On death and dying

On Monday Olly's paternal grandfather passed away. She was of course very very sad but more importantly, this was the first human death she had ever experienced. They had the funeral yesterday so we all piled in the car at 6 a.m. for the two hour drive to Viareggio. The night before she had expressed being "scared", that she didn't know how to act or how it would be. I gave her a big hug and held her for a long time. "Don't you worry, I am the expert on death and dying, you're in good hands with me." Driving over the Appenine Mountains she asked me about my deaths. I told her about my Mother dying when I was ten and my brother dying when he was twenty-two. All my grandparents have of course passed away and one boyfriend who died rather quickly from ALS. She didn't know if she wanted to go into the church and I let her know that that was okay. My sister did not go to our mother's funeral, everybody just has a different way of dealing with a loss. There is a certain point where I had to decide what this all meant and where everybody was going and why they had been here for such a short amount of time. I told her that I didn't think that her Grandfather was any longer in that body in the church, he was definately somewhere else. Maybe near or maybe already far away. He was seventy seven when he left us so he had a long life on this earth. More importantly I was sure that wherever he was now he was no longer suffering from the cancer that had eaten his human body.
The church and cemetery where he was being buried was on a beautiful hilltop above Viareggio. It was a sunny day and you could see the light shining on the water below. Evan was still sleeping in his pajama in the back seat so I waited outside the church during the funeral ceremony. He woke up just in time for the walk from the church to the cemetery. In this small hilltop village they still have the tradition of a few unknown women inserted in the crowd that sing or recite the rosary on the way to the cemetery. Grandma Elsa, eighty seven years old, rather loudly requested that these ladies NOT attend her funeral. The cemetery was filled with plots of people that had died twenty, thirty, fifty years before. I thought about how I believed that none of those people were really present anymore. Just bones, and I don't mean that in a disrepectful way. My brother had mentioned in passing conversation just a few weeks before his death that if he ever died he wanted to be cremated. I'm glad we were able to do that for him. It really gave me the conviction that we are not our bodies, that they are just vehicles for this voyage in life.
After all was said and done we went back down to Viareggio. Olly went to spend a few hours with her Grandmother, Evan and I went to the port and beach to spend some time playing on the sand and look at the boats. This is the town where I did my very first Olympic Triathlon in 1996 and it's where I will be doing my first sprint Triathlon for the 2007 season in six weeks.
While I was playing with Evan I was imagining my swim and...imaging my swim. Didn't really think about the bike and run...I guess I'll just be happy to be in the water again. I know these two thoughts don't go together too well, funerals and triathlons, but that's kinda how the day went!

I have a favor to ask...

I've been feeling...flat. I can't really describe it otherwise. Not depressed, not excited, not emotional, just flat. I know that there is something causing this but I haven't really had the time to be quiet and figure out what is going on.

Last week I had a mini-two-hour-meltdown. I had to go to Trev1so for the weekend to work the marathon there. Piero was going to be working in Rome so I had to take Evan with me. Olly was supposed to go to her father's in Milan, but he called at the last minute to say that...he couldn't. So it was me alone having to decide how to single handedly juggle two children and my job. In that two hour window I told Piero that this was one of those days where I just want to throw the towel in. Sell the house which now has an ever growing mortage, move down south where it's cheaper living and just take care of the kids. I know in my heart that I'd last about seventeen minutes in a situation like that, but for sixteen and a half of those minutes I wouldn't have to worry about multi-tasking all my life roles. I tried to have Olly stay schoolmates house but to no avail. Then on two runs everything fell into place within 24 hours. On wednesday, without mentioning ANYTHING Linda asked me if I wanted her to come up to Treviso with me and take care of Evan while I worked. I was so touched, I mean she was giving up three days just to help me out! I accepted right away. The next day I went running with another friend and came up with my own little plan. Since there were two days that Olly wouldn't be going to school (friday she wasn't going on the school field trip and saturday the school was closed because they were going on a trip to the Vatican city) I decided that she could spend the day by herself in the house and then go sleep at Elles' house. They both loved the plan so it worked out for everyone.
I was very lucky to have Linda with me since Sunday it rained for the second half of the race and I absolutely wouldn't have known what to do with Evan if she hadn't been there. The photo above is Ev working the booth at the marathon, he's giving away pace bracelets.

So I have a favor to ask. There's this website that I read everyday, Ali Edwards.
She's trying to raise as much money as she can for her favorite charity, Autism speaks, inc. I tried to donate some money but for some reason the system won't accept foreign payments.
If one of you will donate the ten dollars, I will send you a bottle of my very favorite and expensive Aceto Balsamico. It comes in a beautiful bottle and goes on salads like syrup. It has a delicious cherry retro taste to eat. I could guzzle the stuff but that wouldn't be very ladylike. I do lick the little drip off the spout when I pour it though...that's not very ladylike either and Olly gets really mad at me when I do it. Anyway, the vinegar costs 9,10 euro plus I'll have to pay for shipping so it'll cost me another 8,00 euro to ship it to the States. The ten dollars you spend for the donation will be more than compensated by the orgasmic balsamic vinegar.

I can only afford to send ONE bottle so the first person to leave a message in the comments saying that they donated on my behalf will be the one I send the package to. I'll get in touch with you to get the address where to send it to.
Of course you can donate without the vinegar incentive!
Thanks!

different intelligence

Lately P and I have been having conversations like this:

Me: Did you get that email I sent you about Carlo M?

P: What email?

Me: I sent you an email yesterday about Carlo M, you said you would answer it for me.

P: Who's Carlo M?

Me: He's that runner from Milan...

P: (blank stare)

Me: ...thirty-fiveish, blonde hair, we did a test on him. You wrote in the test that he had a torsion problem with his feet...

P: (nothing registering)

Me: ...You know, last month when we did those tests on the Milan group. I've been training him since January...

P: Who?

Me: (starting to lose patience...) CARLO M!!

P: Who's Carlo M?

Me: THE GUY FROM MILAN THAT YOU TESTED AND WROTE THAT HE HAD A TORSION ON HIS FOOT!!! THE FAST GUY!!!!

P: Oh, you mean the first in the group?

Me: Yes...

A lightbulb had been lit, all was good. Of course he didn't remember what he had said and I had to dig the test out for him to see and then remind him four times to give me the exercise file to send...

I've never considered myself an "intelligent" person in an academic sense. I always gotten decent grades and I never failed a class. I do have one very strong point going for me however that has always served me well.

I remember everything.

I remember situations and conversations and sometimes if it's necessary I can remember mundane details like what the other person was wearing, the jewelry that had on, or what kind of furniture was in a room. I can remember as far back as when I was three years old. It's like I memorize details and surroundings and conversations and feelings. Sometimes I forget appointments and I have to have a list of things to do on a day to day basis in order to remember what I have to do, but once I've done it I can tell you in what sequence it happened and what the weather was like that day. That's why I can tell you at what time Carlo M arrived for his test and what he was wearing and those black sunglasses he had on with the baseball cap on backwards (it was green with white stripes) and how he was running and the questions he asked that day and how soon afterwards he emailed back.

P doesn't remember any of this. He can remember anybodies important PR in any distance from the 400mt to the marathon, but he has no detail for anything else. I know I'm supposed to do something with this gift of mine, I just haven't figured out what yet.

