...turn in the rode. Like a 90° turn had us waiting in line for about 5 minutes to get past it. On the rest of the route I found:

- Some cancer organization that decided to have 10 runners carry a banner that crossed the course. You couldn't get passed them and they jammed up a huge part of the race. I was finally able to weave my way around them but...who gave these idiots permission to do that? I assume no one.

- The Beaujolais marathon carried a wooden wine keg on wheels for the entire race. They also insisted that they had the right of way and would yell at anybody blocking their path. Then they'd stop, rest, switch places and continue. I was able to ditch them at 30km.

- All the water and refreshment stations carried half liter bottles of water that would get sipped from and then THROWN on the ground. I was aimed at twice and struck. They also serverd sliced oranges and bananas WITH peels with no place to throw them so everyone threw them on the ground. I was able to keep my balance but I saw a few nasty spills.

I finished in 4h41'16". What makes me upset the most was my attitude in the last k's. Usually I'm happy happy happy, but I was just ready to get back to the hotel. l learned a lot from the experience however so go me...Piero miraculously was able to spot me in the crowd in the last 100 metres. I don't know how he does that.

We had a beautiful group dinner in a gorgeous restaurant that evening. Then the next day Piero and Evan and I took a long, long walk around Paris. It truly is one of the most beautiful cities in the world.

Paris II

2009-04-13T11:23:00.001-07:00

The morning of he marathon I woke up at 5.30, dressed and went down to breakfast. After I was finished I went back up to our room to gather up Evan and Piero who were coming with me and the group to the start. Piero was going to be taking care of my friend Patrizia's son while she ran the race. Meeting spot was l'Arc de Triumph.

I waited around for Patrizia for as long as I could, but the clock was ticking so I decided to go deliver my sack and then come back to the meeting spot. Piero and Evan were staying put to make sure they got Gabriele. I ran this race in 1998 and then again in 1999 back when there were 20.000 entrants. This year they had 32.000 entrants and it was mayhem. Totally un and disorganized. They had this fence up blocking to where we were supposed to deliver our bags with one little tiny opening for thousands of runners to get in AND get out. Our group was able to get in, deliver our bags but then we decided to exit another way and take a side street to the start. Good move on our part since we then heard that the crowds tore down the fence when they start to have a deadlock...very dangerous.

I found Piero and Evan again. Gabriele was with them but Patrizia was now back where we had just left our sacks. I waited around until two minutes to start and then left without her. By this time there was no way to get into my assigned "cage" so I thought "heck, I've got a chip, I'll just line up in the back!" Oh my God, what a mistake...I also had to pee really bad so I waited in line for that too. When I came out everybody was gone...gone! I had the whole Champs D'Elysee to myself to run down. I spotted Piero and Evan as I ran the the Avenue running the first km...

(Hi, I'm going crazy here posting more than one photo at a time. Every time I insert a photo it puts it at the top and not in the part of the story where I want it. If anybody knows what I'm doing wrong please let me know and I can continue with tons of photos...Part III when I get it solved!)

Paris I

2009-04-08T15:55:00.000-07:00

I thought Paris was going to be this wonderful, relaxing vacation weekend. It was...sort of...and if any part of it wasn't it was totally my fault. I accepted a speaking engagement for my book on the evening before we were to fly from Bologna to CDG airport. On paper it always looks easy, but the reality meant me being in Milan at 8.00 p.m. - finishing at 11.00 p.m. and getting home at 2.00 a.m. ----- I then set my alarm for 4.00 a.m. and plane take off was at 7.15 a.m.

I can get by on little sleep, but this was too much. The first thing we did was take Evan to Eurodisney and we got there at about 12.30 p..m. after dropping off our luggage at the hotel and taking a few metros left and right to get across the city. Here's a lovely picture of me in line getting crepes to eat. When I'm sleep deprived I just take any any minute I can to relax and catch up. It helps and allows me not to completely fall apart.

Evan's favourite ride was the cars. He couldn't believe that they let him actually drive! The accelerator was a little difficult for him to work so he asked me to do that for him...By the way, when I was a small girl this too was my favorite ride at Disneyland in L.A.

On thinking positive

2009-03-30T02:18:00.000-07:00

Last week after I was on the national radio show to talk about my book, I stopped by the offices of the running magazine I work for to pick up a stock of my books. I went into the editing room to say hello to my collegues. They were every excited about the book, my main editor even talked about it becoming an editorial "case". He asked me how many books I hoped to sell. I really have no idea, it's nothing I ever thought about while I was writing it. I thought it was already such a miracle that I even finished it. One thing is for sure: I would have never started or finished without the insistence of the magazine owner. He pushed, pushed and pushed...for years. Selling them is just the icing on the cake. But as we got into the final stages I could see that the book had shaped into something special and that maybe I WOULD be able to sell a few of them. For all you "foreign" readers, please remember that Italy is not a large country. A total population of 60 million, not many runners. Selling 5000 copies would already be a big triumph for them. But I believe in positive affirmations and I certainly don't believe in "fitting" in to any statistics.

I told him I hoped to sell 100,000 copies.

He laughed. Then he asked, no, really, how many copies do you want to sell.

I replied 100,000.

Later in the week we exchanged emails where I tried to explain my point of view.
If I aim low, I will settle for low numbers. If I aim high I might not get to the top, but at least I have a better chance of getting there.
He quite enphatically told me that I had to come back to earth and stop dreaming. He told me that I had to adjust my expectations, that not even (very-well-known-trainer-in-Italy-who-wrote-a-book-a-few-years-ago) sells a fraction of that number of copies. Plus, the book doesn't go into mainstream bookstores, only specialized ones or by request.

Well, I'm not him. I am me. I am different. I have no idea the number of copies I am going to sell but I sure as hell am not going to conform to someone elses selling numbers. Besides, I have a different audience than the marathon group. This is a book for women, and when we want to, we show up in droves. You just wait and see!

A question for the girls

2009-03-23T03:55:00.000-07:00

This weekend I presented my book at the Rome Marathon. We sold out all the copies brought to the expo by the afternoon! Unexpectedly, it's being bought by a lot of men who want to convince their wives and companions to run with them.
The big question that everybody is asking me is if I plan on publishing it in english. Apart from the fact that I'd have to find a publisher in the States or U.K., I don't know if it's translatable or if there's a market for yet ANOTHER women's running book. On my behalf I can say that my training technique is different, even for beginners. I just don't know if my articles would translate well in english. So I thought I'd ask y'all! Can you give me an opinion? Should I translate a central chapter (chapter four?) and then have you look at it and let me know? Any, all suggestions are welcome.

I'm running the Paris Marathon in 2 weeks so yesterday I needed to do a longer run. I got two free entries and invited my friend Patrizia to run with me (she's coming to Paris too!). We decided on 30km constructed like this: 6 x (1km walk/3km @ marathon pace/1km @ half marathon pace). That worked out really well; fun, relaxing, easy. The only problem was the wind and cold. It looks sunny in the photos but it's really in the low 50's. Here we are at the 20km mark with the Vatican in the background. The pope was giving mass and we could see the maxi screen as we ran by!

The calm before...

2009-03-12T11:32:00.000-07:00

The book should be arriving in my hands tomorrow. In the meantime I'm getting ready for the first big presentation in Rome next Saturday. Everybody in the running world knows this book is coming out and I've started to get reservations for other book presentations. The first one, without the book, was in Trieste. I love Trieste. From my house it takes about 3 and a half hours to drive there - which is where I had to go on Saturday. I had the family stay home since I knew that it was going to be a long drive up, a quick presentation (one hour) and then the long drive back. I really like driving by myself. I listen to audiobooks and music that I can keep putting the same CD on over and over again. From Venice up to Trieste you don't really see the water until you actually get to the city...and then you get this beautiful shot of water. I stopped the car and took a picture (above). It just took my breath away. I want warm weather SO much...

R O 2 0 0 9

2009-03-09T06:36:00.000-07:00

I signed up for the Roma Ostia Half Marathon at the last minute. I love Rome, not so crazy about the half marathon course. It starts out nice: downhill! But then up and then down. And then up again. And it's a straight shot from Rome to Ostia. No curves, no real interesting monuments to see, just straight ahead. Added to this is that the weather, or rather wind factor, plays a big part of the experience. One year we ran against the wind and all posted a PW. The next year we had the wind at our backs and had our best best race. This year when we started the sky was grey. Not threatening rain, but grey and heavy. Oh, I forgot: the thing that makes me come back every year? I get to see my Girls...

The other reason I like this race is because the temps are higher in Rome and you can feel spring in the air. Except that Sunday. The sky started to get darker and darker as race time was nearing. We did our annual pre-race photo next to the bathrooms before the start...

I was really excited to run this year. It wasn't like the last two years where I had back problems and THIS was my clue race. This was a stepping stone for Paris next month. I'd also done something I need to blog about but haven't had time. Since NYCM I've lost 13 lbs. I revamped my eating habits and lost 5% body fat. The girls above? Not one of them said anything about it, but I can feel it while I'm running. I'm lighter and it just feels great to run again. I couldn't wait to start the race.

I usually have a nice finish photo since Piero waits for me at the 18km mark, but this year the wind was so strong and then it started raining, that he and Evan waited in the car. I finished in 2:04:32 with the last two kms striving to run against the wind and rain. I was happy about the time, but even more because I could have kept running after the finish line.

Four more weeks to Paris...I'm really enjoying these last moments :-)

Steve Stenzel's Annual FIVE QUESTIONS

2009-02-23T06:09:00.000-08:00

I don't know if Steve Stenzel is really going to make this an annual event, but he sure is making his mark in the Triathlon cyber world. If you've never read his blog GO-THERE-NOW. Completely entertaining!

Here are the five questions he sent me:

1.) What was the race that got you "hooked?" Explain.

I had actually never seen a "live" triathlon, only heard of an Olympic one that they held in the seaside town of Viareggio nearby . But this guy I knew had finished it so I thought that maybe I would be able to, especially since he wasn't particularly "macho" or "athletic". I mentioned it to a few of my male running friends and they started telling me that it would be impossible for me and that the swim part...well, the swim part was really really difficult.

Now, I don't think they were looking at me. I think in actuality they were looking at themselves. This girl grew up in northern California where the water is freezing ass cold and the waves have undertows and if you can survive for a thirty minute swim you're like a superhero. These guys were talking about a jaunt in the waveless mediterranean sea. I was pretty sure I could handle it. My only goal was NOT to be last, and when I came out of the water in the front of the pack I knew I was totally hooked. Superhero again!

2.) What race or event are you most looking forward to this year? Why?

Paris Marathon, April 5. Piero and Evan are coming and we'll be going to Eurodisney before the race. I'll have lots of friends and clients that I train with us. Even though I am training I don't feel particularly attached to the outcome so I'm going into the the race relaxed and just expecting to have a great time.

3.) If you had to pick a current game show to be on, which one would you pick? Why?

In Italy they still have "Who wants to be a millionaire". I usually make it to the 30.000 dollar mark on my own while I watch the program. After that it depends on the questions they ask...

4.) I'm conducting a study: do you prefer a man in boxers or briefs?

Briefs.

5.) What brand of athletic gear are you most loyal to? Why?

Nike running shoes. I've tried them all (Asics, Adidas, NB, Mizuno) but these are the only shoes that I can put on, brand new, and go out and run right away without having any problems. I think you really have to see which brand suits your particular foot.

To play along:
1. Leave me a comment saying, "Interview me."
2. I will respond by giving you five questions. (I get to pick the questions.)
3. You will update your blog with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview others in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

The cover

2009-02-08T09:34:00.000-08:00

I've been talking about this for so long, I can hardly believe it's (almost) here. The first book cover that the first graphic artist made was HORRIBLE. It was so bad that I outright refused to even have the book published if it was going to have that cover. I told my editor that I had a graphic artist that had experience with books...and then I had to find one fast, which I did. The second graphic artist gave me a choice of ten different covers. Totally the wrong thing to do with me because if you give me any kind of choice and I don't have a definate opinion on it, I'll never make a decision. So I let a few of my friends help me in deciding. This is what we almost unanimously chose. So, don't tell me you don't like it 'cause then I'll show you the first one!

In bed with the Australian

2009-01-13T09:36:00.000-08:00

I know many of you can't read this, but I'm too sick to do it over again in english. It's a timeline of the sickness going around our family. I was already sick on New Year's Eve, and now AGAIN! I can't believe it. My fever spiked out at 103.2 and now it's holding steady at about 102°. When I was so miserable and wanted it to just go away, all I could think of was "be grateful that you do not have a fatal disease. You have a fever, the flu. That's it. Tough it out and in a week tops you'll be back to normal." Trite but true. I'll write again when I can stay in a vertical position for more than five minutes...

The 2009 Power Word: Focus

2009-01-08T03:08:00.000-08:00

FOCUS is my Power Word for 2009. Last year I had chosen EVOLVE and I do think that it worked for me. I arrived at Focus for a few reasons. I've been working on my focusing power for a few years now, ever since I noticed that I had the hardest time concentrating and staying concentrated on one project at a time. When I started doing the 8 minute meditation I could really see how our mind works. In meditation you're supposed to have a blank slate and either think of nothing or focus on one thing, like a sound or a vibration or your breathing. Try it. It's almost totally impossible in the beginning. Your mind races from one thought to the next, up twenty years, back ten. Fleeting childhood thoughts, what's for dinner and that time you were cut off in traffic. All this within a twenty second span. In my little 8 minute meditation I didn't learn to totally clean the slate, but I did learn how to continually bring my mind back to nothingness. The few times that I'm able to really meditate, think of nothing more than a minute or so, it's totally exhilarating.
This last year I recognized the same concentration problem when I work on projects or even do a simple cleaning of the house. I'll be writing a blog entry while I think that I shouldn't be doing that because I should actually be writing out a training schedule for someone. So I'll open up the schedule without finishing the blog entry and while I write out the schedule remember that I had to do a load of laundry. It's never ending. Like in meditation I'm learning to totally focus on one thing at a time. What brought it all together for me was Eckhart Tolle's book "The Power of Now". It's not an easy book to read and I'm not fully with him on what he's trying to convey. What I did finally understand was how my mind rarely lives in the present. Since acknowledging this I can observe myself and see what much I live situtations from the past, play out situations that never happened but might have happened, dwell upon people that I feel have wronged me, get anxious about situations that could come up in the future...But rarely, very rarely, do I focus 100% on what is happening right now in this moment. Except when I'm running or biking or exercising, which I've learned is the real reason I like to do those activities. They force me to be in the here and now. They make me focus.

New Year's Eve 2008

2009-01-01T03:56:00.000-08:00

I'm sitting here at home on New Year's Eve, alone, drinking a glass of port. I don't like champagne and I don't like spumante. In fact, I don't even like white wine. I only like reds: Bardolino, Chianti, or Primitivo. To ring in the New Year I bought a bottle of port. I first tasted port in

Portugal

and was immediately hooked. Red wine, sweet yet tangy, quick buzz, loved it. But every time I order a glass whoever I’m out with always has something to say about it. I remember when I first started drinking it in '86 my then boyfriend would try and offer me ten other drinks before giving in and getting me my glass of port. When I told P that I bought port for New Year's Eve he said "Port? Didn't you want anything else?" No, I didn't, thank you though. I bought it just for me and was very happy that nobody was around to judge me about it. Not that it would have mattered...

I think it was Alberto Tomba who once declared "It's not easy being me". I think everybody can say the same thing, I know I think it a lot. I'm not complaining, I'm very good about rolling with the punches, But sometimes I think it, in a passive sort of way. It's not easy around the holidays with two children that are 10 years apart in age and not only have completely different interests but also different family situations and plans for the month of december. O is at that age where she wants to be around her friends more than she does her family so instead of staying with her father for 2 weeks she wanted to come home right away. I didn't blame her, but then we were at P's family's house 500 miles away. On the other hand I wanted P to be able to spend time with his family along with Evan. The only solution I could come up with was for me to take a train back to Modena on the 29th, stay here with her until the 3rd, go back down to Puglia by train for P's birthday and then drive back home with P and Evan in tow. I knew this meant that I would be spending the New Year alone since Olly would want to go out with friends, rightly so. That was okay with me. I’ve never been a big one on New Year’s as far back as I can remember.

I have a very good memory, sort of photographic like. I can make whole movies or see scenes from forty years back, but it’s all very selective. I can only remember three or four New Year's scenes and only one of them is from my childhood. The rest are blurs and fragments of trying to have fun, knowing that I wasn't really going to and trying to understand what was wrong with me that I wasn’t dancing and laughing like everybody else. Part of it I’m pretty sure has to do with my Father’s alcoholism. He was an alcoholic for the entire time that I lived with him, my first 16 years. We are all very grateful that he is now recovered, riding around the U.S. at 77 on a Harley Davidson, and has been sober for 21 years now. I do remember watching my peers getting drunk on the 31st and wondering where the thrill was. I’d get high but not drunk because it gave me this illusion that I still had control over a situation. Right. Anyway, many of my adolescent New Years Eves were spent with Johnny Carson. As an adult I wavered between all out parties and intimate dinners for two. I'm pretty sure this is the first time I was going to be alone. Completely and alone by myself.

