On the way home

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...