With the wind in her air...

I wouldn't have used that title, but someone did think it up for an all women's race in northern Italy. This group called me in november and asked if I would offer one of my 8 week training courses to prepare the women of Belluno for a 5km race that they were organizing. I went to the first workout in February and gave my spiel on how they had to plan their workouts, take time for themselves and all the good stuff that becomes a habit to anybody that takes care of their body with physical activity. I think this is the one and only time that the group of women grew over time (from 40 to 60 participants) rather than decreasing. They invited me to come and be guest of honor at the race yesterday, how could I refuse?

We left the house at 6.30 am and arrived in Belluno at around 9.30. The whole main piazza was full of balloons. Evan woke up from sleeping the whole trip in the back seat and the first thing he said was...

"I want a blue balloon."

I've been having trouble with my left knee for about three days now, but only when I walk. For some reason it doesn't hurt when I run but it's like I don't trust it yet. Anyway, I was afraid I was going to look like an idiot, getting injured while running (great promo for the sport!) but thankfully all was well and I felt no pain the entire run. It was and up and down and up again route all through the small town. It was really nice to just run in a new atmosphere, mountains instead of flatland. I had started out in the back so I just kept passing women that didn't know anything about pacing themselves yet, right up until the end. About a quarter of a mile to the finish I passed a group of women at a good clip and then as I was coming down the straight I could hear them coming up from behind...No way I'll let anybody pass me at the finish line! (me in black...)

I have no idea how far I ran or how fast it was but I am really happy that I had a painless run, even with the gimpy left leg. Afterwards I talked with another group of women that are from a town near Belluno that would like to organize the eight week clinic for women in their area. While I was talking to them all I could think about was being able to come to the first meeting and bringing my bike so I could get in a really great training session in the Dolomites! Can't wait!Piero was able to capture a lot of positive, powerful images for me during the morning, like this one...

...and this one...

Ev got to play with lots of pink balloons.

Reasons and Purpose

Do you read this blog? I mean, if you're reading this sentence, of course you do, what am I talking about...Sometimes I ask myself what I'm doing with a blog. None of my friends know I have one (except one), I'm not making it specific about anything: triathlon, diet, me, or whatever. So what exactly am I doing here and what do I want out of this?

I started out with the excuse of losing those last 10 lbs of pregnancy weight. Let me announce to you that 8lbs are still stuck there so I might as well just face that I am not here for that anymore.

Part of it is a huge opportunity for me to write in english. That sounds silly, but it's totally true. I know you don't know this but I'm quite an accomplished writer...in italian. It's always been that way for me. I have a bachelors in Italian literature and language from San Francisco State. I studied at the University of Florence for a year. But when I had to take the required english classes in college I squeezed out of it by taking the English Proficiency test. You walk in a room, they give you a few white sheets of paper and a subject to write about. I knew enough that I had to have a) a paragraph introduction b) two supporting paragraphs c) a conclusion. Bingo! You don't have to take a year of obligatory english.

I have now lived more years in Italy than the time I spent in the States. That would be twenty years in the States and almost twenty-seven abroad. I still love to read in english and I like to watch television in english (thank God for that language switch button they have now on the remote). I still speak english well of course, but I do have a strange accent and I started to see that I was losing my ability to write correctly...so here I am.

This has been a strange week. Not good or bad, just strange and different. I need to get back on track, need to get centered again.

Roma Ostia 2007

This weekend I ran (um, if that's how we can define it...) the Roma Ostia Half Marathon. This is still one of my favorite races even though there is a bit of disorganization. But then again, it wouldn't be an Italian racewithout it, right? Linda and I drove down to Rome on saturday morning, Evan slept the entire four hours of the drive which was really really nice. We went to the expo which was totally boring and had nothing but N1ke hype. I was able to see a lot of people I hadn't seen in a long time so that was nice.
Piero showed up (driving from the south) at about five p.m. with his little boy really excited to see him.

The next morning Linda and I went to the start with Patrizia while Piero drove straight to the finish line with Evan. We went to our meeting point where Lucy and Livia and Alessia were waiting for us. I love having a women's running circle!

Given my back situation I had 3 tiers of what I would call "satisfaction". The first was 2h06', the second was 2h10' and the third was 2h15'.

We were all in the last corral except for Livia, so she waved goodbye and set off to get a spot. The rest of us huddle together waiting for the start which came when people started to move.

Breakdown of the race:

Kms 1 - 3 - Cruising along at 6'00"/km, no problem except for all the crazies that decide to walk yet feel the need to position themselves up front. Lots of weaving in and out. I almost took some guy's shoe off when he insisted on speeding up and placing himself in front of me, and then slowing down.

Km 4 - There's a crowd on the left hand side of the road with an ambulance and police. There's a guy on the ground with a few people crying. I say a silent prayer. I later found out he was a friend of my friend Giancarlo. 48 years old, very experienced, three hour marathon runner. Worked as a nurse in a hospital. He died from a heart attack. He leaves behind a wife and three daughters. I tell myself that my ******* time doesn't matter, I am fortunate to be able to be here right now and in this moment.

Km 7 - This is where the big 1,5 km hill is. My back starts to hurt and at one point I decide that I could power walk it faster, so I do.

Km 9,8 - I have two Powergels, one tucked in my left bra side, one on the right. Take out the left side one - Strawberry-Banana! Yum!

Km 10 - They've run out of water and my mouth is all pastey and yucky. I walk for five minutes trying to scout out a water bottle that someone has thrown to the side. I score a full unopened bottle. Even though the organization should have had more water, I can see where the runners are also at fault.

Km 17 - I am never going to run a race again. I mean with my bad back, what the hell was I thinking?!

km 18 - Ostia is at the beach and this is the km where we reach the shore. The last three kms are up and back so I got to see all my friends that were ahead of me and then all my friends behind me on the way to the finish line.

Km 20 - Piero and Evan are here and take a few pics:

Finish - 2h15'10" , by the skin of my teeth!

True to a runner's word, for about an hour afterwards I thought I didn't want to ever run again. By the time we were cleaned up and driving back home (where the best boy in the world slept another four hours!) we were already planning our next half marathon on april 1st!

Routine

I have a wonderful sister that lives, literally, on the other side of the world. The last time I could afford a plane ticket to Kauai was in the year 2000 and that is the last time I saw her. We'll probably be seeing each other this spring, meeting somewhere in the middle of the USA. I remember when we were about 10 (me) and 13 (her) she used to keep a timetable on what she was to be doing at particular times. 7.00- Get up 7.05 - wash face 7.10 - brush teeth 7.13 - eat breakfast. She'd do it too! She had a timer and she would make herself do this whole routine. As the day went on it was a little more lax, an hour for television, two hours for reading, but then she had a night timetable as to what time she was to go wash her face, brush her teeth again and get in bed. She was and is a very creative person. Lots of knitting and beading and beautiful drawings and playing with colours...I was always envious of her being able to draw, which I cannot do. But she had the schedule. That kept her in line, put her in place.
I have that same need for discipline though I'm not as good at keeping it up as she was and is. I certainly like a schedule though. I write times out for myself and I love lists of things to do, but I still have a hard time being flexible when my little schedule gets thrown off.