Olly had been invited to go to a house in the mountains above Modena where one of her classmates father had given them the keys to the family ski cabin. I felt it was safer for her to be in a self contained environment rather than out and about so agreed to the arrangement. We left our house for the drive up right after lunch. It's not a far drive, maybe forty miles, but it's a road full of curves and twists and hairpin turns. It also happens to be a road I know part of because I bike it in the warm weather. As we went further up I could see why I’ve never biked the whole thing, it was straight up, up, up for like thirty miles. Maybe it can be my springtime challenge! When we got the the main piazza I looked around and smiled. It looked like one in ten fathers had handed over the holiday cabin keys since the town was filled with kids between the ages of 15 and 19. I kissed my daughter for the New Year and returned back to town. On my way back I found a wider road to travel on and found a few groups of bikers. You'd really have to be really into biking 'cause it was like 28° f out. I'll wait until march, thanks.

I spent the last six hours of the year doing whatever I felt like at the moment. First, I went to the shopping center to get P a new bathing suit for his birthday with the hope that he'll come to the pool with me sometimes. While I was there I scored a new triathlon bathing suit (with padded biking shorts) for only 15,00 euro. I bought my port. I watched people running around filling their carts with expensive food and drink and wondered where the huge financial crisis was. I went to the movies and saw a total chickflick (is that one word or two separate words?) with Richard Gere and Diane Lane. I wasn't too thrilled about the storyline but Richard Gere looks great at 60, hot even. I went home and did little nothings around the house. I watched my favourite Law and Order and ate vegetable soup (I'd gotten the flu coming up. I won't go into the gory details but it involves a lot of involuntary emptying of the stomach several times in one day followed by not wanting to eat anything accept, well, a glass of port. Which isn’t really eating…). All the friends that count called me and at midnight I was on the phone with P and Evan, virtually toasting in the New Year.

I went to bed at about one o’clock but then just a few hours later I woke up. It was only 5.30 a.m. and couldn’t get back to sleep. At a quarter to six I finally gave up, put on my robe and opened the windows. It had been snowing for several hours and there was a thick layer of snow everywhere. It made me feel peaceful and good.

I feel in balance and steady even with volatile situations swirling around me right now. Bring on 2009.

A day in Firenze

2008-12-06T05:35:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I had a doctor's appointment in Firenze and even though it's less than a hundred miles from my house, I thought I'd make the ecological choice and go by train. In two words: total disaster. This doctor charges a lot so I wanted to make sure I got there on time. Since Italian trains are notorious for being late I decided I would leave early and just walk around town. When I got up in the morning it was pouring rain. I got out the super huge umbrella and headed to the train station. I had forgotten that this weekend was the Immaculate Conception Holiday and that everybody would be traveling. I couldn't find a seat going there and in the end just hopped a train and stood the 50 minute ride to Firenze. On the way back the only seat I could find was on a train that was leaving two hours after my appointment. Initially I started to get all anxious about the time I was wasteing, about the work I had to do. But in the end there was really nothing I could do about it. So I decided not to get upset about it and just pretend it was my day off.

When I arrived I was intent on finding a place to have a sandwich with Schiacciata bread, but I couldn't find a bar that was smiling at me. Do you know what I mean? One that has that perfect lighting and atmosphere, not too many people in it. A place where you can just soak up the surroundings. Then I came upon what looked like a restaurant, but it also had sandwiches on the menu. So I stepped in, out of the rain, and found myself in a nice space. I ended up sitting down at a beautifully set table for one, and ordering Baccalà served in a tomato sauce with chickpeas and a bottle of mineral water. Sometimes I forget that I'm a grown up person and can actually treat myself once in awhile.

After the appointment I went window shopping, just wandering around for an hour. I lived in Firenze for 15 years and it's always nice and nostalgic for me to go there. When it was time to head back towards the train station I decide first to have a look at the Ponte Vecchio at dusk, and then stop for a coffee and pastry.

I read on the train the whole way back. That in itself was a vacation!

When even 5 year olds are watching what you do

2008-12-04T02:16:00.000-08:00

Since I don't have an office to go to like most Moms, my timing and appearance in the morning changes from one day to the next. One thing is pretty certain, the first outfit I put on in the morning is not usually my best. Ev has to be take to kindergarten between 8 and 9 am, and I usually hit on 8.45, whatever happens. Sometimes I'll get up at 5 a.m. and work three hours before bringing him to school. Other times I'll have gone out the night before, like last night when I went to a business dinner in Milan, and got home at 1.00 a.m.
Yesterday I had a coffee date with my friend Linda. I hadn't seen her in a long time so I thought she deserved for me to not look like I'd just rolled out of bed. I scrubbed my face and put on some make-up. Even though I'd just had my hair done I put on a head wrap just 'cause I felt like it. With my new cashmere scarf and a camel coat thrown on, I was ready to go.
When I got to Ev's school this teeny, tiny cute little artistic red head named Crystal looked up at me and said "Where are you going today?"

It's really scary when even little five year old girls notice that you're not your usually slobby, I actually have my pajamas on under this coat, mess.

Linda said yes to giving me office space for my experiment. When I told two friends about it last night they both said "Oh, and you'll have to get dress up every day so that it feels like you're going to the office." I hope little Crystal notices and appreciates...

3D

2008-12-02T12:45:00.000-08:00

I turned another crappy day into a nice one by taking Ev after school to see "Bolt in 3D". What a fun time! The last time I tried on 3D glasses was like in the 70's and they've done a ton of improvements on the whole sensory experience. Things really jumped right out at you - very, very cool.

I'm giving more thought to the separate office situation and have already come up with a few ideas...I'll keep you update...

25 days to Christmas

2008-12-01T12:47:00.000-08:00

I have been in a real funk lately. I could sit here and say that I don't know what is wrong but if I really sat down and was forced to spit out what has me in such bad moods lately I would start on this never-ending list of thing - little things - that are bothering me every day. I think that even thougth they seem like little things, they could potentially be big things...so I just let them cook on the back stove while I get on with other business.

Sigh.

I'm in the middle of projects, nothing quite concluded yet and that leaves me with little energy. The book? They loved it. They loved it so much that they've asked me to add 40 pages to it so they can charge a little more for it. Asking me to write forty pages is like...getting blood from a stone! I love to write, hate to write, and have still not found the perfect combination on how to go about doing that. But I have to. They were super sweet to me and I'm actually going to be earning more money than I thought I would once that sucker is published. I'm still in the planning stages for the 40 page add-on but tomorrow I have to give my business coach my book GANT so I better get moving.

Sigh.

We need a bigger house. We live in a two bedroom, two bath, one huge livingroom with small office space and small yard house with 2 adults, 1 teenager and one child. The only person in the house that has her own personal space is the teenager. I feel like I'm going crazy sometimes and have a HUGE problem concentrating on my writing with all the chaos around. On the other hand, no money to buy a bigger house unless we move to the suburbs or another city, which I don't want to do right now. Rent an office space? Rent a room to write in and work in? Could be a solution. Now that I've written it down it actually looks like an idea. I'll think on that a bit.

Sigh.

The only thing that's making me happy right now is the cutey-pie above. Today at school they had the roller-skating final Christmas Show Extravaganza. I had to control myself from laughing too much - they were so cute! Ev was very cautious, never going too fast, always in control. Sort of like he always is. I love him so much :-)

Marathon nr.28

2008-11-10T00:55:00.000-08:00

New York was my 28th marathon. I went into it unconfident and not even sure if I'd be able to finish it. After four months of nice steady workouts, three or four different problems surfaced at once. My back started to ache even more, I developed Piriformis syndrome on my right hip and the only solution was to not run. Since I had so many work trips in the last month I couldn't hit the pool or take a ride on the bike, my only alternative was yoga and rest. I did learn a GREAT stretch solution for the Piriformis though, which is this...

...and I did that about five times a day. I think this is what saved me in the end...

New York was a blast. So much fun, so many moments of pure happiness...

My plan for the marathon was to walk five minutes for every thirty minutes of running, hoping that I'd be able to keep it up all the way to the end. My friend Giorgio, who'd had a pneumonia during the month of september, was going to run with me since he had doctors orders to participate but not run the entire race. We were brought to the start at about 6.15 am and had to wait in the freezing cold until our wave start at 10.20 am. It was really really cold. I thought I was going to toss my clothes at the start and the half way point but I kept them all. The start was a little anticlimatic since I was used to being on the bridge, having the national anthem, and then BANG, the start. This time with so many runners (I think about 40,000) we weren't even on the bridge when they started the race. We started our watches as we crossed the first timing mat and began running. Giorgio had brought a camera and started taking pictures right away. Even though it was cold, the skies were clear and beautiful. When we got to our first walking break Giorgio hesitated. Even though he wasn't supposed to care about our time and just follow me, it's really hard for a competive person to slow down and actually walk BEFORE they're tired. At about mile 12 he asked me what time we would be hitting for the half. "When we get to the half I'll let you know. We're not there yet so I can't tell..." I shut my mouth every time he started to talk about time splits or projected finishes (huge accomplishment for me...) and he eventually calmed down after 30km. We kept running and walked on the programmed times. We had one bathroom break at about the 22km mark. There was a long line and we had to wait awhile but we tried to make it up a little by slighly reducing the walk break. By the time we hit Central Park we were weaving around all the people walking, which was just about everybody. I was having a little bit of a trouble in convincing myself to keep running but I tried to concentrate on the voices of people yelling things at us and disassociate myself from my body. This worked really well and brought my all the way to Columbus Circle. We ended up finishing in 4h50' with a halfway split of 2h21'58".
You can see our photo documentary of the race HERE. Put it on Slideshow with a five second picture turnover so you have time to read the commentary.

I had so much fun that I signed up this week to run the Paris Marathon on April 5th. I just have to keep all those injuries at bay!

My new assistant

2008-10-28T05:08:00.000-07:00

Just before I left to go to work in Venice this last week Evan pulled me aside and whispered "If you bring me with you I'll work..." Just tugging on those heart strings. He'd just gotten his new glasses and had a whole new look. I couldn't say no so we left for Venice together. Working in Venice is not as glamourous as it sounds because 3 of those days are actually spent inside a huge white tent while music is blasting in your ears and marathoners with lots of nervous energy walk back and forth...and back and forth. But Evan stuck to his word and really helped me out. He even launched into an english explanation of the pacing groups with some foreigners and tried out a word or two of Spanish. Marathon day was beautiful. Maybe a little too beautiful, weather wise, for the runners but better than a rainy day for sure. Now I'm packing and off to New York. He tried to talk his onto the airplane to NY...he'll be going with Piero to Naples instead. But I promised to bring him back a present and he was good with that.

(We won't mention the teenager that told me she couldn't wait 'til I left...sigh...it's sort of a ying-yang thing with the two of them)

Taking a breather...

2008-10-20T13:41:00.000-07:00

Two days in Rome and two days in Amsterdam. That's what I did last week. Running, running, running around (and not the good kind) from train to metro to taxi to airplane to ferry boat to bus and back again. It's amazing how you can gather so much energy from doing things. I mean, sometimes I'll be at home totally exhausted from doing nothing and then running around and sleeping four hours per night and hyped on energy.

- The two days in Rome were spent by night sleeping at my client-friend Patrizia's house. She lives right next to the Vatican church and from her balcony you can see the dome of the cathedral. It was really nice to spend to with her. By day I went to a two day Brian Tracy seminar. Something about "Million dollar habits". Though you really can't take everything he says literally, I did get a lot of great ideas on how to make my various businesses better and I have a new work energy that will last for a while.

- The next two days was spent in Amsterdam with Piero at the European Athletics Convention where Piero and I gave a presentation on the decline of middle and long distance running. It went really well :-)) . After it was all over we were taken on a tour of the canals and then dinner in an unconsecrated church. I thought we'd be able to see more of the city in the morning but the Amsterdam marathon was being held and since they had to close all the streets for four hours they had to take us to the airport SIX HOURS EARLY. The only thing I was happy about there was the Starbucks at the airport.

The kids did really well with the new babysitter, as well as the babysitter with the kids. So I have a new life now because I can actually go and work a little more outside the house without constantly being worried about what is happening.

I have two days home and then I'm off to work for four in Venice. Evan and Piero will come with me whereas Olly has to go to school. Good thing I have the babysitter!

To the Moon!

2008-10-08T23:56:00.000-07:00

This is a really crazy month workwise. I have so many projects and events going on at the same time. Almost every single one of my clients has a race this month, I'm still wrapping up the book because we have to re-shoot some exercise photos, Piero and I are preparing to go to Amsterdam next week where he's supposed to give a talk to the European Athletics Ass. on the downfall of long distance European runners. Since he's not so fluent in english I'M going to be presenting his speech (HA HA!!) - anyway, it all involves a lot of translating and assimilating what he's written...plus, I'm preparing 87 virgin marathon runners for the Venicemarathon and the ...I also have two kids and a house to take care of. It gets to moments like these that time with the children consists in being in the same room and nodding or letting them know you actually heard what they said is the one form of comunication. This week the only quality time I was able to give Evan was at bedtime: giving him a bath, pajamas, reading a story and then talking with the lights out. And that's when the most interesting questions come...
Last night he asked me what he was going to do when he gets older. "You can do anything you want to do. You can be an artist or a doctor or whatever you want." He thought about that for a minute and said "I want to be a postman". He loves to go to our mailbox and open all the mail. "No, I wouldn't be good at being a mailman...I want to be an astronaut. I could go into space. I really want to go to the moon. But, I'll take you with me Mom, I don't want to go without you."

Can't wait!

What I did this weekend

2008-10-05T11:43:00.000-07:00

- Turned 48. I made myself a carrot cake with coconut frosting. I couldn't find a candle for it so I had to use a Winnie the Pooh fireworks fountain (Evan loved that). Groovy Yoga class to start my day and a cappuccino at my favorite coffee place. (do people still use the word groovy?)

- Went to a real movie with just Piero, Burn before Reading. The last few films I've seen at the movies have been animated or cartoons...so this was a special treat.

- Found my dream babysitter. One of Piero's cousins has a daughter that has come to study for the next FIVE years in Modena. She's already watched Evan and he adores her. She's sweet, does housework and is not asking much for her services. So so happy...

- Ran a half marathon: 2h06'32", my best time in the last two years...my back made a few protests in the first km's, but then I was okay. I ran the whole way at a steady 6'00"/km pace and am thrilled that I didn't have to stop and walk because of cramping legs or my aching back.

- Talked to my sister. She didn't call on my birthday but rather the next morning. When I hung up I realized that for her she HAD called on my birthday since she lives in Kauai and is 12 hours behind. Thanks Mare!

Running photos

2008-10-04T06:42:00.000-07:00

I was going through some photos the other day and came upon this file of various that didn't "make the cut" for our private website. Some of them I really like and wondered why we discarded them. You decide!

This is Ottavio doing some postural exercises, something we all tend to not do enough of.

Ottavio and Stefano (Baldini) coming up the grade. Notice neither of them have their feet on the ground.

Shoes, shoes, shoes...most pro's come to a workout with at least two pairs.

This is a photo Piero took in Namibia last year. I think they were doing a long workout.

Livigno, Italy. So, I understand they have to travel a lot but they really can't complain...

Monza half Marathon

2008-09-27T04:49:00.000-07:00

It's a really good thing that my daughter is studying photography because her mother SUCKS as a phographer. This is the only photo I took at the Monza Half Marathon last Sunday. It's a self portrait of me and my friend Lucy. Then I put the camera in my bad and forget that I even had it. I had about 20 clients running it, including four that I have a pretty intense communication with (email, telephone calls) but had never seen face to face. Very exciting! I ran with one of them, Roberto. Or rather, I kicked Roberto from the start to finish in the butt so that he would make it to the end. He did, and I was very proud of him. He finished in 2h18' and I never ever thought we could pull that out of him. As for me I was happy because I stopped and waited for him for three times for about two minutes and felt okay until the end. My back was okay but I did do a little extra yoga this week to compensate. The next big get together is in a few weeks when I'll meet the first timers I'm training for My First Marathon. Can't wait!

Moving on

2008-09-23T09:37:00.000-07:00

I've been in a pretty good space lately. Lots of new plans and finding different ways to spend my time besides thinking about the book...did I tell you how happy I am to get that finished? Now I have this avalanche of work that keeps coming in and I'm finally able to program it instead of feeling totally overwhelmed. Plus, I have days off now. Sounds crazy but I haven't had a real day off for a really long time because whenever I had free time I felt like I should be spending it writing. I would go out for a nice day (family or racing) and come home guilt ridden because I should have been writing. No more!
Today I bought some supplies for a canvas book I want to make for personal workouts. I'll show it to you when it's done. I want to do a prototype and then if it works out nicely set up a small production and make them for the holidays. Sewing and graphics and writing and sports all wrapped into one! My favorite :-)

What I'm doing right now if you want to know...

2008-09-17T07:11:00.000-07:00

Inserting in the graphics and photos for THE book. It's been approved by my editor who commented that it was "fascinating" (hee-haw!!) and three guinea pig female readers who said they "gobbled it up". I'm super excited, to say the least.

Missing my 30th High School Reunion. I am so bummed about this you have no idea. I was all set to go when the teenage unit in the house started to pull one too many pranks and I just do not feel comfortable leaving the fort unattended. Oh well, the positive thing is that through the Facebook space they set up I am back in touch with some cool people that I literally have not seen in thirty years.

Training for NYCM. I'm still going, I'm still running. Amazing since my back is totally screwed and sometimes I can't move...but then I do some yoga and I'm okay. I'm starting to get excited about American coffee and walks in Central Park.

Getting the kids back to school. Love the kids, also love when I can work uninterrupted for several hours on end and this can only happen from september to june when they are in school.

Excited about new projects that I'm planning and book touring and anything that has to NOT do with the actual writing of the book. I am so happy about not feeling guilty anymore that I am not working on THE book...it was consuming my life, literally.

