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.

Picture Pretty

Last week I had to go to the doctors to order some exams for my (bad) back. I had gotten up at about 6.30 am, taken Olly to school and then Evan to nursery school and thus off to the doctor to sit it out in his office. We have socialized medicine over here, but you choose your family doctor and he works with you in getting other specialist appointments. Every time I go to my doctor's office it is absolutely filled with elderly people waiting to see him. I guess as you get older you probably DO need the doctor more, but it always looks like a bunch of people that just aren't really taking good care of themselves! So while I sat in the waiting room with a dozen elderlys over 65, in walked a pharmaceutical representative. She was female and about...40? Give or take a few years. It was a beautiful day out and she was in a white airy skirt, a white blouse with three quarter sleeves, a pair of gold sandles with low heels and perfectly manicured feet. She had on light make-up, a nice haircut that was easy to manage. She also had a nice briefcase with a matching purse. She sat and chit chatted with us all in a pleasant way, asking about the weather, light politics...And while she talked I looked down at myself. I had on some khaki pants but I had spilled tea on them in the morning so there was a little stain, a N1ke t-shirt, a pair of white socks (clean!), and a pair of really comfortable but really really unattractive N1ke clogs (white with orange trim). Hey, they were free! I hadn't put any makeup on. I think I had run a brush through my hair but I can't be sure, I had brushed my teeth. My purse (N1ke again, free again) was the same one I use every single day, no matter what the situation. I suddenly felt like a slob.
See the picture up here? It was taken at a wedding during the summer and it took me three damn days to get ready for it. A leg wax, a manicure, a pedicure, a haircut and blow dry (I have wild hair!) and a new outfit that took me two days to pick out. Once upon a time it was not like this. I used to have a job in fashion where I had to look nice every day. I would get up in the morning and put my make-up on before I got dressed. On weekends I would go clothes shopping for nice outfits to wear at work. Now I am self-employed and spend a lot of my time in my office space at home where I can wear my pajamas all day if I want. Since I go and do some sort of form of exercise every day I usually just throw on a workout clothes in the morning so that I'm already ready to go when I decide it's time to run or bike or swim. Not that I have to put make up on every single day, but maybe I should start having a little more pride in what I wear if I have to leave the house to do errands or shop? I know that I'll always having to force myself to do it, it'll never come as natural to me as the pharmaceutical lady. On the other hand, I DO like feel better about myself when I take some time in the morning to get dressed, even if my three year old is the only one to see me.

The photo on the left is four guys that are part of a group I've trained this year for the Venicemarathon. There were 94 people signed up to the program. They do their longest run (two hours) two weeks before the event and I always invite them to come to my house and do a group run and pot luck lunch. This year twenty people showed up! That's not a lot for a run, but it is for my little house. Good thing the weather was nice and I could seat half of them outdoors. It was fun to have them over, I love the energy of new runners. They're all so excited about getting ready for their first marathon. I get pretty emotional watching them take off and then of course I'll be at the finish line. Their big day is this next Sunday, I can't wait!

The month of september and october have been filled with lots of busy stuff...

- Getting the kids back in school. Evan is now in nursery school full time and it's been a dramatic change for him. We had him ease into it by staying first just an hour with me, then an hour without me, then half a day, and now a full day until four o'clock. He takes a little nap there (I had to make a sleeping bag) which is nice 'cause that way he doesn't come home cranky.

- My work. I'm back logged with projects and plans and it seems like I don't make any headway with anything. I'm really really frustrated here...sometimes it's almost like I have to put my work in last place. Piero is gone a LOT and so I have the children responsability all day, every day. But we do need my income SO I better find a way for this to all work out really fast.

- My sports... I have a bad back. I had x-rays. It doesn't look good. Scoliosis, hyper-lordosis, a slipped disc (L-5) and a bunch of other stuff that I'm too lazy to translate right now. Oh THAT'S why it takes me ten minutes to get out of bed in the morning! I'll write more about this on my next post.