Take this week for instance...After ten days of itching and not sleeping and trying to keep him from scratching himself, Evan is almost healed. He has a few more scabs that have to fall off his face so I want him to stay home from school until that happens. I don't want that angelic face scarred for life! Just as Evan was getting better, Piero fell sick. If his tempature goes above 100° it's like he's dying. It's been hovering around 100° for two days now. I am not complaining about having to play Florence Nightengale to everyone, I signed up for this for better or worse. But my little "routine" goes out the window. I have to write when I can, update clients charts when people are sleeping, constantly clean clean clean because four people in a small space make a mess mess mess. There is a certain point when anything I try and do gets interrupted (Mom! Do this for me!! Julia, come sit here with me...) and I go crazy. Today I put my workout stuff on and just left the house before I went nuts. Piero and Evan were napping on the couch so it seemed like a good moment. Here's what I did:

• Went and had a coffee at a bar
• Got some cash out of the ATM
• Bought some Dandelion tea to see if it would work with my water retention problem.
  
• Bought myself a new Timex Ironman Crono watch
• Bought myself some new Speedo pool flip flops (same store as watch)
  
• Went to the track and did a 15' + 10 x 500mt + 2 x 1km workout - felt good

After that I was able to go home and be pleasant to everyone. I cooked a yummy dinner (chicken and rice stir fry with ginger). I have to learn to adapt, but I secretly have to let you know that I can't wait to get back to the routine. Any routine.

Old space - new space

I discovered a new blog to read this week (Superhero!) that I liked so much I went back and read all the entries. On her website she has a really nice document on designing a creative space.
If you happen to be self employed, please read this. It really inspired me to rethink a lot of my own space and I'm proud to let you know that I've decided to redo everything. EVERYTHING.
I really feel I need an enviroment that I love to be in so that I can be more productive and creative. My space has potential so I'm excited about the project.

This is my space from the outside. It spills onto the livingroom area as the glass door can slide open all the way as it is hidden into the wall on the left.

Here it is with the sliding doors open


On the left, general Mayhem on the bookshelves.

Plenty of wasted space and general ugliness at my feet on a daily basis.

Just so you know, you're looking at it after I spent two days cleaning it all up. I hauled away 8 bags of paper, garbage and old CD's and floppy disks. My new computer doesn't even have a floppy disk slot! One of my agendas had my address book in it. It was from 2003 with a broken zipper and weighs about two pounds . I took the address pages out, added some abc pages that I had bought to supplement the already overcrowded addresses. Then I had to find a cover. Olivia used to doodle on the pages all the time so I found one where she had drawn her version of a chinese girl. I put it on a piece of cardboard, applied an acrylic gloss on top (two coats, ten minutes to dry) and Voilà - new cute handmade, makes me think of my baby girl - address book!

Just one moment

I have been able to keep up on my bi-weekly visit to the pool and so far, for the month of february, I've also been able to complete a minimum of 2,000 metres each and every session. The problem is in what I've been doing for those two thousand metres. Quite frankly, I do whatever I can. Crawl, kickboard, floating thingy between the legs, backstroke, freestyle, whatever hits me at the moment. I am very lucky to be able to swim in a 50 metre pool. I found that out two weeks ago when I was forced to go back to the 25 metre pool for one training session. It looked like a duck pond in comparison. Believe me, fifty metres up and fifty metres back goes much faster than twenty five up-down-up-down-up-down-up down! In any case I had never gotten back into being able to jump in the pool, pump out 1500 metres and be done with it. I used to do it all the time. I'd even make myself perform a monthly time trial just to see where everything was. Why am I having such a hard time convincing myself to do it now? I think part of it is fitness. After committing to the pool now for almost six month I am stronger. I have a bicep (actually two!) , I feel firmer, I like going to the pool as opposed to making myself go there. I am definately in better shape than just last month. But the thing that I am surely missing is knowing that I am doing everything correctly. While I swim I question everything. Am I putting my hand in at the proper angle? Is my elbow too high? Am I balanced or are my feet dragging? By the time I get to the other end of the fifty metres I'm a mass of unconfidence . The other day I did have a small revelation, it lasted for exactly six minutes or three hundred metres. That morning I had been reading from Terry Laughlin's "Total Immersion Swimming" where he talks about swimming like a vessel and making your body long. As I swam one length I started to get into concentrating on my stroke and making the most of it. All of the sudden I was at the side of the pool and I started to love what was happening. For another pool length I was almost laughing at how good it felt and in a mini state of Nirvana. I imagined that it felt better in the water rather than out. I remembered all those dreams where I could magically breathe underwater. It-felt-so-utterly-fantastic...and then the bubble burst and I took a break. I know what is keeping me from progressing now. It's the doubt I have in my stroke. My swimming isn't automatic anymore and that's what it has to be if I am going to be able to do any long distance swimming. SO...for the month of march I'm going to take some private lessons. I really need someone to look at me and tell me where my mistakes are right now (yep, they change) and help me correct them so I have no more doubts. I'm not looking to be perfect, just the best I can be. Mostly I'm looking to get back to that nirvana state. Those six minutes were worth six months of bad swimming.

True happiness

Anne Nicole Smith? Further proof that money does not bring happiness.

I hope she finds peace wherever she is now.

Universal Tornado

I really wanted to have the time to sit down and write out a proper entry, but so far, no extra time. There's been a lot of strange stuff going on, though I oddly feel "protected" from it all. Just need to step back, watch it happen, help out if I can but avoid getting hit by any of it. Haven't heard back from the bulimic client but I did let her know that if she needed friendship, it was here, no questions asked. There's not a lot you can do for a person that doesn't want to help themselves. I have another friend who gets deeply depressed, and this was one of her weeks. She has nothing to be depressed about and she even admits it. I told her that when she's in the depressed mode she doeesn't call friends, she doesn't go out, she doesn't run (another runner!), and doesn't make plans or meals for herself. That she has to just make herself do the same things she does when she's happy - see people, run or swim, call her friends. I know it's not that simple but you really can get yourself at least out of the rut but taking some action rather than being passive.
Two cancer cases this week, one friend with breast cancer and another with skin cancer. They'll both be operated on this week and again, it's the mind that will do a lot of the work here. The skin cancer friend is super super positive and is absolutely sure that he'll come out okay. The breast cancer friend has closed herself in her house and is worried about her hair falling out. I've never been in either situation so I can't really say what I would do, but I'm pretty sure I wouldn't stop answering the phone.
The worst was a my next door neighbors Pina's sister being murdered. She had a bar (in Italy it's more like a place to get coffee) and was killed while closing up. She was given continuous blows to the head, then covered and put behind a refrigerator. Pina is a pretty strong lady, very practical so she hasn't really broken down or anything, but now she's sees crime and violence in everything. I can't blame her really. I hope the police are able to close the case for the family, the assasin seems to have left plenty of fingerprints behind. Last night I was making Lasagna for dinner so I doubled the recipe and gave it to her. I thought "if I was going through something like that I probably would not want to cook". She gave me a huge hug when I gave it to her, like I'd signed a cheque over or something.
Last but not least, Evan has come down with chicken pox. Not exactly a tragedy but it's three weeks at home trying to keep him from itching himself.


Training is going well, the least of my concerns at the moment, but any positivity helps right now.