The Macca Interview

2008-08-02T14:32:00.000-07:00

I know most people use their ipods for music but I mostly listen to audio books and podcasts. I have four podcasts I listen to on a weekly basis and one of them is Ironman Talk
The two hosts are cooky together but very very informative as far as Triathlons go. Last week they did an Interview with Chris McCormick. The best interview I have listened to EVER. You have to pay attention to it while you listen, mostly to the host Bevan James Eyles who has a pretty thick New Zealand accent...at least for me. If you are a sports fan, especially Ironman - go listen now! Or download and listen while you ride your bike. Very inspiring.

Writing

2008-07-27T11:09:00.000-07:00

Being self employed had never been any goal of mine. It was something that just evolved, mostly out of desperation to be able to take care of my child, then children, on my own time. The only thing I had going for me when I started out (as a freelance) was my monthly writing gig at the National Running magazine. I've been writing this column for twelve years now. I remember the first year I wrote the column it took me almost the entire month to write, rewrite, clean it up and finally send it. Slowly over the years I've able to cut down on production time and now if I'm really pushed up against a deadline I can spit it out in a couple of days. But I'm still not able to do what I've always dreamed of and what I imagine real writers do: sit down at my desk with a cup of tea and have the words just flow from my fingers and onto the ex-paper, now computer screen. All of the sudden I'll have something much more important to do: clean up the house, look at a web page I needed to look up (which leads to never ending websurfing), write up some training schedules or whatever I can come up with to momentarily put off writing. I have tried to impose schedules, make myself sit in front of blank screens until I write, deny myself fun if I didn't get X amount of words written. And I can't say that I've ever found the winning combination. The joke of this is that writing has become my mainstay. I make my living from writing, yet I don't want to admit to myself that I am indeed a writer. In Italian even!

I'm putting the finishing touches on my book. It's a book on running for women. If you don't know me, I can affirm that I've gotten thousands of women in Italy to start running. My editor asked me to write a book for women and I will be looking for typos and errors and grammatical corrections throughout the text this next week. It took me four years to write it. Four F******* years! That's a lot of stareing at blank computer screens. At some point it started to block my entire life and I had to just get it done and over with and get on with something new. I was scared of the criticism (Italians are VERY fast at that) and whether I really had anything new or different to say. There was also the newborn, the teenager and husband who is away working 300 days a year and the other freelance jobs that I had...oh, and the housecleaning and cooking for four that seemed to take up a lot of my extra time. But now as all the pages come together I do know that my outlook is different and that my way of living sports and running is unique. I had a meeting with my editor thursday to decide on the cover graphics. What they want really shocked me and then got me excited and now seems perfect for what I have to say inside all of those pages. I can't wait to show it to you, and I will as soon as I can.

Beijing - here he comes!

2008-07-25T09:12:00.000-07:00

Ottavio Andriani, an athete my husband Piero has trained since he was thirteen years old, has qualified to be on the Italian National team for the Olympic Men's Marathon in Beijing.
I am so proud of them both!

(p.s. this is the third athlete that he's trained to reach Olympic level...)

57 km week

2008-07-16T03:05:00.000-07:00

Did I mention I'm running a marathon in FIFTEEN WEEKS??

Yes, it's true. Last week I did my first "official" training week, so the countdown is on. I ran five days out of the week which put me at 57km. I'm a little sore but I survived. This week I'm just repeating the same workouts to see how it goes...stay tuned.

Scattered

2008-07-13T09:50:00.000-07:00

My concentration problems have been resolved with sleep. When we got down to the beach house my mother in law had started working on creating a new apartment. There were builders hammering away from 6 am and you would think that I'd have had a horrible vacation. Not so. I slept through everything, then I'd sleep in the afternoon for a few hours and then go to bed early. I did this for the first three days and then I was cured and ready to work normally again.
The day before we left to come home Evan said that he wanted to stay at the beach with Grandma. The next day he changed his mind and said he wanted to come home...but then he changed it again one more time. I hate hate being away from him but it is also the perfect opportunity to get my work projects out of the way and GET ON WITH LIFE. Sorry, the shout out is for me...Piero was asked to go up to St.Moritz to train the Olympic team for the next two weeks and then they'll decide whether to send him up there again. So it's me and Olivia at home. Rather it's me at home and Olivia running around town with all her friends doing summer stuff that you do at fifteen years of age.

I do have to say...don't tell anybody...shhhh...I'm enjoying this time right now. I wake up and eat a leisurely breakfast then I start to work. I work and get four times as much done as I normally do and then around 8.00 pm I go for a run. Right now it's about 95° every day so I wait until night to go running. Plus there's light out until about 10 pm. I've also gone out to the movies twice, a pizza dinner out with friends and on friday I have a cocktail date with my friend Linda. Yep, I'm really living it up here! Ha!

One week vacation down south

2008-06-29T15:11:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow we're leaving for a week down south where I plan to
- Swim every day in the sea
- Eat my weight in watermelon
- Write, write, write (books, articles)
- Spend some one on one time with my Honey
- Run, if heat permits (it's been 100° every day here for the last ten days and running has been really ugly)
- Try and find some peace with myself, something that has eluded me lately...

Inexplicable date

2008-06-29T02:11:00.000-07:00

I've been cleaning my studio space up a bit this week, rearranging books and shifting dust from one bookshelf to the next. I took down this wood box where I have all my old letters in and set in on the couch. Later that evening Olly was sitting on the couch talking to me and she started to finger through the letters. She asked if she could look at them. I said sure, just a part of my past - I'm not jealous of them if I'm there. It was interesting that she didn't want to read the Italian letters, only the ones written in english. As if the Italian was too real for her while the english was part of some sort of life I'd once had. She wanted to know about the gay best friend I lived with for a year and the boyfriend that I had for so many years that succumbed to ALS in his early thirties and also my little brother who used to write me a letter once in awhile. Very short, very sweet.

"How come these people used to write to you?"

"Because, Honey, when I was younger the internet didn't exist, as well as cell phones with sms messaging. We would sit down with a pen and paper and write a letter and then the other person on the other end would wait anxiously for the postman to deliver it." She laughed at that.

The world has changed, for the better and for the worse.

So yesterday I was listening to some music I had downloaded and inexplicably started crying for like fifteen minutes. All I could think about was my brother and how much I missed him. I re-read his letters and thought about how I used to read them all the time and that in actuality the pain of his not being here has lifted ten fold during these years. It used to seem unbearable. Now I just get really sad.

This morning P and I went and had a cappuccino together at the local bar while we read the paper. I looked at today's date: 29 june 2008.

A ha.

Yesterday was the anniversary of his death. I didn't even remember that, but maybe that why I was somehow drawn to the letters and the box and the tears. I feel better now, as if I needed to do that. I'm glad I remembered in some way.

No news is good news

2008-06-28T03:53:00.000-07:00

I turned the television off for today. I usually like to clean the house or iron while I watch some trashy show that's not worth sitting down to. Lately I've been questioning how much garbage gets syphoned through my head. Especially the news. Triple that for Italian political news. Lately they've been covering Vatican ties with the mafia, including kidnapping agreements and bodies being buried with illegally within church walls. Then there's the President who owns three television channels and asks political favors in exchange for putting girlfriends and wives into soap opera roles. It just all makes my stomach turn and look in total horror at this society I've chosen to live in. I'm sure it's better and worse around the globe, but right now all I want to do is hike into the Sierra Nevada mountains for a month and cleanse myself from all this b******t.

So I'm turning my tube off today. I'm writing and doing some work on articles that are due next week and then Ev and I have Yoga at six o'clock and P is coming home...my day is full!

School's out!

2008-06-27T02:03:00.000-07:00

Today is Ev's last day of day care, he starts again in mid september when he enters into the "5 year old" class. He's really excited about that, big boy at the school and all. Olly is taking a remedial class for geometric design. She has to re-take a test in september before being promoted to the sophomore level so she'll be on pins and needles for the whole summer not knowing which class she's in.
I know this is turning more into an update diary about what we're doing, but I just can't do better than this right now. I have my projects to clean up by the end of July, and then I start anew. By some sort of stroke of Attraction a women I had worked with on my Running Clinics for Women wrote me an email that she's interested in producing a DVD for next year and it looks like she's willing to do most of the work. Sometimes I feel like I get things handed to me on a silver platter...I DO appreciate it and I DO know when it's happening. To get ourselves creatively motivated on the project I've decided to go to La Parisienne in september. It's a weekend of women's running with a huge expo and 6,5km race. Last year they had 13,500 women which is HUGE for Europe. I'm sure I'll get a lot of great ideas there, if anything, I'll absorb all that great female energy!

Patience, mostly with myself

2008-06-18T08:59:00.000-07:00

I've been having a lot of problems lately with concentration. My mind weaves back and forth from one activity to the next and I can't seem to find the focus to finish anything unless I totally and completly put all my energy directly into it...which seems like nothing at the moment. It seems like I get interrupted every three seconds by one of the kids...or it's time to fix the next meal or do something like, I don' t know, sleep. I don't know what to do about me, myself and I. I've tried every trick in the planet except totally seclude myself which at this moment in life I just can't do.

Have I always been like this? I think so, it's just gotten worse lately. Sigh.

I'm working it out even by just writing here for a few minutes.

You're probably all dying to know what I've been doing in the last month. Let's see...

1- My mother-in-law came to stay with us for 2 months. I survived.

2- I "raced" another sprint triathlon. Totally cool, in the south of Italy on the Ionian Sea. During the swim I could see sand and shells and fish. I won my age group in 1h25'03". I was the only one in my age group to show up. (don't tell...)

3- Evan's been sick three times with subsequent weeks of staying at home from day care.

4- I'm getting my running up to a decent pace and should be ready by mid july to officially start my marathon training for NYCM.

5- I didn't get depressed about the whole entry topic situation, just still trying to figure out the solution. This is a pretty major accomplishment for myself. Go me!

Wherever you may be

2008-05-28T15:07:00.000-07:00

The strange thing about when people pass away is that they never grow old in your mind. My sweetheart little brother who today would have been 46 years old will forever be 22 for me.

I used to cry for him every day for about five years in a row. Then I realized that I just couldn't keep it up forever and I really needed to get on with life.

But that doesn't mean I don't think about him almost everyday. Especially on his birthday and even if he'll never grow old.

Baci.

Sprint Tri: my workouts

2008-05-23T05:14:00.000-07:00

As you can see from my blog updates I've been super busy with little time to write here, or race. But I really wanted to take part in the Viareggio Sprint Tri because it's organized by my team and one of the first races I ever did (in 1997...). My training two months before leading up to the event consisted in: 2 pool workouts, one of which was a full 750mts just to make sure I could cover the distance (!) , 1 eighty km bike ride + 1 forty km bike followed by a fifteen minute run, 4 various runs which never went over fifty minutes, and 20 yoga lessons averaging twice per week.

Ready?

I did three minutes better than last year - finishing in 1h29'05".

I'm totally sold on the yoga. My left leg is totally healed and whenever I go out and run hard and start to feel pain I just do some of the asana that I know will take care of the problem and I'm good as new.

Now I have to start a slow build up for NYCM, in the meantime I'm signed up for another sprint next weekend. Workout and race strategy is the same - why mess up what's already working for me?

Marathon nr. 27

2008-05-05T02:49:00.000-07:00

See this footer here? This is what I signed up for the other day. I'm really really excited not only to be going to New York, but also to be running a marathon. I'm also a little scared. My last marathon was in 2006 (Thailand!) and since then I've been trying to resolve my back problems. I don't want to get too excited if I end up having to not race, on the other hand maybe my enthusiasm will help me heal. Let's all cross our fingers and toes! I have six months to prepare so there's plenty of time to work things out.

Green-Red-White

2008-04-19T06:32:00.000-07:00

Or is it White-Green-Red? The Treviso Marathon had this idea that they would have three separate starts for their marathon and assign a colour of the national flag to each one. At the half way point the three roads would meet and, having supplied a appropriate coloured hat, they would form the Italian National flag. It was really complicated to plan everything, but in the end it all worked out. I put just one pacer from each start point and coordinated it so that they would meet up with one another at 21km. THAT worked too (amazing!). It was actually very emotional, lots of tears were shed. The picture here is of the three 4h15' pacers. The guy in red was sobbing uncontrollably at the finish line.
One of the women I train, Alessia, ran her first marathon there. She wrote a nice story about it (sorry, in Italian!), though there is one excerpt I thought was funny: "While I was at the start sitting on the ground so I could take off my long pants and hide the gels, tie my shoes, I start a conversation with a couple. They're nice. I tell them this is my first marathon. 'Really? Good luck!' Then they see I have the blue bracelet to follow the four hour pacers and they ask me how many long runs I did. "15 miles" I tell them. They look at me shocked and then say "and you want to follow the four hour pacers?? Are you crazy? 15 miles is not enough, you'll never make it!"

Apart from the fact that this is the rudest thing to say to ANYBODY at the start of their first marathon...The long slow run is a useless exercise. Her 3h58'31" finishing time with negative splits proves it! Plus, she doesn't even look tired at the finish line...

Olly Blue Eyes (actually they're green...)

2008-04-18T06:28:00.001-07:00

I think every parent secretly waits for the day that someone tells them that their child is a genius, has a special talent, will grow up to be a special person. Tuesday I went to the bi-annual parent teacher conference. Ugh. It's so hard for me to calculate whether she is doing okay or not just because the system is so different than in the States. Seven teachers said that she is "smart, intelligent, stands out from the rest" but hasn't quite brought her work up to a good standard. On the other hand she does have the capability to do it so it's all really up to her.

Her photography teacher says that she has vision unlike anybody she has ever taught, including any of her senior students, and she's hoping Olly will pass this year because she wants to have the honor of teaching her for all five years. (for anybody not following she's enrolled in an Art Institute, five year programme). I told her what her photography teacher had said. She was moved to tears, enough to go and study for an Art History exam. I'm just crossing my fingers that she gets all of this and understands what a great life she could have with this talent she possesses if that's what she wants.

Busy things I've been doing

2008-03-19T14:53:00.001-07:00

Not a lot of blogging time lately. From March to May I'm always really busy with my business and this year seems to leave me little time for anything but work and family. Here's what I did just this last week.

We went to Rome for the marathon. Piero had an athlete running , though he pulled out at the 28km mark with a muscle problem. I 'm not crazy about the Rome Course, but the start/finish line cannot be beat! Here they are taking off in the picture above and then in the picture below...

...is just before all the marathoners started arriving.

Evan is the best traveler. For now we can throw him into any situation with absolutely no protests. On marathon morning he got out of bed at 6.00 am and we all went to the start together. And he's smiling too!

Earlier in the week we brought Evan to a Dinosaur exhibit in Cremona put on by the London Natural History Museum. It was fantastic! Ev is really into dinosaurs right now and has them all memorized. They had live sized mechanical models with sound and all.

The best thing that happened was my little girl turning 15 years old. The cake in the foreground is the Coconut white birthday cake that Evan and I made for her. It turned out yummyummy...

Retail Triathlon Therapy

2008-03-05T04:14:00.001-08:00

Yesterday I was feeling really down. I don't know why but it's been this way for a few days. I've tried all the usual remedies but nothing seemed to be working so I decided I'd try some retail therapy. I put my road bike in the car and brought it to my bike shop. I bought myself some new shoes (Gaerne g-opal) and pedals (Look) and left the bike to be cleaned up for spring. While I was there I looked at a few bikes and have decided that once THE project is done I'll take the advance money and buy myself a bike. The choices at the moment are between a Pinariello and a Trek. I feel better :-)

Circus, Italian style

2008-03-02T03:36:00.001-08:00

Before entering the big tent would you prefer a cappuccino or a glass of champagne? We went for a lollypop and a coffee. The lady behind the bar had on the biggest pair of fake eyelashes I've seen in a long time. Kind of went with the circus theme. Lots of acrobats but every few animals. Eighteen dancing ponies and four camels. We enjoyed it just the same.

Leave of absense

2008-02-23T00:45:00.000-08:00

If you have now or have ever had any sort of creative block in your life (and who hasn't?), go out now and buy this book. I finally understood where my imfamous writing block is coming from...whew! Now I can get back to work!
All this means that I've set due dates for myself and announced to various people that projects I've put off for---ever are now coming before the summer is over. I have to put in more concentrated time on my projects and less on superfluous internet activities. I'll still put stuff out there once in awhile (ps - I'm leaving in an hour for Rome to run my half marathon--so excited to have a weekend with friends!) , but the concentration will be on THE project.
Wish me luck!

Yoga 201 (!)

2008-02-06T04:21:00.000-08:00

I went to my doctor yesterday to get my blood tests ordered up. He asked me a couple key questions which sort of all added up to the type of tests that he's asked for. I'll have to wait until the end of february to have them done (Hello nationalized medicine!) but when I went home I looked up one thing in particular. The key symptoms are:

Fatigue (yes)
Weakness (um, yes)
Difficulty in losing weight (check!)
Course, dry hair (battling all the time with that)
Cold intolerance (I use hot water bottles during the day while I work to keep warm)
Muscle cramps (day and night! Do you remember my swims last summer while I battled not drowning while I worked out cramps that would last for several minutes. Happens during yoga too)
Depression (I try and keep it at bay...)
Irritability (hard to say...ya know when you just get bitchy?)

So, the verdict won't be in until the end of the month and I hate to do an internet self diagnosis...so I'll just wait on it. ZZZzzzzz...

In the good news my yoga teacher, after ten lessons together (once a week) asked me to switch classes and go to the Level 2 with another teacher. She thought I needed something more challenging so yesterday I tried the new class. Apart from the fact that I was totally intimidated by it because whereas my "class" had lots of nice comforting housewives in it, this one had YOGA BABES. But I just closed my eyes and concentrated on myself. Everything was a lot more challenging and there was even one position that I totally could not do. (like the above bridge pose but with your legs shooting up towards the ceiling. You achieve this my just flipping your legs UP) . I asked the teacher (and studio owner) afterwards if he felt this was the right class for me (cause I was feeling TOTALLY like it wasn't) but he told me that I'd done really well and that most people in the class had been practicing for years. Whew...I decided to go twice a week. Once with the advanced class and once with my first teacher - but on friday when she has a few more advanced students. One of my 2008 goals was to make it to level 2 - I just didn't expect it with a month!

Time for a check-up

2008-02-03T11:14:00.000-08:00

I know I haven't blogged lately about my running or triathlon training...so now is a good time as any to do that! In three weeks I'm racing the Roma-Ostia Half Marathon. I've been regularly training since the beginning of december but for some reason haven't gotten into the kind of shape that I would expect from regular workouts. I always think that it's just because I'm just not fast or that my back is hindering any progress but I always leave any real physiological reasons until last. Thursday was a holiday here in Modena, the patron saint's day "San Giminiano". They have an annual race every year which I already wrote about last year. For the 2008 edition there were only two girlfriends instead of five - well we know WHO is consistent now! The race is an odd distance: 13,400 metres and I was able to average 5'55"/km for the race , which I was happy about considering how I've been feeling lately. The only problem was that my heart rate was really high for that measly speed. How am I feeling you ask? Run down, tired, sleepy. I went on another run friday and had to take a nap in the afternoon and then another run this morning where after twenty minutes I had to take walking breaks. There are some huge red flags waving here and I need to get it all checked out. Tomorrow I'm going to the doctor to order some tests. Mostly iron levels and hormone levels. If nothing shows up I will be going back to my homeopathic doctor. To all the naysayers, he's the only one who's ever cured my energy problems (no, this is not the first time that I've had this problem).

This is the Military Academy where the race starts from...

Here I am walking in after the finish line...and while I was running my race...

Piero and Evan were assisting Bald1ini while he ran a lactate test (I think he's preparing for the London marathon again ...)

Kind of humbles you when you're complaining about your energy problems and six minute k's!

Win Money! Lose Weight!

2008-01-22T06:36:00.000-08:00

At the beginning of december I was in a dilemma about how to get through the holidays without gaining too much weight. Short of getting sick, I almost always gain a few in that one week window between Christmas and New Years. Nowadays it takes me months and way too much mental and physical energy to take it off again (menopause sucks...). Then I came up with what I consider an ingenious plan. I called my Business Coach up...his name is Alessio. He'd just had his fat and muscle mass measured and it turns out that he needed to lose about 12 lbs. The plan was this:

- From December 2nd to January 7th we had to lose 1,5 kg each (about three lbs). I figured it was an easy enough weight that we didn't have to really "diet", but it would ensure that we were careful during the holidays.

- If I lost the weight and Alessio didn't, he owed me 100,00 euro (now the fabulous equivalent of 144 U.S. Dollars),

- If Alessio lost the weight and I didn't, I owed him 100,00 euro.

- If we both lost the weight, congrats and cheers with a glass of mineral water.

- If we both did NOT lose the weight we both had to donate a hundred euro to charity.

I lost, he gained, I won!

I'm planning on spending most of it on clothes. I did already donate a small portion to my favorite charity.

No T.V. Friday

2008-01-12T12:40:00.000-08:00

For 2008 I've reinstated one day a week as a television-less day for the family. Don't get me wrong, I love television. I even have a special satellite dish subscription so that we can get 500 channels and see any program we want. The audio is bilingual and I can see all my favorite American shows (Grey's Anatomy, Desperate Housewives, ecc) in english. But as a family we do tend to get rather automatic with it and just flip it on whenever. Having one day a week where we purposely do not turn it on gently reminds us that we can also listen to music or put a nice atmosphere in the house or have a reading night. We did this on a regular basis years ago but sort of got out of it. Evan had never experienced it so it was really funny for him to get up in the morning and read the sign on the television. At first he didn't get it, but he started playing with some toys and never asked again for the rest of the day. As for me, after a really tough day, instead of plopping myself in front of a movie I simply went to bed earlier.

Word of the Year

2008-01-09T06:01:00.000-08:00

I love Allie Edward's idea of having a personal power word for the year. I still have to do some closing with 2007, but I really feel that 2008 is going to be a year of change for me. Doing things in a different way, trying to see other's from a different angle. I chose the word "Evolve" because it signifies positivity and future. I also like it because it's "bilingual" and means the same thing in Italian and English (to evolve, evolvere). I printed it in beautiful red letters and framed it. I have to find a place to put it so that I can see it every day while I work in my studio. Now I can't wait to see how this year Evolves (with a capital E!)

Was it any of my business?

2008-01-07T13:50:00.001-08:00

Saturday was a pretty crazy day for me to decide that I had to go grocery shopping at the Coop mall. Here in my world there are two distinct seasons where all clothing items go on sale for a one month period. For winter that would be on January 5^th. Everything is marked from 30% to 70% off and you can get some really nice deals if you wait it out until the new year. It took me about fifteen minutes to find a parking spot and then had a long trek to get to the mall entry. I got out of the car, grabbed a shopping cart and then lifted Evan and settled him in. I’m not a fan of bringing Evan shopping with me because he gets restless and complains after three minutes. In the past he would start to act out on everything and anything right in the middle of an isle. That’s when I started to get smart and either not bring him at all or entertain him. I whipped out my ipod where I had loaded up two children’s song albums (he loves to rock out) and two Winnie the Pooh narrated stories. He smiled, plugged the earphones in and zoned out while I happily shopped.

An hour later we were finished and I steered the cart towards the exit. As I was leaving the mall I passed by an accessories store where just the week before I had been looking at a new purse. I didn’t see the it in the window, probably because everything was marked off 50% and it’d already been sold. I wanted to check out the other purses but had to find a way to do this without losing sight of Evan who was now singing along with “Quarantaquattro gatti”. I parked the cart right to the side of the entrance so that I could clearly see Evan while I just glanced in at the merchandise. Blocking my entry into the store were two women wearing headscarfs with a total of three children in tow. The children were all under five years old and one of the little boys was crying. They were speaking in another language so I couldn’t understand what they were saying. All of the sudden the mother whips around and starts hitting the little boy on his face. He tried to protect himself with both his hands, a sure sign that this had happened before. Even at four years old, he knew what to do.

My father used to hit us when we were children. Whenever one of us would get in trouble there was always a belt ready. I can clearly remember an incident where someone had done something and nobody would fess up, so he just lined all four of us up and spanked us all. I was a pretty well behaved child so I didn’t have too many encounters with his belt, but my two brothers were constantly getting into trouble, especially my older brother. What I used to hate the most was listening to his cries while he was getting spanked. I would sit in my room and cry along with him while it happened. Even worse than listening to him get spanked by my Dad was going through the same thing at my Grandparents. It all stopped when we grew older though. In any case, we weren’t battered children and I don’t feel I suffered any trauma from it. That’s just the way a lot of adults disciplined their children back then. I think it’s a learned process. My Father had learned it from his father and he had probably learned it from his. When Olivia was around two years old I knew I had to teach myself a different disciplining method. I poured over a lot of child psychology books and tried out different methods. A lot of them were failures and I can still remember my frustrations with her. Quite honestly I don’t think I ever really arrived at a good solution until Evan came along. That’s ten years of trying different methods! What I learned from Evan, what I could still apply to Olivia is that if a child is crying or acting out or behaving badly, they’re trying to tell you something. And if you want to get on with things you have to listen to what they have to say. I’ve gotten to a point with both my children where I can just ask them what is going on and they can tell me straight out. Usually this involves getting on their physical level (kneeling down, face to face, making eye contact, touching them). Just asking them what they need seems to cut right into the bad behaviour and make it all good again. Adults that hit children are not listening to them. Hitting them just vents their frustration without resolving the situation.

I turned around to watch since all five of them were blocking the door. Evan was on the other side watching me, the scene and singing. The mother turned her back on the boy and walked in the store passed me. Still crying, the little boy tugged on her shirt and tried to get his mother’s attention again. She took a quick wack at his face and said something to him. I don’t know why but I put my hand on his head. I wanted to stop the scene. I wanted to comfort the boy and at the same get his mother’s attention. His hair was thick and course, I thought right away that they were probably Moroccan. She turned to me and I looked her straight in the eyes and said in a calm, firm voice “Non si picchiano i bambini” (you don’t hit children). Under her scarf I could see that she was young, not more than thirty years old. She answered me with a taint of sarcastic disdain in her voice, “Oh really?”. I kept her stare and at the same time kept my hand on her child’s head. I repeated to her “non si picchiano I bambini”. Then I left.

No, I haven’t solved the world’s child abuse problems. I’m sure that Moroccan mother thought I was totally crazy. But at least I didn’t passively watch a scene that I knew was wrong.

I'm the first to vote!

2008-01-05T09:21:00.000-08:00

My democrat party ballot came in the mail yesterday. I used to only vote if I happened to be in the States during elections, but then the Bush-Gore debacle occured and all the expats realized how important every little vote is. When I was small my father used to keep his vote this HUGE secret. He absolutely would not tell us who he voted for. (I'm pretty sure he went republican all the way). I don't know why...Anyway, the only two candidates on the ballot that I liked are Hillary or Barack. I went with Barack. I really wanted to elect Hillary but she just doesn't convince me. I dont' know if Barack will be my candidate at the presidential elections, I'll have to see more on whoever his competition is and watch how he handles himself during the debates. I still think it's amazing that my choice was between a woman and an afro-american. We've made progress!

Neve

2008-01-04T04:27:00.000-08:00

Here in the north of Italy where I live it gets cold in the winter, usually staying around 1° to 5° c, but it doesn't snow. It will snow two or three times in the month of January though. Last year was exceptionally warm and it didn't snow at all. Even though everybody was thrilled about, it got me really worried, global warming et al. Yesterday it snowed all day. It'll be gone by next week, but for now I'm happy the planet seems to be functioning as usual. After ten days indoors (due to being sick) I took Evan on a walk to the post office. He wanted to know where our sleigh was.

Modified plans

2008-01-02T23:44:00.000-08:00

The plan was supposed to be that we all went down to Puglia where Piero's family lives, hang out through Christmas, and then I would go back to Modena to be with Olivia for the New Year while Piero and Evan stayed down south. I know it sounds complicated, but it's not and it keeps everybody happy. But then on the morning of the 24th I saw Evan playing with his cousins and he didn't look right. Nothing particular, but Mamma's intuition told me that he was getting sick. Sure enough that same night he developed a 101° fever that lasted five freaking days. On day four I called the doctor in and started him on antibiotics. The fever went down within 48 hours but I decided then that I couldn't just leave him there with his grandmother (though she loved doting on him), so we all packed up and came back home. It's an eight hour drive so it wasn't a light decision, but I feel much more comfortable taking care of him while I can keep him in site all the time.
Before the fever it was a very Merry Christmas. I'll tell you more about it in the days to come. Right now I think I've caught the tail end of whatever Evan had...sigh...

A working mother

2007-12-13T02:49:00.001-08:00

An internet sport channel here in Italy asked me to do a series of interviews on different subject: triathlon, women's running, pacers, etc. My only problem was that the day they asked me to do it Piero wasn't going to be around so I couldn't leave Evan at home. The interviews were done at a marathon expo, so no problem in bringing him with me. I just had to find a way to keep him still while I answered their questions. It was about five o'clock, an hour when he gets a little tired (me too!). Oh, I forgot to tell you...he has this habit. He breasfed for sixteen months and then since I had to do some solo traveling I had to wean him. It only took a week and he was at an age that I could actually tell him things about it. One thing that stayed though was that he still likes to put his hand on my br3ast. (I put the 3 in so I don't attract freaks...) At the time it didn't bother me, plus it would put him to sleep instantly.
Flash to three years later. When he's a little sleepy and we're sitting next to each other he'll still put his hand on me and go to sleep. Which is what he decided to do during this interview! So this is me talking while Evan is trying to shove his hand down my shirt. I'm desperately trying to concentrate on answering the question while I try and seem like nothing is happening. You don't need to speak Italian to get a good laugh!

How much is your time worth?

2007-12-10T08:54:00.001-08:00

Last week a gentleman that had taken part in one of my 16 week marathon programs a few years ago emailed me and told me that he wanted to be trained for NYCM '08. I sent him the two standard documents: a questionaire and my price list. He took a while to get back to me, but when he did the first line of his email was "you're outrageously expensive!". Then he went on to say that for the same price he could sign up at a gym near his house for a whole year. I didn't write him back right away, I sort of wanted to sit with that for a day, which I did. I wasn't offended or taken back by his statement, I was actually sort of amused. How much is my time worth?

I've been working freelance for myself since 1997. I remember when I used to undersell myself, asking for a lot less than I thought I was worth. Then I'd do whatever job it was with an edge of begrudgement and feel cheated when I was finally paid. I'm sure that also came out in my work in some sort of shape or form. When I started personal training I naturally looked at what the other trainers were asking. I also looked at what I offered and what kind of customer I wanted to attract. Besides writing the actual schedule out, I spend most of my time either on the phone or answering emails on anything related to their training schedules. It sucks up a lot of time. Some clients never bother me except to understand an exercise. Others will email me from their Blackberry five times a day. I settled on a price that I felt was equivalent to the quality of service that I give. I know that I am more expensive than others. I also know that I give the most personal service, much better than my competitors.

So I wrote the guy back and told him that he should definately sign up for the gym if it really costs so little. I wished him luck in his preparation for the marathon. I felt really good about the interaction because it made me realize how far I've come professionally. Not being afraid of your own worth is a good thing. Last week four new clients signed up with me so I know I'm on the right track.

Milan Marathon

2007-12-04T06:48:00.001-08:00

I'm on day two of lounging on the couch after being hit by some sort of intestinal virus. This is the second time I've gotten sick this season and winter hasn't even started! I sort of want to blame it on being outside in Milan all day Sunday, but that seems sort of like a lame excuse. It's a good introduction to saying that I was outside all day in Milan! We were there for the marathon, of course. Piero had one athlete running and I had five. Mine were just there for fun while his was trying to qualify for the Beijing Olympic Games. The day was cold and overcast which was good, but there was a lot of moisture in the air and the streets were wet which is not good. If you're an amateur marathoner it probably doesn't influence you that much. When you're running around three minutes per kilometre the story is different. You really use your feet to push off and the surface you use for that counts a lot. Ottav1o had decided to stay with the second group that was supposed to pass the half marathon mark in 1h05'. Right from the start you could see that they were going a little too slow. He said that he tried to speed them up by saying something to them (2 pacers) and pushing them ahead, but they still were going too slow. At 14 miles he decided to go ahead alone. He ran by himself for 17 kms. That's a lot of time to runby yourself. He was actually able to catch a few from the first group, but inevitably he paid for all that effort on his own and lost a full minute in the last 2 kms. His final time was 2h11'41", not good enough for a qualifying effort, though many comments were made on his courage to go out on his own.

He'll have to run another marathon in the spring. This means a road trip for us, I'm pushing for Paris :-)

Meet my Dad

2007-11-22T01:57:00.000-08:00

This is my Dad. He's going to turn 78 years old in few weeks. I remember when I was small I used to be really embarrassed because he was (is) super tall...6ft5". At 5ft10" I turned out small for the family genes...His hobbies: rather I should say "hobby", his Harley Davidson. He totes around the country on that thing, going on cross country trips (like 3000 miles) at least twice a year. He's also secretary of his local Harley club. He works out at Gold's Gym three times a week and he tries to watch his diet and eat correctly. He has been sober for twenty years now and I couldn't be more proud of him for that. He volunteers at a couple of shelters and does sponsoring for other AA members. With that fact that he is in such fantastic shape and looking so young at almost 80 makes ME feel young too. I'm pretty sure I lucked out on the gene pool because I don't seem to have any of the problems my Mom had (epilepsy, thrombophlebitis, et al...). My brother and sister and I sometimes joke about his motorcycle fixation, because he truly talks about it 24/7. But then I listen to other elders talk about all their medical problems and complaints and I think that we're all very lucky to not have to worry about all of that just yet. Or ever. My Dad's solution for old age is just simply not to look in the mirror. That way he doesn't have to look at the wrinkles or not recognise that person, but rather just feel how he feels which is actually quite young.