How to help...

I got an email the other day from a woman I train. She'd done really poorly at a race last week because she was sick. In the email she sent me she confessed that she was actually bulimic and had been going through a rough few days...and that was the real problem. Today she called me to tell me that she wanted to stop running, that she was quiting. Before she called me on the phone, I was going through her email in my head for most of the day. I just kept thinking that I know very few women (and quite a few men) that do not have some sort of an issue with food. There's the one's that eat too much and then one's that don't eat enough. Being in a sports enviroment I've seen quite a few people who "race" in order to eat, or eat nothing in order to race better. Two extremes, the same problem. Now I'm certainly not a bulimic specialist or even a counselor but what I told her when she phoned was that giving up on herself was not an option. You make a mistake on Monday, you pick yourself up and try again on Tuesday, even if that means on Wednesday it happens again. If there is one thing I have learned in all the weird overeating and undereating is that the problem is not the food. The problem is somewhere else, the food is just a dulling tool to take away whatever pain you have in that moment. I gave her the number of a really good psychologist I know and made an appointment with her to go running next week. Running is not the answer to her problems, but I've always found it to be a good tool in these situations.

It make me feel sad to see how f**cked up this society can be in terms of body image and what we should all look like or what the ideal body shape is. I know so many women who strive for something that they will never be able to obtain rather than just trying to be the best that they can be. Strangely enough I find this easier to do the older I get. Maybe because I don't have to look like a twenty year old beauty queen anymore, I can just be a strong-kick-ass-going-towards-fifty year old. Now that's an image I like!

San Geminiano

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

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

Time flies...

I can't believe how fast time is flying by! It's almost the end of January and I feel like the year just began. This blogging thing is funny because I know a few people read here so if I'm absent for a while I feel like I need to apologize and say that I've been away and I've been busy...on the other hand I think "well, who really cares?" I hate to keep doing breakdowns of what I'm up to but it always seems like the easiest thing to do in order to give a little picture of what my life is at the moment.

THE POOL: I promised myself I'd be going twice a week and twice a week it is! I don't always do a lot while I'm actually in the pool, but I have the excuse that I'm working on my "technique". (Ha!). Anyway, it's doing wonders for my back so I am very happy about that. Also I have a training secret: I have a "monday" partner (Tiziana) and a "thursday" partner (Linda). It is set in stone that we meet at the pool so I have no way to back out, someone is counting on me being there. I do this also for my Sunday workouts (biking or running). It's always a good idea to have training partners that keep you on your toes.

MY TRAINING: The running is going good. Not great but good. I did my first key race of the season last sunday, a 12 km near my house. I completed it. Enough said. The swimming is going good. Not great but good. The bike is non existent and I have to change that really really fast. I went out for a 30km spin yesterday but I really should be on the bike twice a week at this point. I now declare that I will get on the bike twice a week. For all of those keeping tally that's two swims, two bikes and three runs per week. Go!

MY BUSINESS: I've doubled my clients in the last two months so I am really busy with that. Next week I have two women's running clinics that start off in an area near Treviso. I've very excited about it since this is a new area for me, meaning I've never done clinics in this area. If you want to read about my clinics in english you can go here. I just feel SO optimistic this year, I can't wait for each day to start...

MY RHYTHMS:...and in my can't wait for the day to start mood I've taken to getting up at 4.30 a.m. - It sounds freaky, but I love it. First of all I love having some time to myself in the morning. Olly is a big girl now and stays up late so I almost always have someone around. I love my alone time, need my alone time. I get up, meditate for a few minutes, make a cup of tea, then I start the day writing. The time actually flies by since I have to get the kids up at 6.30. I bring them to school then get back home at around 9.00 where I can either continue working or go train guiltlessly since I've already put in a few hours of work. The most difficult part of the day is going to bed early. It pretty much means no television but I'm okay with that. This morning Piero got up with me and then we had breakfast and some time together just talking before he took off for Rome where he will be until Friday. Anyway, if ten years ago someone had said that I'd be up at 4.30 a.m. to work I would have laughed in their face. Look at me now!

NYCM, here we come!

I was contacted a few months ago by a guy that had participated in my "My First Marathon". He wanted me to create a similar running program for his clients that would start running from scratch and work towards completing the New York City Marathon. We had our first meeting on Saturday. The spirit of the group was fantastic! Lots of fun people, very positive attitudes. To start out we filmed them running and then over the weekend wrote out individual video analysis for each runner. We showed them a few of the exercises that they'd find on their training plans in the first month also. Last night I finished writing out all the training plans and then I'll be calling each one next week to see how they're adapting to their schedules. The word must have gotten around at what a fun time we had saturday because three more people called yesterday to join the group. I guess I'll be going to New York in november! I love an excuse to travel, especially to the States.

In the "my kid's a freak" topic, Evan is learning to spell. Now, he knows all the letters in the alphabet so the other day we got take out pizza and on the box PIZZA was written across the top. Ev said "look Ma! P-I-Z-Z-A". I told him it spelled pizza. He got it. He's now memorized how to spell his Evan, pizza, casa, mamma, papa, and Scarabeo (don't ask...). Piero has fun saying a word he knows and telling him it's spelled sbzraq. Evan will correct you and give the right spelling. Very very cute...

Scattered thoughts for the week

This is Evan making his "sad" face, though you can see his eyes still smile. After two week away from nursery school it's been really hard to get him to go back in the morning. He puts on a little crying scene and pronounces in english "I want to stay home with yoooooouuuuuu..." If he says it in english you know he's trying to tug on those heart strings.
I haven't had time to write a proper entry so he's what's been going on this week:

- I've made good on my promise to go swimming twice a week. I almost didn't make it...The week started on monday the first and by thursday evening I still hadn't gone. On Friday I said to myself that I didn't have to do a long and strenuous workout, I just had to GET IN THE DANG POOL! So that's what I did. I ended up with only 1000 metres but half of it was balancing drills that takes a lot of time up. (That's my excuse and I'm sticking with it). Saturday I went again with Linda and all was good with 1600mts. This week I already went on monday and I have a planned workout tomorrow, so now it's a habit. Right?

- Watching all the weight loss blogs after the new year. I will scream the next time I see another person confuse "lose" and "loose". It drives me crazy!

- Sunday Linda and I did a really fun workout: 30' + 10 x (1' slow/30" fast) + 3 x 1km @ 160 bpm. Again, fun, but I have a lot of work cut out for me before I can run the Roma Ostia Half Marathon.

- Evan is seeing letters everywhere: license plates, road signs, packages. His new "game" is to open up a Word page and ask me to spell words to him while he finds the letters. I found a great site for tracing paper, to teach him to write his name. At the moment he can type it, but not write it. Computerized kid...

- I've been concentrating on how I chew my food. Don't laugh, I'm not being a freak. I love to cook and I do cook our meals at both lunch and dinner. So I'll spend like an hour preparing dinner, set the table and have everybody sit down. Ten minutes later the whole affair is over. Piero swallows his meal whole and he can really shovel it in. I have to slow Evan down all the time and have caught him taking on the same habits. Olly is better but she eats a quarter of what everybody else does so the time thing evens out. I'm somewhere between everybody but it is something I thought I ought to pay attention to. Here's what I've learned: 1- a ten minute meal now takes forty minutes. Twice this week I've ended up eating by myself since everybody else still finishes in ten minutes. 2) I'm more satisfied at the end of the meal, feeling fuller 3) Fruit and vegetables really DO contain a lot of water. If you chew long enough you end up with just a little pulp. 4) Foods that require essentially no chewing: couscous, ground beef, carrot cake. Who would've known?