I don't celebrate Thanksgiving over here in Italy, so I don't have to worry about eating too much! But I'll go out on a run now and think about y'all eating turkey and pumpkin pie! Happy Thanksgiving :-))

The Freelance Life

2007-11-15T14:43:00.001-08:00

This morning I had made an appointment with a new running client. I hadn't met him yet and I wanted to see his running form so agreed on a workout date which was this morning at 8.45. This meant that I had to get Evan up a few minutes earlier and bring him to day care on the bike so that I could make it to my appointment on time. He usually has the same two teachers, Rosa and Simona, but for some reason Simona has been at home for about a week and today Rosa was at some sort of workshop. When we got to school we were greeted by a substitute. Alone. twenty-five kids and one lady sub. Evan didn't want to be left there. First he started clinging to me and I was getting impatient and kept looking at my watch because I was going to be late. Then he started really crying and telling me not to leave him there...that he wanted to come with me. The sub was of no help, and she didn't try to get involved in helping me out and I really can't blame her. On the other hand I kept thinking of Evan feeling abandoned into a situation that he didn't feel comfortable in. So I turned around, put his jacket back on him and went back home. Actually, we went together and followed the new clients' workout together on the bike.
When I got back home after an hour I didn't get anything done. The THREE articles that I have deadlines on? Still sitting there. The presentation I have next tuesday? Not even halfway through. The four day trip down south next week that I have to do another presentation for? Umm...I hope to get my act together FAST. Still four more workout schedules to write before tomorrow.
I did get to listen to an old children's Christmas song album and sing along to the songs. I also got to eat pasta with parmesan cheese and make chocolate chip cookies. I read three books, including a Winnie the Pooh super slouth, and while he did his afternoon gymnastics class I was able to slip out and go for a fifty minute run. Now I sit here at midnight ready to start writing.
I hope...

Yoga 101

2007-11-14T07:16:00.000-08:00

Last month I saw that they had opened up a new Yoga center on the other side of town offering a free introductory lesson. I'd tried Yoga about five years ago at another gym but it left me totally uninspired. I'm not sure why. Part of it was the teacher's fault. She was sort of overweight, though flexible. Not that I need someone like the guy on the left, but it does (at least for me) have to be someone I want to aspire to be like - yogawise. The new Yoga center is really spacious and has morning classes. The introductory lesson was the (male) teacher and just two students, me and another lady. It was really hard! We did really simple poses, but then he made us hold them for a minute and I had to really concentrate on what I was doing. The best part for me was that I held my concentration the whole time on exactly what I was doing - as opposed to making up the shopping list in my head while I did some sort of casual stretch. So I've commited to ten lessons and I'm hoping this will keep me a little more flexible than I've been in the last few years.

Asking for help

2007-11-07T10:12:00.001-08:00

Even though I train other people, I don't like to train myself. I don't give myself "time" and if push comes to shove with all of my work and family commitments I tend to let all my training go. But when I signed up for the Roma-Ostia half marathon last month (which will be in february) and convinced six of my runner girlfriends to come too, we all turned it into the "get over the holiday without gaining weight and becoming super fit" Challenge. So I decided to hire a coach. And it just so happens that I live with one of THE best running coaches around - lucky me! I've had Piero train me in other occasions, but we haven't done it for a few years now so I thought it was time! The first thing he had me do was a VO2Max test. Yikes! It came out...well, it came out just the way it was supposed to since this is me now: my anaerobic theshold is (only) 5'30"/km and my MAS is 5'10"/km - Um, really really slow but I guess I'll be happy to see those numbers improve in the following months.
While I was warming up to do the test on the track I noticed that an Adidas truck had pulled up and was setting up a tent. I don't know if they do this in the States, but in Italy all the shoe companies (because they copy one another and no one has an original idea...) come out to the running tracks periodically and let you test the shoes out by doing a workout with them. I was their first customer of the day. I decided to try these ones...Adistar something. Anyway, I didn't like them. They felt duckish, too big in the forefoot. Plus I could hear one of my feet slapping (remember the gimp leg) and that wasn't good. On the positive side they were lightweight and I still felt good control.

Asking fo help

2007-11-07T10:12:00.000-08:00

Even though I train other people, I don't like to train myself. I don't give myself "time" and if push comes to shove with all of my work and family commitments I tend to let all my training go. But when I signed up for the Roma-Ostia half marathon last month (which will be in february) and convinced six of my runner girlfriends to come too, we all turned it into the "get over the holiday without gaining weight and becoming super fit" Challenge. So I decided to hire a coach. And it just so happens that I live with one of THE best running coaches around - lucky me! I've had Piero train me in other occasions, but we haven't done it for a few years now so I thought it was time! The first thing he had me do was a VO2Max test. Yikes! It came out...well, it came out just the way it was supposed to since this is me now: my anaerobic theshold is (only) 5'30"/km and my MAS is 5'10"/km - Um, really really slow but I guess I'll be happy to see those numbers improve in the following months.
While I was warming up to do the test on the track I noticed that an Adidas truck had pulled up and was setting up a tent. I don't know if they do this in the states, but in Italy all the shoe companies (because they copy one another and no one has an original idea...) come out to the running tracks periodically and let you test the shoes out by doing a workout with them. I was their first customer of the day. I decided to try these ones...Adistar something. Anyway, I didn't like them. They felt duckish, too big in the forefoot. Plus I could hear one of my feet slapping (remember the gimp leg) and that wasn't good. One the good side they were lightweight and felt still in good control. Anyway, I'll stick to my Nikes.

The good and the bad on the Menopause

2007-11-02T02:39:00.001-07:00

The good news: My hot flashes have subsided. I went from having about twenty of really intense sweat sessions per day to nothing about two weeks ago.

The bad news: My metabolism has come to a screeching halt. Totaly stopped. I can't afford to eat anything over 1500 cals a day without it sitting on my thighs. I'm going to assume this is due to my hormones working themselves out and everything will readjust in time. How much time is to be seen...

The good news: I'm running at a good pace again without having to stop or feel weak. Yesterday I ran 20' + 10 x (30" fast/1'30" slow) + 20' and never had to stop or feel tired. Again I think this is the hormonal situation working in the right direction.

I wanted to go running again today but I caught a 24hr bug that put me in the bathroom all night...don't ask. I rest today and see how I feel tomorrow.

A Marathon in Venice

2007-10-31T00:40:00.000-07:00

I've been working with the Venicemarathon
for eight years now. They called me in as a consultant back in 1999 because they'd had a drop in participants and needed help in getting the numbers up again. Their then director decided that I was the ideal amateur running expert and that's how I got the gig. The first year I had them go visit all the regions in Italy so they could hear the complaints from the running clubs about what they wanted changed. It also gave the clubs a chance to vent and feel like they were being heard. The second year I brought in the pacing groups, something very new to Italy. So new in fact that nobody knew what they were and everybody told me it wouldn't work. Whenever the Italians tell me something won't work is usually the moment that I know that it will! Anyway, I called Amby Burfoot and asked him if he would come over and "baptize" the group, which he did by being one of the four hour pacers.
Since then pacing groups have spread to almost all the Italian marathons. I am proud to say that my groups are the best. I do that by making sure that they have a lot of marathon experience, that they're reliable runners, but most of all that each group has a chance to bond before so that when they go into the race they work as a team.
The other cool thing about being the boss of the pace teams is that I've made a lot of great friends. In the first pic above you see on the right in red my friend Serena and her sister being hugged by Stefano. Serena ran her marathon number 100 at Venice on Sunday. She says she'll quit after this but I don't really believe her! Next in my line of friends is Stefano.
Just last week he ran his PR, 2h51'32", and this Sunday he paced the 3h40' group. Plus the day before he toted Evan around the expo on his shoulders entertaining him for a few hours while I worked. All around great guy! I had a really hard time putting the groups together this year. About a month ago ten pacers (of 33) called me to tell me that they were a- injured b-sick c-had an emergency family situation. I was panicked and calling around for replacements, having to rely on people I didn't really know and trusting that they would be able to perform. I'm happy to report that it all worked out and all the pacers, from 2h50' to 5h00', came in on time.
For the first time marathoners it was not an easy day. The temps were hot and humid and I saw a lot of experienced people fall apart at 35km. In any case, the best time out of my "new" group was a guy from GB: "Julia, I completed the marathon in 3 hours 13 minutes on Sunday and love it.
Thanks for all your support."

How great is that for a FIRST marathon?

My favorite fall recipe

2007-10-24T01:54:00.000-07:00

No time for a lot of blog entries 'cause I'm really busy with work. This Sunday I have 86 first time marathoners that will be debutting at the Venicemarathon in the "My First Marathon" programme. I'm so excited for them! It should be a great day weather wise. I also have 26 runners flying over the Atlantic and running the New York City Marathon. This is probably the most gratifying part of coaching people, I can't wait for Sunday!

In lieu of a real entry I wanted to post my pictorial recipe for baked apples. I love these apples. They're sweet, low calorie and super easy to make. What more could you ask for?

I use Fuji apples because they remain sweet after cooking. You can bake as many as you want at once. I usually choose about ten apples (here I'm baking five...). Give them a good wash before starting.

Cut out the stem and upper part of the core leaving a little pocket hole.

Place them in a pan. Insert a dried prune into the holes where you cut out the core.

Add an inch of water to the bottom of the pan. If you put the correct amount in (not too much, not too little) you should end up with a nice syrup in the bottom of the pan (yum!). Sprinkle cinnamon on top of each apple before placing in an oven preheated to 300°F. Bake for one hour.

They're delicious hot or cold. I like to eat them with a dollop of yogurt. Please do not do not do not use sugar or any sweetner. They don't need it and neither do you!

Happy Birthday to me :-)

2007-10-19T09:03:00.000-07:00

Actually it happened a few weeks ago (St.Francis's patron saint day). I turned 47. I feel fine about that, which is good because it'd be sad if I really cared about it! Piero gave me a new Polar, model 800sdGPS. It's super cool and I'm into downloading my workouts again on my computer. We'd been using the Accurex Plus for years, even going as far as buying used models off of ebay when they stopped manufacturing that model. I told him we had to take the plunge and go with the new models sooner or later. I'm not really crazy about the GPS system it has, it seems inaccurate and besides, I'm not really into checking out how fast I run since I prefer just to "feel" it out. Anyway, I can't wait to start using it on the bike too. Maybe in the spring when the temps go up again...

Smart little boy

2007-10-16T01:48:00.000-07:00

At the end of Evan's first year of nursery school in June, his teacher sat down with me and told me that she thought we were being too "cerebral" with him and that he should be doing more creative activities. She pointed out that he still wouldn't write his name out. Her guess was that since he liked to play on our computers at home (and write words out that he copies from books) maybe he felt that he couldn't do it as perfect as a machine. I didn't totally agree with her but I thought that maybe she had more experience than I did or I was just not seeing something that she was because she was able be more objective.
All summer long I threw "creative" things his way: playdough, crayons, clay, paints, scrapbooking. It was all good because he did learn to finally draw and we were fully amused when the first drawing he did was one of himself with the main object being...that. It was a proud moment for his mediterranian father!

Towards august I started thinking that I should get him to be able to write his name. Four letters, very simple. Up until then there had been a little resistance but now he was interested. He enjoyed it so much that he started writing out the whole alphabet. He never got tired of writing and rewriting for like two hours, which is huge amount of time for a three year old. The sequence from there went that he sounded out the letters as he wrote them and then he started "seeing" letters everywhere and sounding them out. All of the sudden he was reading whole words and then full sentences. I swear it all happened within a month. Last night when we went to bed he wanted to read me the book instead me reading to him. Of course it's still at that level where he sounds everything out like this - "fan-tas-ti-co" - but then he says the word over and he comprehends what he's reading.
I mentioned this to his two teachers in passing but they just said "Well, we hope you're not pushing him..."

AHHHHHHHH!!!

So here we are, he just turned four and he's reading perfectly. He'll take one of his Power Ranger Books or Geronimo Stilton and sit on the couch and read to himself for an hour at a time. He also "got" addition and sits for long amounts of time using his blocks to do 1 block + 3 blocks = 4 blocks.

I know you're asking why am I'm even worrying about this. It's because he still has two more years of preschool. By the time he actually gets to first grade he's going to be totally bored. The Italian school system tries to compensate for children that are slower or have learning handicaps but they have NOTHING for children that are faster or gifted. Everybody is supposed to be the same and the smarter ones just have to sit there while the others catch up. I'll wait and see how things evolve but I'm going to look into skipping him a grade when it's time to sign him up for school. I'm going to start taking him to the library once a week so that we can have more books to look at and read. If anybody has any other ideas, let me know.

What lies ahead

2007-10-15T14:37:00.001-07:00

I voted for Al Gore when he was running against George W. Bush. I remember the speech he gave after they had spent days recounting the votes. Then he sort of went into hiding and gained some weight and was the butt of a lot of peoples jokes for many years. I don't know he if deserved the Nobel Peace Prize, but I smiled to myself when he won it. How many times does something so terrible happen to us, something that we really fought for that doesn't come our way, like losing the United States presidential elections...and then have it all turn around a mere seven years later. This guy won an Oscar, an Emmy and the friggin' Nobel Peace Prize all in ONE year.

Next time you're disappointed in the outcome of something, just look around the corner. Something better might be coming your way.

Elbaman IV

2007-10-10T14:49:00.001-07:00

While we were waiting for Dino to pull in Giorgio kept going back and forth on his marathon times. Four hours. No, four hours ten minutes. No, four hours fifteen minutes. Definately not under four. We were just there to have fun and I kept telling him to just forget about the time but he kept pulling it out of the hat so I told him to shoot for under four hours. He hadn't run a lot this summer and his only long run had been a mere eighteen miles but he had done a lot of mountain climbing during the summer so I knew that he had muscles. Now listen up all of you marathon runners out there: YOU DON'T NEED TO DO THE LONG SLOW RUNS. Stop it! Work on strength, get a solid foundation, then start doing tempo runs. That's what you need to do a successful marathon. The marathon was fun to watch. It was an approximate 8km circuit so if you stood in one spot you could watch your athlete go past ten times. I was standing next to some crazy people that were just yelling and screaming at people as they went by. The runners names were printed on their bib and since I'm quite far sighted I could read the name off the bib and yell "Hey everybody, here comes..." and this group of ten would pick up on it and start screaming his or her name. It sounds so silly but I had so much fun doing that! Just trying to give the triathletes a boost and see their faces light up (or not) as we yelled at them. Giorgio said that there weren't any mileage markers for the entire course, but we could tell that he was going to make good time. I saw Dino on the course as Giorgio was going on his last loop and we waited by the final shoot so that we could run in with him. His time: 3:58:17. Our final time: 12h37' (don't remember the seconds. Fourth place out of six mixed teams.

I have to say that this is the most fun I've had in a really long time and probably one of the races that I'm most proud of. We decided to go back next year, changing roles. I have a year to become a cyclist. Giorgio has a year to become a swimmer. We've signed up another hopefully reliable friend to be the runner. I'm really looking forward to training this year!

Elbaman III

2007-10-08T07:50:00.000-07:00

Dino was a find and in the end I think we were just meant to come together with him. This spring he had won the Italian Duathlon Championship in his 55 - 59 age group just three weeks after his wife's death. They had brought their children to Elba often and coming to this Ironman meant a lot to him. But when he saw the water, the bay, the waves, he got scared and decided to bail on the race. That's when he heard that we were looking for a cyclist...and what a cyclist we got! Our hotel was right in the middle of the race venue and right smack on the bike course. We calculated that he'd come around the 60km loop (three times) about every two hours and ten minutes, so we organized ourselves accordingly. The first two hours I went and had a shower, changed, ate something and then went on the course to watch. Dino came by the first loop in two hours and ten minutes. We watched some more and then we went and had an early lunch so Giorgio could digest in time for the marathon. He wanted to order some seafood dish but I talked him out of that (!) and insisted on just plain rice with some oil. I ate a big salad and some really yummy homemade foccaccia. We went back to the hotel, had a nap, and met down in the lobby again. We went towards the bike exchange to hang out and wait for Dino. It was really fun to see everybody coming off their bikes and getting ready for the run. It was fairly hot out also, probably in the low 80's. Dino came in after 7 hours and 15 minutes of brutally steep hills. Giorgio started his marathon...(continued...)

Elbaman II

2007-10-05T01:06:00.000-07:00

Giorgio and I went on the beach to check out the bay and the swim course. I always have to stare at a course for awhile to understand exactly where I'm supposed to swim. In my head I had the image of a perfect rectangle (to be looped and swum twice), when in fact it was sort of a rectangle...but not quite. In any case it took me one afternoon explanation, a thirty minute stare, and then another morning explanation to really understand where I was to go. The good thing was that the athletes doing the full race started thirty minutes before the relay teams so I could see exactly where they were going.
The next morning I woke up at 4.45 so that I could have a nice breakfast and be able to digest in time. Giorgio came in while I was having my tea to let me know that he had been on the beach. The only wind that could possible come into the bay and disturb the water was a Scirocco, and that's what we had this morning. Great!
I gathered up all my equipment and headed towards the beach. It was very surreal to be there. All the athletes were getting ready in silence. No agitation, no loud voices, just very very quiet. The sun started to rise and I got really excited about swimming. The thing that was different for me this time was that I had actually prepared for this swim. In other Olympic tri's or the half Ironman I'd done last year, I'd always trained to survive the swim so that I could get on with the rest of the race. This time my main focus was on swimming only and even though I still wasn't able to get to the pool more than twice a week, I made a good effort to work on my form and get in at least four 3,000 metres workouts. No, I never went the whole distance in the pool because you don't need to do that...

At 7.00 am we watched all the athletes take off. Now I could see that they went straight out to the first buoy and then turned left. Here's a map of the course...The first athlete out of the water and onto the second loop took a mere 25 minutes. Then they all started coming out of the water and it was time for us relay teams to line up and get in the water. All of the sudden I was running in the water and trying not to hyperventilate in the first 200 yards. I just tried to focus on my breath and not get too excited. I was okay after about five minutes and started to make out in what direction I wanted to go in.

The first loop was fantastic. Once I got my breathing in sync I started to enjoy my surroundings. The water was clear and I could see the sand below. There wasn't any vegetation. Every once in awhile I would see a jellyfish. In total I saw about five clear whites and two purplish coloured jellyfish. As I got further out I could see schools of little fish and a few bigger ones. I was swimming pretty effortlessly though I had to keep spotting until I figured out that I could just watch the feet of someone in front of me and follow them without looking up. That was fun! I was through with the first loop! I got back on the beach , took a swig of fresh water to rinse my mouth out and then headed back in. Now it was easier because I knew where I was going and what lie ahead. I took a quick glance at my watch...38 minutes!! That jazzed me and I dove back in the water.

Even though the second loop was exactly the same course, it was a different race. Most of the relay teams were there to win so they all had picked fast swimmers. On my first loop all of the athletes doing the full race were on their second loop...in other words, I was alone. There were a few guys behind me, but they were too far back to wait for. Also, the wind had picked up a bit and now there were waves. They were those long waves that go u-p u-p u-p and then d-o-w-n d-o-w-n d-o-w-n. I started to feel a little seasick so I turned on my back to see if that would help. I burped all the extra air I had in my stomach and that felt a little better. I was actually more efficient and comfortable doing a freestyle stroke although every once in awhile I tried a breast stroke and the back stroke. The race crew came up to me on a scooter and gave me the thumbs up as a question. I stuck my thumb back up to let them know I was okay. I pulled out my meditation card and just tried to put my concentration on my stroke and the fact that I was doing this and how thrilled I was about that. Then I started seeing the jellyfish again and I looked to where I could touch the sand again and all of the sudden I had finished. 1:21:31 is where I stopped my watch. I had to run another 400 metres through the streets of Campo Marino and down to where the transition was and give the chip to Dino to put on his ankle. My friend Alessia ran with me so that I could see where to go. I rounded the corner, found Dino waiting for me, gave him the chip and he took off.

(to be continued)

Elbaman

2007-10-03T22:36:00.001-07:00

All through last week I'd had this weird, funky feeling that I couldn't put my finger on. I was fine, in good health, but it was like whatever positive feeling I was trying to go towards wasn't panning out. I felt down for no reason. Even my daughter asked me if something was wrong.
Friday night Giorgio, the runner for our Elbaman
team, walked in the house and I had to give him the bad news. Our cyclist had bailed at the last second. Thirty-six hours before the event we had to try and find someone who could hop on a bike and ride 180 kms (a.k.a. 112 miles). I could have handled about half the distance but I hadn't been on a bike since the beginning of september and I've never covered more than 100 km. We started calling everybody we knew. We called my triathlon club, we called cyclists. But no one was willing or trained to bike the distance. I called the organization and explained our predicament. We told them that we were coming anyway, even if it meant just participating in the swim and run legs of the race for no medal.
As you all know I had trained for this. A lot. There were times that I really did not want to go down to the pool but I felt responsable for my two other teammates - so I worked out anyway!
We decided to visualize a triathlete that had trained for the race but had suddenly gotten scared of the swim, that would be our man.

The three hour drive to get to the Island of Elba from my house takes you south through Bologna and Florence, then West towards Pisa and then south again to Piombino where the ferry docks are. While we were in line waiting to get on the ferry boats we met another group of triathletes. We were so excited to be meeting other people that would be participating in the race! When we announced that we were doing the relay we got blank stares back and a couple of yawns. Oh. We were only swimming 2,4 miles and only running a marathon. B-o-r-i-n-g.
Made me laugh!

While we were on the Ferry we got a call from the race director, they'd found a cyclist for us! When we arrived at the expo we met Dino. Sixty years old, in absolutely fantastic shape, a master swimmer...in the pool. He just couldn't get over the waves and the salt water. No problem, Dino! We had a team again.

(to continue tomorrow)...

8 Minute Meditation

2007-09-21T23:59:00.000-07:00

I've been wanting to learn meditation for a few years now. I'd heard it was really good for you and a few speakers and authors that I read suggested it. The problem was that I didn't "get" it. I bought a few self guided tapes that really turned me off. They all had zen music in the background and two of them even had the "Ommmm" taped into them. Ick. Then somehow I saw this book "8 Minute Meditation" by Victor Davich. Eight minutes sounded good to me, something I could do. I looked it up on Amazon and all the real people reviews raved about it, so I ordered it.

I love it.

Not only do I love it, but I've finally found the answer to my swimming dilemma.

The swimming practive for my relay in Elba has been going well, but I still had to solve my boredom/wandering mind problem. I get bored swimming. Whatever workout I have I can talk myself into doing less or if I'm swimming with someone, I can become one of those people that talk for half an hour while waiting to push off again. This summer I thought I'd be able to find a solution while I was at the beach but it was actually worse . There were more distractions in the sea, and not having the certainty of the black line and the 50mt push off, I'd still stop every few minutes to look up.

8 minute meditation is an 8 week program and has you sample eight different meditation techniques. The first week was centered around breathing. You set a timer for eight minutes and the book gives you detailed instructions on how to go about the meditation, how to deal with the wandering mind, etc.

The wandering mind...my biggest problem. I sometimes have a really difficult time in concentrating on one thing at a time. I multi task like there's no tomorrow and will often get up in the middle of a project that I'm working on to go "fix" something else that's flashed before my brain agenda.

That's when I hit upon that my problem with swimming was my wandering mind and that I could maybe try the meditation while I was swimming.

Bingo!

It worked like a charm. Not that I get all zen while I swim, but I put my concentration on my stroke and where my body is. More importantly when all those thoughts about where I should be and what else I could be doing come up, I just take them and let them go. Then I latch back onto the stroke that I'm performing and the breathing. Yesterday I took ten minutes off my 3000mt workout so I know it's working.

No Blame

2007-09-20T04:48:00.000-07:00

I received several private emails about my previous entry, centered around that last phrase I wrote. I just wanted to make a clarification on it so that you don't get the wrong idea about what went on then or after.

I wrote an email to my father the other day with this being the central part of the message:

"The other day I was on my bike and I started thinking about my childhood.

I just had these flashes of things that had happened. It must have lasted about

five seconds but I had images of going to Muir Beach when I was about eight,

playing on the fire station lawn on a summer night, barbecueing at Stinson

Beach with you and Mom, all those fairs you used to take us to, La Ginestra,

that Triumph you used to cram all five of us in, hiking on Mt. Tam, all the great friends

I used to have. And I thought "what a great childhood I had".

And then I laughed to myself.

I thought it was funny because if anybody knew what we all had gone through

together, maybe they wouldn't see it that way. And I did go through a phase

where I resented it, but then I realised that whatever had happened had made me

the person that I was today and so it was all for a purpose - and maybe perfect in

its' own way."

I had what a lot of people might define as a difficult childhood. I don't want to list all the events or elaborate on who did what because I don't think it really matters anymore. You can drown yourself in blame and resentment and feeling like you got the raw end of the deal. You can actually do that for your entire lifetime and then drag it onto other areas of your life that had nothing to do with the initial trigger event because you go back and use that event as the reason why things aren't working out now. When that happens it's really difficult to let go, move on and start living life in the here and now.

I was able to let go, though it took me a while to do it. Like twenty years. And in the meantime there were more family deaths and divorces and remarriages to add to the heap.

Everybody has had some terrible thing that happened in the past, be it five, ten, or thirty five years ago. Ask. You won't find anybody that has had a perfect life. But the one's that are presently the happiest are the ones that don't put any blame on the situations.

After I let go and stopped blaming, I could start remembering all the wonderful things that had happened and it was truly liberating.

I never had a trauma because I wasn't able to say goodbye to my Mom before she was killed by a drunk driver while crossing the street. I was sad, but not traumatized. Besides, I absolutely believe that I will see her again, in one form or another. That still makes me happy to think about.

My First Decade

2007-09-12T07:51:00.000-07:00

My First Decade

Age 1: I only weigh five and a half pounds at birth. Considering that I would reach the height of 5 ft 10 inches by my 13th birthday, that's a lot of growing to do.

Age 2: My first memory: being in my crib, white bars, trying to crawl over and out. Never made it.

Age 3: The ice cream truck comes down the road every day at 2 pm. There's music in the air as it slowly drives down the street. I have a nickel in my little hand and make a run to the truck with my brothers. I always choose vanilla with orange sherbert on a stick. I continue to buy the same ice cream for the next ten years.

Age 4: I have a solo in a ballet recital. I'm supposed to be a girl in a painting that comes alive. Just as I'm rounding the corner on some sort of twirl my biggest fear comes true; I fall down. I'm able to gracefully pick myself up and I get a mini standing ovation.

Age 5: Kindergarten. We're sitting around in a circle and the teacher has put cream and sugar in jar. We pass it around and each have to shake it so that we can make sweet butter. I can still taste it on my tongue to this day.

Age 6: My mother does volunteer work at the school thrift store. Today the car is broken so she decides that the two of us can walk there. It's a sunny day and we walk from our house to downtown Tiburon, a three mile hike.

Age 7: We're talking about geography in class. Normally I never say a word but today I pipe up and tell this elaborate story about how in India the cows are sacred and nobody eats them like we do. Sister Cecilia knows what I'm talking about and is enthusiastic about my having this knowledge. All my other classmates give me blank stares.

Age 8: I go with my older brother David and my younger brother Billy along with two other friends from the neighborhood in Mill Valley, into San Francisco. The bus costs ten cents. We go to the Emporium to see Santa Claus. David has the most money, fourteen dollars. We all buy each other Christmas presents and pretend the other isn't really looking.

Age 9: I'm in bed with my mother, I go there almost every morning to snuggle. I tell my Mom I'm going to give her a "Hollywood Kiss". It's quite long and with our lips smooshed together. After I'm done she tells me very sweetly that maybe I'm too big to give her the HK. I'm absolutely crushed...

Age 10: The babysitter arrives at our house as my Mom is leaving to go away for the weekend up to Lake Tahoe. I'm so excited at having the babysitter there and I want to show her my secret trick! I can stop the apartment elevator between floors...but then we really did get stuck and it takes us a minute to get it moving again. We go back into the house and my Mom has already left for her trip. I think she knew I would cry and so she thought she'd take a quick exit. I never saw her again. I never did get to say goodbye.

Giovedì Gratitude Post

2007-09-06T15:36:00.001-07:00

Piero came home tonight after ten days on the road. I hate when he drives so much and am really thankful that when he leaves again in three days he'll be taking a train. September is not my favorite month since it's is the one moment out the year when it's guaranteed that he'll be gone (for work). But I'm grateful for the three days we have together now. Tomorrow we'll probably go downtown to give a farewell to Pavarotti, may he rest in peace. Modena is now without it's number one citizen.

Just like flying

2007-09-05T08:45:00.000-07:00

I woke up with the sound of wind banging on the windows. During the summer I sleep with the shutters closed and the windows open so that I can feel the fresh air in the house. I raced around from window to window, closing each one. I had to run out into the yard in my pajamas to save a book that had been left overnight outside on a table. I secured the lawnmower which had already been pushed up against the fence. Then the rain started to come down. It only lasted thirty minutes, if that. But I knew it was enough to scare away any prospective swimmers from going to the outdoor pool. As soon as the worst of the storm was over I headed to the pool.

When I arrived the lifeguard was busy tweezing out ingrown hairs on his legs from a bad wax job. There were a few other swimmers, but the pool is big enough that I had my own swimming lane. My very own fifty metre swimming lane! Heaven. I warmed up with 1000 metres and then did 500 metres of technique. At the end of that I decided before swimming another 1000 metres I would stretch my back out. I took a board, flipped onto my back and stretched my arms up over my head using the board to keep my arms balanced but then just did soft kicks with my legs under the water. My ears were under the water so everything was silent. I had taken my goggles off so what I saw looking up was this:

I immediately started to uncontrollably giggle. I just couldn't help myself. The sensation was one of the most exhilirating that I've ever had. I lifted my head to look around...the other swimmer was still swimming and the lifeguard had moved onto a conversation on his cell phone while massaging his pecs. I set myself up in the same position: on my back, ears under water, looking at the clouds... again came the uncontrollable giggling. And then it came to me why. It felt like flying. No gravity, clouds swirling around, silence... It's the easiest high I've had in a really long time. It only lasted about a minute because then the sun came out and I couldn't see without squinting and I couldn't get that same situation in play again...but out of all the swimming I've done this summer that will be the one moment I'll always remember.

Really really bad joke

2007-09-03T06:51:00.001-07:00

The other night, like 1.00 am night, I watched the World Championships women's marathon. After it was over the Italian Television did an interview with the winner Catherine Ndereba. I had to translate for P:

Me: She said that it wasn't her actually running the marathon but rather Jesus Christ running in her place...

Him: Can't she be disqualified for that?

Yep, you're supposed to laugh.

She looks like an absolute Queen while she runs. For anyone who didn't watch the race, she kept cool a hundred feet back from the lead group while they duked it out for the first 35km and then she made her move. Her pace coming into the stadium was just incredible...Sigh...

Giovedì Gratitude Post

2007-08-30T14:48:00.001-07:00

Your little face is usually the first thing I see when I wake up. This morning I was watching you sleep. While your father kind of snores on his back with his mouth open and your sister tends to drool, you're still in that youthful stage where you look perfectly angelic. Which you are. I'm really sorry if I seem impatient with you these days. I can see that little brain of yours whirling away all day, asking me questions every three seconds. Why? is the key word these days. I loved the Why? question for today: "Why does fruit have peels to protect them?" That one came just before "What is in water?" and "Why aren't the stars planets?". Why indeed. Sometimes I try and answer you with real answers but other times I just don't know what to say. I mean, I don't know the answers to some of your questions and you are listening to the answers. I know because I've tested you out a few times and you know when I'm giving you a bogus answer.
Anyway, while I was watching you sleep this morning I just thought how grateful I was to have you in my life. I couldn't imagine it without you. Tomorrow I'll try and give you some really good answers to those Why? questions. Maybe I'll study some science facts tonight...

Dearest...

2007-08-27T23:03:00.000-07:00

Dearest Fifty Metre Outdoor Pool,
Yesterday when I came to visit you and saw the leaflet near the cashier I was stunned for a few minutes. Yes, I knew that you'd be closing eventually, I just didn't think that it would be in just ten short days. Now I'm really sad. Sad that I didn't come and visit you more often. There is nothing like coming to see you first thing in the morning on a summer day. It gives me a feeling of being careless and free and having nothing to do (even though work awaits). It also means that summer is starting to come to a close and that saddens me even more, though not for any particular reason. Maybe just the passing of time...

So while I was swimming in the sun I tried to think of all the positives thing that would come about with your departure. They'll change your water. By the end of the summer I can barely stand the amount of chemicals you have in the water. I know, I know, it's all regulated and everything but I can still smell them. Yesterday I nearly gagged after only 1000 metres. Probably the fact that it was 100° degrees out didn't help. They'll start lessons again. I've been thinking about taking a swim class again and that can't happen until the fall since they don't offer them during the summer. The pool will be filled with dedicated swimmers again. The one thing I can't stand during the summer is that they rope off only four lanes of you for lap swimming and leave the rest for "swimming". But those teenage kids are drawn like magnets to the roped off lanes...Remember that time in July when those guys (they were definately over 20 years old) decided to play wrestling under the lap lanes? After having to stop for them about ten times because I was afraid I was going to get hurt I kept swimming and just dug my nails into one of their backs...Yes, I know...I'm still a little embarrassed by that passive aggressive move. On the other hand they stopped playing their little game and we could all swim again.
So, I'll come and visit you a little more often in these last days before they put that ridiculous bubble over you for the winter. I know, it keeps you warm, but it still looks silly.
Anyway, I'll be here for you again next year - take care!
Love,
Julia

Thousands of miles (or kilometres, if you prefer)

2007-08-15T09:14:00.001-07:00

At the beginning of the month I sent P and Evan down to the beach house without us. The plan was that Olivia would not be coming this year and I would be coming mid month for ten days. I have to admit that I spent the first week sort of delirious from the freedom to do whatever I wanted (almost). More relaxed meal timing, no scrambling to get a babysitter for workouts, no having to think of something for the kids to do all day. I went biking and running and swimming every single day just because I could. I bought a new book to read, I left the house alone for a week and then I cleaned it really well. I cleaned my closet out. I went to the movies with Olivia. Don't laugh, I haven't been to a movie theatre in almost two years. On day five I really really started missing "the boys". I found a way to go see them for the weekend, not an easy feat since they're 800 kms away. It involved driving with my brother in law and his friend by night (we left at 10.00 pm and arrived at 6.00 am) and then taking an eight hour train back to Modena four days later. This was all made possible by the fantastic Linda, who I adore. She spent the nights with Olivia over the weekend and tried to entertain her in some way. Tomorrow I go back on the train to the beach, this time for ten days. This all sounds involved and complicated but I can assure you that everybody is happier this summer. Me included.

This morning Linda and I went running. We started out at 8.00 am but it was already too too hot. Today got almost up to 95° so it must have been about 85° when we were halfway through the workout...which was:

3 x (20 min run + 1km fast)

The first km I just ran at what I felt was a "moderate" speed without exhausting myself too much. I came in at about 5'40". On the second km I started it out in the same way but this time I tried to concentrate on both my stride rate and length, trying to keep it relaxed. 5'25".
I get into that habit of being "comfortable" and not changing gears. Not that I have to push myself, I just have to remember what I'm doing and pay more attention to it.

I was fooling around...

2007-08-14T08:01:00.000-07:00

...with my blog and POOF! It went away. Oops! The easiest thing (less time consuming) for me to do is just to put it in automatic mode and continue, which is what I did, hence the "new" look. I'll get around to putting in all the old links and stuff later...Gotta go on a bike ride now!