An opportunity for gratitude

Yesterday Olly and I got in the car to bring her to the train station. She was going to Milan to spend the night at her father's, but unofficially she was going to spend the day with her new beau. I knew this because her father works until about 7.00 p.m. and she was itching to leave by 10.00 a.m. so it wasn't hard to put 2 + 2 together. Plus, she was willing to travel by train. Until today we've had a decade full of her father and I meeting half way between Milan and Modena any time she wanted to see him. On my part that's 120 round trip kilometres plus the time getting it all together, probably about two hours total if there is no traffic. The train? A seven minute car ride to the train station, a one hour twenty minute train ride for her.

We get in the car, I turn the key and it makes this "mpehra..." sound, and then nothing. I knew what it was right away. The battery was dead. Olivia panicked. "Oh no!! I'm going to miss the train!". She had tears in her eyes. I'm more practical (comes with age) so I just told her that there was nothing we could do in that moment about the car but we could see when the next train was. We looked at the schedule and saw that we had an hour and a half to get it together. She suggested a cab, I suggested one bike, four legs. I won. I had about ten errands to do that morning and I needed to be mobile after I dropped her off at the train station. Plus, it's only a three kilometre trek from our house, so off we went.

After I put her on the train I had to deal with the car. Piero is away for a week so no male to take care of the mechanical stuff for me. Now, I don't know anything about cars. I can pump my own gas, but that is truly the extent of my mechanical knowledge. There is a car mechanic just three hundred metres from our house but he is a THIEF! He totally overcharges on anything he does plus he surcharges any parts. Yes, he would walk over to my house and tow the car off and fix it, but he'd be charging me a ton of money for the whole thing. I knew that it'd take him about ten minutes to change that battery and he'd charge me $200.00 for the operation. I don't know where it came from but my first thought was "can't I do this myself?" Now where did I ever come up with that idea?

My across the court mechanical type neighbor Andrea confirmed to me that it was a simple operation. He threw in "if you have trouble just call me". It was comforting to know that I had a backup. I asked him where I could buy a new battery and he told me that just behind the bowling alley not more than three minutes from our house was a battery store. It was like a dream. I mean, I've lived in this neighborhood for eight years and not more than three hundred metres away is this huge store where he sells nothing but batteries of every type.

The first thing I had to do was get the old battery out and remember the sequence with which I took it apart. This actually wasn't too difficult. The hardest part was getting the bolts to turn because they'd been in place forever. I also have to admit that I Googled "how-to-change-a-car-battery" and viewed a few sites that confirmed how simple it was. The only thing that I messed up was taking off the negative before the positive (or the other way around), but I'm still alive to testify that it wasn't a problem. Andrea also popped outside in the crucial moment when I couldn't get this thingy with the spark plugs that was screwed on top of the battery off because the bolt wouldn't budge. After a mere fifteen minutes I had my old battery out. Now how to transport it to the shop and trade it for the new one...the baby jogger! I got a few stares from people seeing me pushing the battery in a stroller, but I'm not that self concious so I didn't care. The salesman looked at my battery and asked if I wanted the same type or a new "no maintenance" one. I went with latter because I found out that in all these years I was supposed to check the water levels every year. Who knew? Equipped with my new "no maintenance" battery I wouldn't have to ever worry about that again. (I'm laughing on that last sentence...I've never worried about it in the first place 'cause I didn't even KNOW about it...sigh...)

With my new battery back in the baby jogger, I headed back home. In front of the open hood I did have a moment of hesitation. "Maybe I should just wait for Andrea...". "No, you do it." That was still me talking..."Just give it a try." Getting the new battery in was ten times easier than taking it out. Then, like a true mechanic, with the hood still up I went and tested the engine. Unlike any other mechanic, I gave out a little squeal when it turned over in an instant. I CHANGED A CAR BATTERY ALL BY MYSELF!

I have a lot to be grateful for in this experience. Don't laugh, it's my brand spankin' new 2007 point of view:

- I am grateful that I will be able to cut out a lot of driving by sending Olly on the train. Now we know that she can travel with no problem. It's ecologically more sound and will save both parties time and money.

- I am grateful that my mechanic has overcharged me all of these years because I would have never been inspired to change the car battery myself if he hadn't.

- I want to thank my old battery for nine years of service even if I never once checked its' water levels (though I'm sure that someone did at some point).

- I am grateful for the whole experience because it has opened up a whole world of mechanical possibilities to me: my bike, the house, my bike, my car, my bike. (I need to work on my bike but have always taken it to a bike mechanic. Hey, I can change a car battery, can't I change some bikey thingy?)

Day one...actually Day two...of 2007

I was going to post yesterday, being it the first day of the year and all, but I got too busy doing nothing. When you have the entire day to screw around with, it is really easy to watch the hours fly by. There are a few things I did get done though:

- I tried to solve the JBMommy problem with my fonts and learned all about CSS style sheets! I thought I could go into the html and just change the font colour from dark grey to black or the font size, but I couldn't find them. This led me to actually looking at what the heck CSS was and why I should learn more about it. Anyway, the CSS sheet is on an external site which I can't get to so we'll all just have to live with these fonts until I can change my site over...which is going to take a long time because the Beta version of Blogger doesn't accept a lot of the old stuff and you pretty much have to use their templates. For me to do a new site is really fun and exciting (really!) but it's a long learning process for me (read: I'm really slow in understanding new concepts...) and I don't have a lot of time to waste right now. We'll get there soon though!

- I sorted out the socks. I took all the stray socks from the laundry basket + all the stray socks from three socks drawers + all the socks from the stray sock drawer. I made one huge three foot pile and started to pair them up. I came up with 146 pairs of socks and only 15 stray socks left over. This took me an hour and a half to do. The fifteen stray socks left have one week to find their partners or else they outta here!

- I did part two of the "Get Your Geek On" Triathlon. I was supposed to do the run afterwards but it was cold out and rather grey and sort of depressing. I decided to skip it and do the five km timed run today...later...

31-12-06

I had a wonderful Christmas. I can't pinpoint any one thing that happened or tell you about any fantastics gifts that I received. I just was really happy all the time. First we had a Christmas at home in Modena because Olly was going to be in Viareggio with her father's side of the family. This is the first time we've ever done this and I will be doing it in the following years. We've always either been at Piero's family's house or Olly away. This year I told P that I absolutely wanted our family to have a Christmas first. We all loved it.

The next day P and Evan and I drove the 800 kms down to Puglia. It took us a record thirteen hours to get there. There was so much traffic and accidents it was ridiculous. We had prepared well though so we listened to lots of Christmas music and then a reading of the "Jungle Book" on CD for Evan. Actually we listened to it five times in a row...Evan napped for about four hours midway through the trip. He was so good I couldn't believe it. He never complained or cryed or anything! Just went with the flow with us.