On becoming a swimmer

2007-08-07T23:38:00.001-07:00

Did I tell you I'm signed up to swim 3,8km (2,4 miles) on september 30th as part of an Ironman relay team? Well, I am. Oops, not supposed to say Ironman if it doesn't have the trademark! Me and IronMauro and another friend will be doing Elbaman. I do have a secret desire to one day race an Ironman and since one of the components that intimidates me the most is the swim, I thought that completing the distance in a relay might help me get over that "I'll never make it" feeling. I've been swimming three times a week in the last month, that in itself constitutes serious training for me since I just hate the chlorine and have never, ever gone to the pool more than twice a week. But while I swim I know that I could improve because sometimes I feel like I have no idea what I'm doing. Is my arm entry okay? Am I pulling as much as I could? Questions that only a swimming coach could answer for me, but in the middle of august in Italy that's impossible. Then I remembered that I had an old VHS videotape by Steve Tarpinian and that maybe I could look at that to get some ideas.

I think the tape was made in the '80's or something. Steve has on a pair of Dolphin shorts and white socks that come halfway up his shins. Plus he has a few really really corny "skits" in the tape and talks r-e-a-l-l-y slow, just to make sure you get in every word. So as soon as I stopped laughing over the age warp I was able to focus on a few of my mistakes right away:

I put my head down to far. Steve says the water should hit between my goggles and my hairline. See, I was putting my head further down since I remember some random person telling me that I should be looking at the bottom of the pool. Lesson learned: stop listening to random people that give out advice.
I rarely bend my elbow enough underwater to get a good pull. Tried this and found some new arm muscles.
Steve said the water with your kick should look like water boiling in a pot. No foam, no feet. Even though I have a good kick, the visual of this helped me a lot.
Steve said that if you work out in a pool you should give yourself the advantage of doing flip turns so you get a good rhythm. I had stopped doing them a long time ago because they made me dizzy. In the tape he says that when you flip you should land on your back and then as you push off the wall start turning over. This really really helped me. Again, some random person told me that I should already be turned over when I push off the wall.
Incorporate drills into every-single-workout you do. I'm totally guilty of just going to the pool and swimming laps.

So, equipped with this newfound knowledge I went back to the pool for a Steve T workout.

500mt warmup
6 x 50mt one arm pulls
3 x 100mt side kicks
6 x 50mt , rec. 30" freestyle
3 x 100mt , rec. 1', freestyle
500mt whatever

The results were that on my first three 6 x 50mts I came in on 45 seconds! That's a 10 second improvement for me! Now I'm all excited to workout in the pool again (as opposed to dreading it) though I'm pretty sure that I'll be almost last in the swim relay in Elbaman. The important thing is to complete the distance, right?

Baiso rivisited

2007-08-03T00:34:00.000-07:00

I really wanted to go on a long bike ride. This week my boys are at the beach so I've been pretty free to do what I wanted and in my head "ride bike" was one of the activities I wanted to schedule. I really wanted to go back to Baiso because I love the climb up there. Round trip it's about 66km which I knew would be stretching it a bit since 55km was the furthest I'd gone this summer, but I knew that if I wasn't in a hurry I'd be okay. I invited my friend Alessia to come with me. The plan was to meet at her house at 4 p.m. so that we'd be home by 8 p.m., before it got dark. As sort of an afterthought I decided to extend the invitation to ride with us to this guy I know named Paolo. He's the ex-husband of a friend of mine and he lives about three blocks from my house. Whenever I see him he always mentions to me that he's available for bike rides. I don't call him often, in fact we've only been riding together three or four times, mostly because I decide at the last minute to go and just take off. I texted him a message to let him know that we were going to Baiso and if he wanted to come along he was welcome. He said yes and told us to meet him in front of a coffee place which was just around the corner from Alessia's house.

We picked Paolo up and the first thing I noticed was that he didn't have a helmet on. I'm a pretty free spirit but I hate riding with people that don't wear helmets! He said that he couldn't find it and then took off. He started going toward Sassuolo where all the traffic was instead of through Rubiera where there were a lot of country roads.

"Oh, I've never been to Baiso before so I'll just follow you."

Right.

We were almost at the road that you have to cut onto, the Via Emilia, where you have to share the road with huge trucks for just 500mts. He said we could take another road.

"Just as long as there are NO TRUCKS, because I hate the trucks". I wanted to trust him. He was local and even though he'd never biked to Baiso he had to know the roads, right?

One country road, two country roads, then on the third one he takes a left instead of a right. He's a guy and has a strong pedal and I can't keep up with him, I just figure he knows where he's going and follow along. Within ten minutes we're in the center of Sassuolo which is totally NOT where we're supposed to be going. At a certain point he and Alessia are so far ahead that at an intersection I have no idea if they've gone straight or turned right. I stop and wait for about three minutes and they come back. He just starts pedalling to the right and we follow. Now since we've hit Sassuolo we are totally surrounded by trucks since Sassuolo is known for their ceramics and tiles and these trucks are hauling them left and right. We just keep following this guy when all of the sudden we realize that he is leading us onto a friggin' FREEWAY. It was surreal. I started laughing like a maniac because I totally couldn't believe what he was doing. Alessia was right in front of me with a hand on top of her helmet repeating "Oh my God, oh my God...". I saw that there was an exit just 180mts ahead and told her to get off there. In the meantime we watch as Paolo tries to jump a couple lanes and go straight!

Once we're back on a normal road we stop and decide where to go from there. I stopped a car and he told us we were only 3 minutes away from a country road that would lead us to Baiso. Just as we're taking off Paolo comes up the same road exit that we had gotten off on...which means that he had to have backtracked on the freeway. Alessia has the excuse that she doesn't know him so decides that she won't say anything. Me? I told him that I really loved my life and that I have two young children that still need me and that I didn't have any thoughts of suicide lately but mostly, WHATTHEFUCKWEREYOUTHINKINGYOUCOMPLETEANDTOTALMORON??!?! The thing is, he didn't know what was wrong or why I was upset. It seemed totally normal to him. That's what he said, but I really can't believe that he really thought that. In any case I told him he was welcome to follow me but that we would no longer be following him.

We made it to the bottom of the hill, now we had 20km of climbing up 500mts. I told him to go ahead, there was no way he could make a wrong turn now, so off he went. We climbed and climbed and it was really nice and peaceful . Very little traffic and lots of cyclists going up or already coming down. We were almost at the top when guess who comes racing down...as he passes us he shouts "see you in Modena!". I couldn't believe it...or maybe I could. At the top we stopped to fill our water bottles and bought an ice cream and then headed down. I look down at the mileage and calculate that by the time we get home we'd have ridden almost 100km. Hello! I've never gone past 80km in my life! The downhill is a thrill but now we have to try and hurry to get back home before dark. My muscles are sore and I had a moment where I just wanted to stop, but I talked myself into everything being okay. For the last 10km we decided to get on the main road so we could get home faster. About 5km from home I felt my back wheel wobble. Flat tire. Good thing I have a sense of humour here 'cause I started laughing again. We tried to change it but it was dark and I didn't have my glasses so I couldn't really see what I was doing. In the end Alessia went ahead and got my car and came back to get me. Total for me: 95km, total for her:100km.

A few good things came out of this experience:

nr.1 - I will never have to feel guilty again about not calling Paolo for a ride. Whew! Thank you!

nr.2- Today we road 67km and it seems like a stroll compared to the 95km. I think I'm on my way to being a biker.

nr.3 - I can still laugh about the incident and probably will for a long time to come.

Good 'ole calesthetics

2007-08-02T01:27:00.001-07:00

A couple months ago me and my partner in running crimes (a.k.a. Linda) decided that we wanted to start putting regular strength exercise sessions in our workouts. Both of our problem areas are in the rear. Not only do I have a big bum, but it's really difficult for me to even work on it since I have a sway back and naturally concentrate all exercises on my thighs rather than my glutes. That ends up to be rather a Catch-22 - where my thighs get stronger and my glutes get weaker. We started dedicating mondays to these sessions. The first monday we did:

15' warmup run

4 x

100mt uphill running
20 steps on park bench
100mt run downhill
5 lunges per leg
back leg lifts - 10 x leg

15' cool down run

The first time I did this session I could barely walk two days later. I think the thing that did me in were the lunges. I was really careful to not come up using my thigh muscles but rather the glutes.
We were on our third week and I was all excited because it started to feel right. I told P about it and he burst our little bubble. "To be really effective you should be doing them twice a week".
Oh. Okay, twice a week. I like that when I tell Linda these kind of things she doesn't even flinch.

Every week we upped the series by one so that we would start the month out at four and end with eight. On the second month I came up with this one:

15' warmup run

4 x

50mt uphill sprint
20 half squat
15 leg circles (on knees)
25 leg lifts (on knees)
1' posture stretch
15' warm down run

In the second series we briefly had two other women that were coming with us but after a couple of weeks they started showing up late (no apologies) and altogether missing sessions. We hadn't even let them know that we were doing it twice a week!

This week Linda is in Prague so I was on my own for the new session this month. I wanted to put the lunges in since I think those really help and I added a jump rope for coordinating my "running" feet. So this month is:

30' run

4 x

20 walking lunges
20 elbow to knee
1' jumprope
15 arms behind head
100mt stride
100mt skipping, rec.1'

This was great because the next day I was sore in all the right places! So the big news is that I can really FEEL the difference. I'm building muscles and, when I run, I can really feel them working for me. I'm hoping that by having some glute muscles it'll help me have better posture and run with them rather than reverting to my quads to take the brunt of the run. My cycling seems to have benefited from it also. Yippee!

The Pause a.k.a. The Women's Only Entry

2007-08-01T01:14:00.000-07:00

By now I'm pretty used to it. Instead of talking about my time of the month we can discuss my time of the year. I was okay with that, having it come three times a year. Then last month all the symptoms came down on me at once: hot flashes, irritabilility and bloating bloating bloating. I've always been a water retainer, but recently it's been getting worse. Cellulite on my lower thighs down to the knees, a huge belly that won't go away. The one hundred degree heat wave weather that we've been having was making it worse. One day I had a mini-breakdown in the car with P. I started blubbering about my body being hijacked and not recognizing myself. For someone who really tries to take care of her body through sport and good nutrition, it's totally frustrating that no matter what I did, my body had another direction it wanted to go in.
I've already been to doctors and gynocologists who confirm, yes, you are in perimenopause and total menopause - even if a little early (this whole thing started at 44 for me) should come any time now. No, not a lot you can do about it.

No, I won't take hormone replacements.

So, to get rid of the bloating I'm trying every trick in the book: I drink 2 lts of water a day, I supplement with green tea, exercise is good, I've started cutting out any excess carbohydrates and I've added more protein. At the end of my showers I turn the water on COLD only for one or two minutes. I found a masseuse that doesn't charge a fortune to go to once a week (love that!). I take dandelion drops three times a day. All this combination seems to have helped out and calmed some of the symptoms. It's the not feeling in charge that bothered me the most. Now I'm back in the driver's seat. I'm sure I'll have to keep tweaking myself to figure out what to change, but that's better than just sitting back and feeling hopeless that there is nothing I can do about it. There is and I will.

On the way home

2007-07-16T05:23:00.000-07:00

Friday night we went to the Golden Gala in Rome, it's always exciting to see live athletics. Piero had to go work for the first half of the meet, more specifically his job was to film Oscar Pitorius while he ran the 400mt race. The IAAF was studying him and his request to run the world championship in Osaka next month. He was looking at his gait and number of steps per 100mts. Very interesting stuff.
Evan filled himself with and ice cream at about 8.00pm, and by 8.30pm he was fast asleep in my arms! Music, starting guns, screaming crowds did not disturb him! At one point I heard him snoring. We witnessed the freak accident with the Javelin. Just next to us another guy fainted watching what happened and hit his head on a rail. It was total chaos for about ten minutes.

We left Rome at about 10.00 pm and headed up to Roccaraso where Piero was following the marathoners workout the next day. Nobody is going to the World Championships this year since they don't want to get cooked, so they're all going to be doing a fall marathon, probably NYCM.
The workout was a 5km on the track.

Before they started warming up I asked them if they would take a picture with Evan. I'm supposed to do an album for his school, "What I did this summer". So on week three of summer vacation he spent time with athletic champions. Left to right: Giacomo Leone (1996 NYCM winner), Stefano Baldini (Olympic Gold Medal Athens Marathon), Piero holding Evan, Mimmo Caliandro (3km 2007 European indoor champion), Ottavio Andriani (1st place, 2007 Trieste marathon).

Before we left for the workout I went running on my own. I climbed up this hill that looked over the valley. Beautiful and silent, I had one of those beautiful moments where I am totally grateful for the life I have and to be in this world. I've noticed those moments have been coming more and more often...

Vacation

2007-07-13T03:27:00.000-07:00

Well, the title is a bit allusive because I didn't really go on vacation. Summer is one of my busier working periods since everybody starts to gear up for fall marathons. We went to the beach house for one week but I had my computer with my so that I could work every day. One week is the perfect amount of time for me to be at the beach house. I went swimming every day and rode my bike once and went running several times. I ate my weight in watermelon. I had some health issues which I'll write about later (no time now!). Today we're in Rome because Piero had to come back to work (I'm in his office using the internet) and tonight we're going to the Golden Gala athletic meeting. Yesterday we accompanied Piero to the stadium. So cool to be inside that huge Olympic stadium with nobody inside! Here's a few pics:

Running up and down the beach. Perfect stategy to get him to faint into bed in the evening.

In the Olympic stadium in Rome, trying to get a picture taken together.
Running in the Olympic stadium. Can't wait to see it filled with people tomorrow!

My favorite photos

2007-07-04T06:33:00.000-07:00

I told Olly I wanted to print my favorite photos that she shot this last month and hang them somewhere at home. These are my pics from May... May be Mamma's pride, but I say she has a special eye for details.

My other half

2007-06-27T08:48:00.000-07:00

I know that I don't talk about my daughter that much in this space. I know she wouldn't like it. We have a rather volatile relationship which goes from deep love to violent hate, sometimes in a matter of minutes. Part of that is her personality, part is a fourteen year old's hormones, another part is her being angry at life in general. These last two years have been particularly difficult for her at school. In grades 1 - 5 I sent her to a private catholic school. No nuns or priests, it was close to home, and they were in school until 4.00 pm and no school on saturday. This as opposed to 12.30 pm at the public school with saturdays included. When it came time to select a middle school for grades 6 - 8 I gave her the choice of the public school next to our house (walking distance) or to continue on at the catholic school where I would drive her in the morning but she had to take the public bus back home. It was only a ten minute ride, but a much bigger decision. It was also a different set of teachers and administration. Most of the friends she had made in school were continuing on at the private catholic school, she doesn't like change in general, so she decided to stay there.

The problem was that she changed. My sweet little first born started becoming a strong willed, opinionated, creative soul. This probably all happened at too young of an age for her and everyone around her, which threw her teachers off completely. So it's been a rough three years.

In Italy high schools are divided into specialties. You're expected to know what you want to do at fourteen and then choose that direction in your five years of studies. They have a "classic" high school where you study greek and latin, or a "scientific" high school where you study math and science. Olivia chose an art institute, with emphasis on photography and graphics. We're very happy with this choice because not only is it where she definately has talent, but she chose this particular school THREE YEARS AGO. She already knew what she wanted.

I hope the storms that she feels around and inside of her start to cease and she can find some peace in her creativity. I love her more than anything in the world.

Gift idea!

2007-06-13T15:43:00.001-07:00

After three trillion orders with Amazon, the other day they sent me a coupon for a free photo album book through Shutterfly.com
If you don't know what to get Dad, Husband, Boyfriend, Signficant Other or ANY father you know, go put together a photo album. It was so much fun and so so easy. I took all the pictures that I had from my trip to Memphis, picked the best and then made a book out of them with captions and some writing. Then I sent it off to my Dad. Very very cool. I'll probably use it again at Christmas or for some important occasion.

When you get something different than what you went for...

2007-06-08T07:31:00.000-07:00

I had a great time. The first few moments were a little ackward, if only for the time factor. Seeing people you know so well that have different faces and bodies is...surprising. But then ten minutes later you're already used to them again and all is well. My sister had her usual freak out moment, which I knew would come but I didn't realise that she creates them all on her own. Mmm, gave me lots to think about. In any case, I went there for me toteing Evan along with me without realising that we were actually going for him. When we arrived there my Dad was waiting for us, having already been at my brother's for a couple of days. Evan rushed up to my Dad and yelled "Grandpa!". Unfortunately my father is a little on the non responding, unemotional side so he didn't get it. We called Piero to let him know that we'd had a safe trip and Ev announced that Grandpa had a moustache and spoke in english. He didn't have trouble understanding anybody but he kept talking in italian on the first, second and third day. The fourth day he broke out of it and started speaking complete sentences in english with everybody. A non stop talker in both languages now! I mean he just never stops talking, plus he's in the "why?" stage. He played, he shopped, he loved running around at water parks and playing with his cousins. He went in the pool every day and learned not to be afraid of the water. He was happy to go home to his "Pappy".
Yesterday he was telling me that he likes speaking in english. I told him I was very happy for him and that I was happy that he met my family. His reply: "They're my family too!"

Carramba che Sorpresa!