In Puglia we have a second house but we convinced Evan to sleep over at Grandma's house , which gave us the opportunity to do a lot of unmuffled, unscheduled, spontaneous love making.

That in itself was a Christmas celebration!

The 26th is still a holiday over in Italy. Piero asked me what I wanted to do and I said I really wanted to go to the beach, have a coffee and watch the sunset. We brought a really good friend with us and set out towards the shore. About two miles from the beach we stopped to look at a property that's up for sale. We know that we don't want to stay in Modena forever and will be looking to move someplace else in about five years, but we haven't decided where yet. One thing we agree on is that it has to be near a beach. The property we look at was ridiculously expensive and way out of our budget, but it was nice to see and I loved the view from that side windows:

Part of my being happy was in not having anything "to do". Since I am self employed I could work like 24 hours a day. Somehow I never feel like I deserve time off, but I do. That is something that is going to change in 2007: more specific time off where I turn the computer off and just spend time doing nothing with my family. Or something with my family. Or just going to the beach to watch the sunset.

2006 was a good year. It was emotionally difficult but I solved a lot of problems that I'd had for years. No, nothing that I want to expose to the internet world, but problems that I had been pushing back, hoping they would go away on their own. When it was quite obvious they wouldn't, I am proud to say I dove straight into dealing with them. I feel like this year was a transition time, gearing up for what is to come. I feel extremely positive. I am so content it makes me break into a spontaneous smile just writing this sentence. 2007 is going to be a fantastic year. I can feel it.

Gotta go gotta go gotta go....

I had a FANTASTIC Christmas...I just haven't had the time to post anything...but I will soon...I'm trying to set up the new site and in doing so came across this FANTASTIC tool.
It's called the Color Palette Generator. Very Cool. All you do is upload a photo and it then spits out a color palette that matches your photo. Try it!

OMG

If you knew me well you'd know that I am a rather unpolitical person. I still vote (by mail), but I don't get into debating anything or keep up on how many seats the democrats or republicans have in congress. But I was appalled this morning when I read this article. It makes me totally sick. The world is so screwed up sometimes...

R.I.P.

Yesterday I was able to talk Olivia into watching Evan for an hour while I went running. Actually, money talks...she accepted when she realized that I was paying her. "Watching" is also a big word since when I got home I found him in front of the television looking at cartoons and her reading a book in her room...anyway, I was able to run for an hour and ten minutes which was great. I went on a route near my house called "Tre Olmi" (three elms, still gotta search for where those trees are). It's a popular route for both runners and cyclists because there is not a lot of traffic and it's a perfect four km rectangle. Since Baldini lives five miles from here and runs all of his quality workouts on this road, they measured it with one of those accuracy wheels. Anyway, halfway through the workout, on the side of the road I found this wheel. So funny, could just imagine the scene...it says: "Veteran of successes from all around the world, during a training in balance devastatingly fell to the ground - causing general hilarity among all - His friends "will remember it!"

Worry Not!

I wrote the Candia organization and asked them to send me the bike route altitudes. Though I still have to train for the race, if I don't day-dream I should be okay. It's flat as a pancake and actually sort of unchallenging. I'm going to have to also be patient with all the drafting that I'll be seeing. Maybe I'll make a "No Draft" sign to sew on the back of my bike outfit!

I went out for 50 minutes of pain free run today. My left leg is no longer bothering me. There is a strange pain when I breath on the left side of my chest, but anything different from what I'm used to is welcome. I went to the exercise class yesterday where the instructor had us do a ton of situps. I have no ab muscles and the minute I do one teeny weeny sit up I start to cramp. I'm so pathetic...My glutes are getting stronger though, I just have to do some more work in the tummy area.

Bye!

Winter Wakeup

The organization for the Candia (Long?) Triathlon came out with the rules and regulations. They're giving a four and a half hour cutoff for the combo on the swim (3km) and bike (80km). This basically means that I have to haul a** on the bike if I want to make the cutoff time. Good thing I have another five months to train for it! It's a good goal, I just need to sit down and map out how I'm going to go about doing this. I am inspired by the time rather than discouraged. This is good :-)

Festa della Madonna

Here in Italy today is a national holiday, the Immaculate Conception or Festa della Madonna. Banks and schools are closed, but there is mad holiday shopping going on. It's also my Dad's 75th birthday (Happy Birthday Dad!). Yesterday I went to an Arts and Crafts Christmas fair near my house. I did a lot of looking, skipped all the dolls and Christmas balls and then ended up at just one booth that had a ton of rubber stamps. I got two sets of letters, five colours of ink and this angel hole puncher. This could turn into a very expensive hobby. When I got home and showed them to the kids they went CRAZY over the letters. Evan was spelling his name quite well E-V-A-N until mid afternoon when he decided he really liked "S" and "M" too. So now he insists that his name is spelled E-S-A-M. I tried argueing with him about if for about five minutes and then gave up. Esam, pronounced Evan.

On the athletic side of my life I went swimming yesterday and repeated the 10 x 100mt workout I had done two months ago. I've gone from 2'10" to 1'55"/1'59" - yay me! And that's only on swimming once a week. Just think what I could do if I actually started, I don't know, training? I'll get there!

Wrap me up in a red bow!

I received an email from one of the guys that I had trained for the Venicemarathon this year. I met him at the expo before the race with his wife and little girl. They were so nice, I really enjoyed talking to them and hearing the non running wife's tales about following her husbands training. He had a really good race for his first marathon too - 3h31'.
So today he wrote me to let me know that for Christmas his wife had given him six months of training with me. I am someone's Christmas present. That thought makes me smile :-)

A REAL bike workout

Outdoor bike workout

Outside temperature: 7 c° (44 f)
Total distance: 38km (23 m)
Clothing worn: two pairs of socks, two pairs of gloves, balaclava, skull cap, two long sleeve N1ke tees, winter cycle pants, winter cycle jacket.
Number of other cyclists seen: 12
Food consumed: 1 litre water, half a powerbar, one really delicious and piping hot cappuccino at the turnaround.
Money paid to babysitter: 18,00 euro (23 usd)

Piero is in Rome again and Evan is still sick. I had to get out of the house or I was going to go crazy. It's cold outside but no ice on the road so I thought I'd go for a spin on the bike. It was great! I don't know if I can keep it up (totally depends on the road conditions) but I'd love to be able to go out biking at least once a week. The other two workouts during the week could be done on the trainer, but I'd go nuts if I had to do it all winter long. I have to get those thingys that cover your shoes and I'll be set. Actually, if the roads did get too cold I could use the mountain bike since it has those big fat tires. Anyway, good workout :-)

Swim workout...sort of...

This morning I was able to find time to go swimming with Linda. I LOVE swimming with her since it seems to make the whole workout pass by faster...which it doesn't because we yack, yack, yack so much that we spend half the time chatting, which doubles the time in the pool. Sometimes we actually only start swimming again because we get cold talking while not moving...Oh, we're good on the run though!
I'm going to start using some workouts from this site. The workout timings are generated from parameters that you put in. I had already put in my times for 10 x 100mts but nothing else so I decided to time myself for the 3 x 500mts. They came out 11'49" - 11'42" - 11'44" which was actually not terrible for me. I thought I'd do worse. I was swimming slow and without much purpose so I feel pretty confident that I can improve once I have a little more swim direction.

Olivia and I went grocery shopping after school today. It was nice to go around with her and look at all the Christmas stuff they were putting out. She was sure to point out to me all things that I could buy her for Christmas. So many choices, so little money...but I will buy her one nice thing. She really deserves it :-)

The "How to make POLENTA" entry

A few weeks ago I switched from counting points on Weight Watchers to their Core Program. I don't know if it will work (still too early to say), but I have to say that I love it. They give you a list of foods that you can eat until you are satisfied (big key here) plus an extra 35 points during the week to play with. This works well for my triathlon and marathon training since a) I no longer feel like I'm starving myself to lose a few pounds b) the foods on the list is what I normally eat anyway.

So one of the foods on the WW Core list that you may eat when you want is...Polenta! I go on theWW boards every a few times a week and was sad to see that many of my fellow Americans have no idea what polenta is or (gasp) buy it ready made at the supermarket. So, I'm going tshow you how easy and inexpensive it is to make.

The first thing you want to do is go and buy a box or bag of polenta. It usually comes in 16 or 32 oz. When you open the box up you'll see that it is actually ground corn. It will be roughly ground up, not fine like flour. Don't be surprised to see little brown specks in it, especially if you buy an organic type. Please don't buy the "instant" kind. It's not the same. Sort of the same difference in buying instant oatmeal or steel cut oats.

Take a big pot, like a soup pot, and fill it with two litres (or 1 and 3/4 quarts) of luke warm water.

Add one tablespoon of rock salt.

Measure out 500 grams (or 1 lbs, 1 oz.) of dry polenta and slowly drizzle it into the WARM water while stirring. You want to then turn your stove on and cook it (moderate heat) while stirring it with a wood spoon at least every minute. In this first photo it's really watery and milky looking...

...this is five minutes later and it's already starting to firm up...

Geez...I'm such a bad photographer! Anyway, this is about fifteen minutes into cooking and you can see that it's getting clumpy. At this point you can put the flame (or electric coil?) on low and go back and stir it every few minutes so that it doesn't burn, but it still needs to cook another ten or fifteen minutes. You will know when it is done because when you stir, the polenta comes off and away from the bottom or sides of the pot. From start to finish this should be about 30 minutes. Now that it's cooked you want to take the whole pot of it...

...and spread it out on a clean table. You can just use a wood spoon to spread it out, it should be about an inch and a half high. In some rustic restaurants in the northern Italy they'll put the polenta directly on your table and have you eat off of it. At home you can either take a serving right there while it's hot, put it in a bowl and put your favorite topping on it OR you can wait until its cool and firm and...

...Grill it. I don't use any oil when I grill pieces of polenta but sometimes I'll put on a little olive oil once they're done. You can top them with - pieces of melted cheese - tomato sauce - vegetable sauces - cut up pieces and put them in salads.

If you have any leftover (or you want to cook it up to use for grilling later) just slice it into big chunks, put into plastic wrap, and put it in the fridge. It'll keep for up to a week, but I've never actually had it last that long since we eat it up pretty fast! Buon Appetito!!

Ugh. It's Monday.

BOTH kids are now sick and I may go crazy doing ten loads of wash a day (one for every time one of them unloads the nothing they have in their stomach...). The only good news to this is that Piero and I seem immune to whatever strain of virus this is so we can give our full attention to the children.

I went and had an MRI on my back this afternoon. After seeing the x-rays I don't think that they'll find anything different here but it was already ordered and it only cost me twenty-five dollars so I had it done. I'll have the results ready on Thursday. It wasn't painful doing the actual process. It was just this big machine taking pictures, but I had to lie on my back in the same position without moving for forty minutes. My back hurt like crazy and then my left leg (the one that hurts more) fell asleep. It'll be cool to have the pictures though, certainly worth all the pain!

I was able to get a quick run in (see sidebar) which will save me from going house crazy...

Poll

I went to Firenze yesterday on occasion of the Firenze Marathon. I didn't actually stay and watch the race, I just went to the expo cause I can get every business contact that I have under one roof and take care of business meetings in one big swoop. I do love Firenze, I spent a good twelve years of my life there...loads of fun, loads of boyfriends, my entire twenties and the first part of my thirties. I still have a lot of friends there so it's always nice to catch up with people. I don't regret moving away because the traffic there is hideous. I mean the whole town is pretty flat, you'd think that there'd be more bicycles use. I know I always used one, even if I lived on the hill above the Ponte Vecchio. Anyway, I had my second encounter with a live Tri Drs member! Lee Crumbaugh! We met for coffee, talked away an hour and then went to the expo together. I saw that he didn't have as good a race as he had hoped for :-( - Oh well.

Evan was with me and on the way home he threw up in the car in the first ten minutes of a ninety minute drive. I had a change of clothes so I did that on the side of the road and then had to have him ride with me up front since the back was no longer usable. We got home and then he started going to the bathroom. Continuously. Today he's heaved about twelve times, can't even keep water down. He seems okay now, he ate a banana few hours ago and that seems to be sticking. He'll be home this next week though so I've already lined up a babysitter for a few exercise sessions.

So, let's get to the title of this entry! I started "five in five" as a guerilla blog, to be put up and then taken down as soon as I got to my original goal. But then I kept blogging and this blog turned into something other than my losing five kgs (which I have to RE-do btw...). So. Poll.

a) Do I keep the Five in Five title and just keep blogging (thus keeping also all the archives)
b) Do I change it to a brand new blog with a more appropriate title (already chosen!) but losing those archives?

On one hand I love new changes, on the other I hate cutting with the past.
Cast your vote please!

Turnaround

So I woke up this morning and the sky was turquiose blue. Hey! Did I make that happen? It's amazing what a change of attitude can do. I brought Olly to school and then brought Evan to school and then rushed off to go get my new Ipod! Last April my best buddy, triathlon pal IronMauro presented me with an Ipod as a gift! I was moved to tears as it was totally unexpected and overgenerous. Now I know I'm a freak (because my daughter tells me this once a day) but I never use my ipod for music. I use it for listening to podcasts and audio books. I can clean the whole house effortlessly listening to a talk show, or go running with Zen and the Art of Triathlon. By the way, with so many triathlon podcasts out there, I had to sort through a lot of them before I settled on this one. My dad was a radio broadcaster (aka as a d.j.!), plus he taught voice for broadcasters for over forty years so whenever someone is "on the air" saying "hmmm, uhhhh, mmmmm, so, so, mmmm...) I just cringe. Brett (zen etc) did that at the begining but he seems to have gotten better at it and eliminated a lot of dead air time.

So the thing I love about this moment of my triathlon training is the dreaming. While I still sit here with ten extra pounds bolting me to the ground and I haven't even really taken a spin on the bike outside in like a month...I dream of myself going really fast and feeling really light and having a great time! Dream on...

Like yesterday, I couldn't find a photo that pertained to this post so I put up Evan's ten month old feet! Piero had to do a presentation for N1ke when they came out with the Free shoe so I told him that the best example of a human using their feet is in babies before their first birthday. They use them like they're hands. I call(ed) him "my little monkey". So cute!

Snap-Out-Of-It!