2007-05-18T10:25:00.000-07:00

A few years ago the Italian State televison offered a bizarre variety show called "Carramba, che sorpresa". It was hosted by the queen of italian telly hosting, Raffaella Carrà, who through the years was able to recycle herself from showgirl to dancer and singer, on through quiz shows, and finally into variety show hostess. The word "Carramba" is a leftover from her spending some of her career in Spain and South America, definately not an Italian exclamation. The whole point of the show was to surprise someone by having them see people they hadn't seen in a long time. Ninety-nine percent of the guests were people from South America (mostly Brazil, Argentina and Venezuela) who had immigrated to Italy in the fifties and had never been back. Every week, for four endless months they would drag some lady or man onto the stage, sit them down next to Raffaella while she told their life story and how they hadn't seen their sister, cousin, brother, for the last twenty-five years. And guess what? Carramba, che sorpresa...they're here tonight!!! The format was exactly the same every week and of course I couldn't help but cry every episode. Each week I would ask myself how can they not see they're family for 25 friggin' years! Buy an airplane ticket, go for Christmas! Did they have a fight? Maybe they didn't want to see each other! Not in a million years would I ever think to find myself in a similar predicament. No, I'm not going on a variety show...

In the eighties I used to go to California at least twice a year: sometime during the summer and then for Christmas. I did a work stint at the end of the eighties for a travel agency and I'd travel four times a year to the east or west coast. After Olivia was born in the 90's I tried really hard to see at least one member of my family once a year. That would be three people. My Mom passed away when I was a child, my little brother passed away in the mid eighties so that leaves my Father who still lives in Northern California, my sister in Kauai (three children) and my older brother who now lives in Tennessee (three children).

The last time I saw my brother was in 1997. I went there for Christmas with Olivia and don't remember it as being a particularly nice visit since I was just divorced and really struggling with a lot of stuff. In 2000 I earned a good chunk of money and was able to travel to Kauai with Olivia in tow to see my sister. I still remember crying at the airport and wondering why we had scattered to opposite sides of the planet. My father came to Italy in the spring of 2001 to see me. After 9/11 he hasn't ever wanted to travel back to Europe. Me? 2001 was the year I bought my house so all my money went into that. 2002 I was pregnant for four months then miscarried, 2003 pregnant again and giving birth. Traveling to the States doesn't mean just me anymore, it means taking the family. Four airplane tickets cost 6.000,00 and it's just money I don't have to spend on travel these days. I have been back to New York for work four times, and even if it's great to be back on home turf it's still not the same as going "home".

My brother has three sons. The first, Jonathan, is graduating from high school next saturday. He's won a full scholarship (in baseball) to the University of Memphis and we are all excited for him. When I found out my father was going to the graduation I thought that I'd just have to find the money to go, even if it meant just me traveling. When my sister found out that I was coming she decided to come too and bring one of her three children. I just could not go without bringing Evan with me. I'll be eating beans for months, but my family will finally meet my son.

The last time my father, my sister, my brother and I occupied the same space was 1985. Twenty-one years. Carramba, che sorpresa!

I can't wait to see everybody (especially my sister, shhhh...). I'm getting tears in my eyes even writing about it. I won't be updating my blog until after the first of June. I'll be busy checking out Elvis's mansion and drinking American coffee. My sister-in-law has already booked me into some spinning classes and gotten me pool passes. She knows me well!

Solidarity

2007-05-17T03:54:00.000-07:00

One thing I forgot to mention about the Tri in Viareggio: I was sick. On Saturday I was feeling achy and nauseous but I had a huge day ahead of me that went like this:

5.00am wake up

6.30am throw Evan while still in pajamas into the car and leave for Milan.

9.00am arrive in Milan, find park, meet babysitter, dress, feed and bring son to restroom. Thank the stars that Olly is self sufficient and can get to school on her own.

9.45 - 12.00 - Teach group of 20 runners.

12.00 - 13.00 - Coaching (business) session live.

13.00 - 15.00 - Find huge sports store to get last minute stuff for the race and try and control Evan who wants to buy every ball he sees in the store. Eat before leaving.

15.00 - 17.00 - Drive back home

17.00 - When I got home, waiting for me was my ex-stepmother (don't ask!) and step sister (double don't ask!!) who were visiting from Wyoming for only one evening, on their way to Switzerland. I hadn't seen Nancy (Mom) since I was pregnant with Evan and Susan since 1982! I took them to the center of town where we had a really nice walk while we talked. I was still upright but a little dizzy.

20.00 - Made dinner for everyone. Somewhere around this time Piero came home from Rome.
I ate a little but wasn't hungry, cleaned the dishes and straightened up.

22.00 - Alessia came over to pack the bikes in her car. I think I fainted on the couch (my bed occupied by guests) somewhere around 11.00 pm

The next day we got up at 5.30 am, left the house somewhere around 6.00 am. I slept for about an hour and a half in the car. At this point I just felt like I had a big cold. Why didn't I just bag the race you ask? Because I had talked my friend Alessia into doing a triathlon! In Italy this is an impossible feat since most women a) don't swim well b) don't own a racing bike c) don't have time to train for all three disciplines. When I mentioned that she too could participate in a triathlon she immediatley said yes and started training with me. She bought a new (used) bike and borrowed a wetsuit and went through all the nervous rituals that many of us go through when doubting our abilities. I could not say that I wasn't feeling well and was skipping out!

I felt fine during the race and okay for the rest of the day. Then monday morning hit and it was like I paid back all those dues...Hacking cough, flu like symptoms. Today I brought the kids to school in the morning, came back home to write but before that happened I thought I'd lie down for a minute. THREE HOURS LATER (!!!) I woke up. The positive to that is the annoying hacking cough just disappeared so maybe I needed the rest.

Sprint tri 2007 nr.1

2007-05-15T16:02:00.000-07:00

On Sunday I raced my first tri of the season, a sprint in Viareggio. My last sprint race had been 7 years ago so I was a little nervous to do this. How bad could I have gotten in seven years?

The race started at 10.30 so I knew I'd be running under the 85°F sun at noon. 39 women at the start, more than 300 men.

I was happy to see that there were six women in my age group! (45-49)

Swim: 15'56" 750 mts

One of my "strong" points is my ability to swim a straight line. Not so much for other women!

I was going straight for the buoy and I'd get drifted by a bunch that started swimming into me

on the left. Then they'd realize that they were going off course so they start swimming to the right.

I really wanted to hit them but thought that I wouldn't make a lot of friends that way...

T1: 4'27"

Long stretch of beach to run up and then onto the far side of the transition.

Bike: 39'31" 20.22km

In sprints and Olympics drafting is legal and encouraged. What can I say? I caught a train...Pancake flat course with four hairpin curves. This is also the area where I need to work on. I used to be really fast!

T2: 1'40"

Run: 30'37" 5km

I didn't care about my time here, the only thing I really wanted to do was keep moving. It was two loops on the boardwalk and as I was coming out of t2 I watched the winners come in. I only walked once for about twenty seconds and thought to myself "why am I walking?" I passed one woman - yippee!

So I'm coming into the main stretch and I see a woman holding a rose for someone. As I passed by I asked "is that for me?" and immediately thought "It's Mother's Day...the kids didn't say or remember or..." as I'm mulling this in my mind and coming into the home stretch my little Evan, three and a half years old, squeezed in through the tapes and ran after me on the course. He took my hand and started running to the finish with me. I had to slow down to a walk 'cause his little legs go just so fast. He had this HUGE smile on his face and as we crossed the finish yelled "ABBIAMO VINTO!" (We won).

Now THAT is a Mother's Day present

Total time: 1h32'04

I had sort of predicted a 1h40' (based on NOTHING, just my cosmic psychic powers) so I'm really happy with the time and feel totally inspired to work harder on everything.

I used to live only a half hour from here so an old friend of mine Patrizia and her husband had come to watch the race. Afterwards we all went and had lunch on the boardwalk. The two hours we sat in the outdoor restaurant eating pasta with mushrooms and a chocolate gelato, with the sea breeze, friends, my family, my first tri in the bag...wow...I love life!

As American as...Tiramisù!

2007-05-15T08:44:00.000-07:00

Today my little boy became an American citizen. I'm so proud! Now I just have to teach him the National Anthem. (Sorry about the blurry photo but he wouldn't stop wiggling).

Marathon!

2007-05-10T00:09:00.000-07:00

In the past few years Piero's work responsabilities have changed a lot. He used to do more coaching and following the teams, but for the past two years they've put him into testing and research. He likes it a lot, especially going around and testing the athletes, helping out their coaches in understanding where, how they can improve. From a ten second taping or a glance at someone running he can tell you exactly where their defect is and what they need to do to improve. Anyway, he spends a lot of his working time in the Rome office of the Italian Athletics Association but he still has a few runners that he trains personally. Two of them are guys that he has trained since they were adolescents, Ottavio and Giacomo. They had both chosen to run the Trieste Marathon which in Italy is pretty much the last chance to run the distance for the spring season. There are two or three more races but it's just too hot to get a decent time in. As it was the tempature in Trieste was in the 80's, so it's a wonder they did well at all. Giacomo had tripped and fallen during a training session ten days before and missed out on two important workouts. Piero said he was running funny from the start of the race and eventually pulled out at 25km. Ottavio was doing okay but of course all the Africans were ahead of him with a group of eight that had surged ahead and started battling it out up front.

I was oblivious to all of this though. Evan and I had been dropped off by the organization in the Piazza Grande at 7.00 am. We went and got a coffee for me and a juice for Evan at a beautiful bar then I searched for a newstand where I bought the paper and Evan picked out a Chip & Dale magazine with a free harmonica included. When the race started we had the maxi screen to watch it on but it was so hot just standing there, I saw that Evan after only fifteen minutes into the race was already starting to fade. I took him down to the peers where there was a breeze from the water and we watched some row teams practicing. They had a mini ferris wheel that we went on, he loved that (me too!). Then we watched the marathoners as they passed by the Piazza and the half marathon finish. Evan tooted his harmonica for everybody. There were so many drop outs at this point which confirms why I hate two loop marathons. You have to be really mentally strong to keep going if you're feeling even a little bad at the half point

We positioned ourselves in front of the maxi screen again at 1h55' into the race which is exactly where Ottavio decided to make his move. He was in six place at the 38th kilometre. Apparently Piero yelled to him that the Kenyan in front of him was starting to look bad. First he passed one, then two...until he got to the last (first) and passed him at the 41st km. The whole Piazza roared as he positioned himself into first place. Winning time with heat and all: 2h10'56".

I'm always amazed at how impatient amateur runners are. Right now I'm argueing it out with this guy I train that wants to call it quits because he's not improving as fast as he would like to. I mean he is improving, he just wants more now. Ottavio is 34 years old. This is the second marathon he's won in his career. The first one he won was ten years ago. Ten years ago! And we're not counting the previous ten years. That takes a lot of persistence and patience and hard work and really believing in what you're doing. I don't know what he's going to do with his career now, but he really did have the race of a lifetime.

Ten days that changed my life

2007-05-03T07:03:00.000-07:00

I'll do a one a day post for a week to try and catch up and then I have to take another ten day break.

Yep, it's hard to believe but my life changed in ten days. I just have a few minutes to write about it and then I have to get back to work so I'll try to condense this as much as I can. A few weeks ago I talked about feeling flat. Part of the problem was that I'd get up in the morning, cut my head off, run around for fourteen hours and then collapse at the end of the day. Usually in front of the television with some cop or lawyer show. I really felt like I had no time to do anything and that nothing was concluded. Not always of course, but on the few occasions that I was able to finish a project or work I was never satisfied. I worried about money a lot, didn't feel I could make plans because Hubby was always gone...the list just goes on and on.

I also mentioned here that I'm training a group to run NYCM. They're thirty entrepreneurs that own their own companies. The common link they have is that all of them use the service of a Coaching Service. a Business Coaching service. Everybody of course paid for me to train them for the year but the head of the coaching business asked if we could barter our services. They have a lot different course to take so I said yes but that I'd have to think about what I wanted to do. Last month I came up with what the exchange for me would be. I wanted him to help me get organized. I thought it would be something simple where he would show me that I needed to keep a schedule or something...which I do, but it went a little deeper than that.

First he had me draw a chart that I divided into eight areas of my life and draw lines where I wrote in what I wanted out of each area by the end of the year. Then he had me do a affirmation test on four areas on my life which had a points total. My strong area turned out to be in personal relations, my weak was finance. I'm shocked... Then he had me do another chart where I drew in my levels of satisfaction in the eight areas comparing 2002 to 2007. For those that don't know 2002 is also known as "The year that totally sucked" in every aspect of my life. The chart was easy to do but I was surprised that my satisfaction level since then in a lot of areas hasn't raised much.

I circled three areas out of the eight that I wanted to concentrate on: finance, work, body (mine). The first two are obvious but I need to underline that by "body" I mean sports, workouts, races, spirit.

Now that I had narrowed the three areas of concentration he had me break them down and tell him exactly what I wanted to accomplish, how I was going to go about doing that and a time frame them. All of this took hours of work until we finally got down to a one half hour phone call and we were able to condense the conversation and get to work. The first ten days I did this it really helped that Piero took Evan down to his Grandmother's for a visit. I had most of the day open (except when I did stuff with Olivia) to work on my itemized list and get myself organized.

It's just amazing how much energy I had by taking care of business that I had put on the backburner for months. Just for a reference, I am self employed. I have several companies I work for plus a regular writing gig for a magazine where I do have deadlines. The rest is all up to me. It's great because I can be available for the kids whenever, it's difficult because I need to give myself direction all the time and sometimes that is not easy. Just having a 30 minute appointment once a week with someone who asks me why I didn't get something done and when am I planning on getting it done has totally changed my life.

This is the first time in a long time that I really look forward to sitting down and working. The wheels are turning, that blah feeling is gone. Hurray!

***************************
Like I said, in the next few days I'll try and do a post a day before another break.
Highlights:

my first tri of the season!
Olly's going to Art School!
New women to train with!
My husband's athlete won a marathon!
Evan becomes a US citizen!
I'm seeing my family for the first time in 7 years!!!!!

Simple Requests

2007-04-21T08:40:00.000-07:00

We bought the house we live in here in the north of Italy five years ago. We knew that we'd be staying in Modena for at least another ten years and we didn't want to keep forking over rent money to someone else, so we decided that we'd make the investment and buy. I know for American standards it's quite small, only one hundred and ten square metres, but for Italian city standards it is big. The number one thing that made us choose this house was the garden. We're situated one kilometre from the historic center of the city and even though it is in a condominium, three sides of the house is surrounded by a private garden. In April the house totally transforms itself because with the warm weather we can open all the doors up (and put the screen doors down!) and literally gain another two hundred square metres of living space. Whenever I get restless working I can just walk into our garden and relax. When it's really hot in the summer I like to get up early and have my tea on the patio table outside.In the evening I often work on my computer on the back terrace where I planted all the herbs. Neither Piero nor I are gardeners per sè, but we love to be outside. The one thing that really excited us was being able to plant our own garden. The house was brand new when we bought it so the garden was just this plot of dirt. We decided from the beginning that I was the designer and Piero was the laborer. Fair enough! I didn't really know what the heck I was doing but one thing I did have clear: the back corner of the garden, the one on the far side of the house was going to be the "scent" area. I wanted all my herbs planted on that side so that I could just go to one corner for all of my cooking needs. On the far wall ending the garden I wanted jasmine vines covering the fence.

When we bought the house we pretty much spent all of our savings and bigger than life mortage on the house itself. Plus this was that year that I was blessed with a late life, totally unexpected pregnancy, so extra cash was scarce. I opted for buying small plants that were inexpensive and tried to have faith in our gardening skills and patience with the plants growing. The jasmine bush cost about ten dollars. It wasn't very big, maybe five feet tall with two stalks coming up from the ground, but the perfume that the blossoms gave off was inebriating. I couldn't wait for it to grow!

Grow it did. Those shoots seemed to take off overnight. I coaxed them off to the left and the right and tied them onto the fence. Over the winter the plant survived and had no trouble fighting off even the coldest snowy climate. When spring came around I was all excited, anticipating the sensorial experience, but nothing happened. No buds, no blooms, no flowers.

I thought to myself that this must be how it works; the plant has to grow and the first year there will be no flowers... but wait 'til next year! Next year did come...and go. In the meantime the plant was growing. I had to cut it down to prevent it from taking over the whole back garden. I regularly chopped off the shoots that were growing outwards and on to the persimmon tree. To get it to bloom I tried giving it more water. When that didn't work I tried giving it less. I tried liquid, pellet, and organic homegrown fertilizer. Nothing, niente, nada, not even one little bloom.

Three weeks ago Piero and I were in the back gardening and he asked me what I wanted to do with the Jasmine vines. I said that I was going to give them one more year and then they were out because it had been five years now and they really had been given all the time in the world to produce some flowers with no results so far. I stepped over to the jasmine vines and said to them "I really really like having you here but if you don't produce any flowers this year I'm going to have to take you out. You have about another month and then I'll be planting photinia bushes in your place. So, make a decision here." I said this out loud and straight to the plants. Piero was watching me. No, he doesn't think I'm crazy. Besides he's seen me do these type of things before. Observing me having a one to one, serious conversation with a jasmine vine didn't phase him at all.

Today I walked outside and smelt something in the air...

I immediately called Piero on the phone. "You know that Jasmine vine?" He started laughing. I didn't even have to tell him what had happened.

No excuses!

2007-04-17T05:55:00.000-07:00

Go read Nancy Toby's entry for today HERE and then tell me you don't have time to workout. Puts us all to shame...What a strong woman!