I gotta snap out of it...gotta gotta gotta... snap-out-of-it! Winter is here and it's grey outside. So grey that I have to have the lights on in the house in the morning because it's too dark to see. So grey that I wish I had one of those light lamps to make me peppy again instead of depressed. So grey that all I want to do is bake cookies for the kids instead of going out to run or bike or swim or exercise BUT if I keep this up for one more minute I will turn into a cow. A depressed cow. The only thing to do is to have a plan, so now I present to you the Five in Five "first half of 2007 race calendar"!! I knew you'd be just as excited as I am.



- "Madonnina 12,2 km" - January 14 - This is our neighborhood race which usually hosts about 1500 runners. I'd consider this a "C" race for me but a good indication whether I'm heading in a good direction. Last year I completed it in 1h06'30".

- "San Gemingano" - January 31 - SG is the patron saint of Modena and this is a classic road race of 13,7 km. It's a holiday for the city so it's held at 3.00pm in the afternoon and they close most of the streets off for it. There are usually about 2500 runners, even the President of Italy runs it every year. Last year I didn't run it 'cause I was sick (or that's what it says on the running diary), so I'm looking forward to running this year.

- "Roma-Ostia Half Marathon" - February 25 - Definately an "A" race. This is the largest half marathon in Italy with 8000 runners. I ran it last year in 1h59'15". The girl in the photos on this entry is Piero's athlete R0salba C0nsole. She came in second. I always feel bad that Piero has to wait around an hour for his wife to finish, but that's life. (btw, the pics are of her in San Moritz doing exercises). I have decided that I won't be running any marathons in 2007 unless I can get down to like a 1h51'00" on the half. A lot of cosmic stars would have to line up for that to happen...but you never know. I love half marathons, so that is a plus.

- April - Still undecided. I'm sure I'll be doing a medio fondo bike race (around 100km) and/or another half marathon but I won't be able to plan until the beginning of the year when work plans take shape.

- "Candia Long Distance Triathlon" - May 13 - This year the organization is conforming to ITU standards and changing their formula to 3000mt/80km/20km which in reality is just doubling the Olympic race length. I like this since it's just a change in the swim from what I did in Mergozzo this last summer. I sort of choked at looking at the swim, but the truth is that a) if I actually do some training, I'm a good swimmer. I was just looking at some old race times...36 minutes for 2000mt in 2001! I-need-to-train. b) It gets me close to that Ironman standard length so that if I do attempt the Ironman in the future (2008?) 3,800mt won't be so intimidating.

My Calendar plan has to stop here and then be revised for the summer since we never know how our work schedules are for the summer. I already feel less depressed (plus I just looked out the window and it's stopped raining and I see a patch of blue sky!!!)

Me and my back - Part 2

For as far back as I can remember, I have always turned to alternative medicine when I was having too many aches and pains. Granted, if there is an emergency I do take antibiotics. Both my children are vaccinated. But the thing that draws me to alternative medicine is that they always look at the cause of the problem rather than trying to fix what has already happened.
This is really important in athletics because if you have say a tendinitis and you try and heal the tendine without looking at how or why you developed it in the first place, it will most likely come back or never heal properly. I'm also very lucky in my amateur athletic endeavors because with my husband dealing with elite athletes and their injuries, he knows who the best and most effective doctors, therapists and treatments are for running injuries. We chose who we consider the best Osteopath in Italy, whose name is Gianni. First he had me do some x-rays which revealed: Scoliosis on upper back along with Spondylosis At the D6 - D8 where the two conditions coincide. In the lombar-sacral area there's a bunch of stuff that's difficult for me to translate but...I can say that my L5 has slipped down (you can see it protruding out with the naked eye) and loss of space around surrounding L3 and L4.
On my first visit with Gianni he took about 30 minutes to...do whatever he does...worked on my hips and then neck and head area. About two weeks later I was able to magically get out of bed. Like a normal person. After three years of pain. On the second visit he did his treatment and again, two weeks later I am feeling fine. I asked him if I'd ever be "cured". He asked me what I meant by that. I guess what I mean is without pain. The scoliosis I've always had since as far back as I can remember I've always had one shoulder lower than the other. The slipped disk has happened over time. There are things that I can do to help them not get worse, but I do have to live with them. In any case he said that yes, I would be without pain. That in itself would be fantastic.
So, now that I can stand up straight without taking ten minutes to stretch out, there are a few things that I'll be changing in my sports life in order to not go back to crawling out of bed.
a) Exercises. I've started going once a week to an exercise class which mainly works on squats, lunges, shoulders, arms and back. The first time I did it I was hobbling around for the following five days. After the second lesson it was only two days of hobbling. Now I'm actually starting to enjoy it and can see that it's really good for my rear-end.
b) More swimming. Well, more than I usually do which is nil.
c) Less weight. Gotta get the famous five kg OFF again if...
d) ...I want to run. Right now I'm running three days a week for only 40 or 50 minutes. I'll be upping that to an hour in december but I've pretty much decided that I will only allow myself to do another marathon if I can break 1h55' on the half. Last year I ran 1h59' into headwinds so there might be a chance to actually so that . I mean, it's not a totally unattainable goal. But with my back situation it's useless to run a marathon if I'm not going to be going toward my ultimate goal, a Boston Qualification. Besides I love half marathons, not too short, not too long.

But I am running again. Without back pain. Straight and upright. It feels so good!

Me and my back - Part 1

The first time I started having problems with my back was in 1992. I remember one day I bent over and couldn't get back up again. I found a chiropractor who could see me that day, he put me on a special table that had these punching things that shot out and cracked the various vertebrae in place. I was good for two years, then it happened again. This time I couldn't get out of bed. I found another doctor who lived only ten minutes away. He didn't have the fancy punching table, he just jumped on top of my back for what seemed like forever. The results were good and I never had the problem again. Move ahead to 2003. While pregnant with Evan my left leg started hurting me at night. The only thing that would give me relief was to sleep in a really contorting position, not easy to do when you have a ten pound fetus in your stomach. The real trouble started after I gave birth. I had a really difficult time getting out of bed in the morning. It improved a little as my fitness came back, but I always had a few moments in the morning where I felt like I was about 80 years old. I started running marathons again, having a little trouble with pain in my shoulders and hips. This last spring while I was out running a race, someone came up to me and said that I was really leaning to the right. I've always had one shoulder lower than the other so I didn't give it a lot of thought. Then in May I was running another race in town where my elite coach husband was on his bike following the lead pack. Afterwards he swung around to find me. When he did he asked (while I was running) "is this as fast as you can go?" After i practically spit on him he told me that I was "twisted". I told him it's been that way for a long time, he just hasn't been paying attention to me. The next day he came with me on a run to watch me and stopped me after three minutes. He said that I was running so contorted that he couldn't bare to watch. Then he had me run with my hands clasped and stretched out on top of my head. It was really difficult to do but after one minute when I would let go I could fly down the road (well, let's say I could run 30 seconds per km faster...). After that it was hard for me to go back to just regular running because now I could really feel the difference between what if felt like to run normal and what if felt like to run contorted. Plus, my back pain was starting to get worse. In the mornings it went all the way from my hips, through my glutes and down the back side of my legs. I had to back up off the bed and get near a wall to be able to stand up. After ten or fifteen minutes I was good to go, but it was obvious that I really needed to get some help.