- Five in Five? Need to start over again if you get my drift ...sigh...

I only walked for about two minutes when I decided I'd try and run. I was pleasantly surprised to find that I COULD run. No muscular pain, no heavy legs, just a little fatigued which I'm thinking is normal. The best thing was that I was in really good spirits. I was smiling and talking to people passing me that were on their second loop (of the two 10km loops). It was a beautiful route that went along the lake. I ran from km mark to km mark and then I would walk for about a minute with my arms above my head to stretch out my back. The first loop went fine and when we headed into town and up some stone steps through a small pathway Giorgio and Linda were waiting for me while sitting at a patio restaurant. They had instructed all the patrons in the restaurant to yell my name as I went by - that gave me a real boost! Up a hill and down a dirt road, I drank some coke at the turn around and then went passed the finish area and straight on for my last 10km loop. Now I was really really all alone. Then the strangest thing happened. The 10km loop/route was roped off but people were just milling around. I dodged people and asked others to move out of the way so I could get through but then I got to a wall. There were six (SIX) triathletes that had finished the race that were walking back to their car. They were walking side by side with their bikes and big bags thrown over their shoulders. They were talking and laughing and walking slow and there wasn't any room to get around them. "Excuse me..." but they didn't turn or move. "Sorry, can I get by..." didn't work either. I had to sort of yell "let me through!!!! I'm the last one anyway!", meaning no one else should be wanting to get past and they can hog the entire road up after I passed. The girl, about 26 years old said "Oh Ho! The last one! Well, let me just bow down to you! I didn't realize there were people that slow!". This last comment won her friends approval and they all started laughing. So now they're six years old and I'm four and the best I could do was show them a couple middle fingers as I ran off. Now I was really excited about running those last 10km all alone...NOT! I did have a small breakdown moment but I just talked myself out of it (I swear between the bike and the run I must have looked like some crazy lady!) and started the countdown to the end. I did a lot of walking. I think if there had been somebody else out there with me I might have run some more. One of the volunteers ran with me for a kilometre and then I headed back to town. I couldn't really see my watch without my glasses but then when I realised that I could break six hours I ran the last kilometre without stopping. When I turned the corner and went down the shute there must have been at least a hundred people at the finish line. They all cheered...actually they were all waiting for the winners ceremony to begin, but I got the benefit from it.

Final time: 5:57:03

The next day I was up and about and feeling fantastic when I got a call from the President and organizer from the Mergozzo race. He called to apologize about the bike turn around snafu and let me know they were taking 25 minutes off my final time. He justified ten minutes for the lost time and another fifteen for the "demotivation" that occured in being so far behind. I told him it didn't really matter to me. I don't race, I participate. Besides, I'm already thinking about what improvements I can make for next year.
This last photo is me and Giorgio's daughter - she's so sweet! She watched the whole race too.

I started the swim out okay though I did get a little panicky every once in awhile. I couldn't tell you why, but whenever it happened I'd just flip over and backstroke. Two women passed by me and I looked back and could see that I STILL wasn't the last - which made me feel better. The course was a rectangle and it was marked by white buoys. The women's caps were also white, so when I looked up or back I couldn't tell if I was looking at a buoy or a cap. Breaststroke, backstroke, freestyle...I would have thrown in the butterfly but it's the only one I don't know how to do. I just kept going and going and switching and doing whatever I could do to go forward. I finally made it to the shore and thought to myself "I survived the swim!!".

2km = 55:00

Just as I stepped out of the water and up the stone stairs I got this MEGA huge cramp in my left calf. There were two volunteers helping me out of the water but I was paralyzed and couldn't move from the pain. It had just completely seized up. Another woman ran over and started to massage it and after what seemed to be about a minute (with two more swimmers coming out of the water and passing me) it finally relaxed and I limped my way towards transition. The rain had stopped by now but water had seeped into my bags. I had a hard time taking my wetsuit off and even more difficulty putting on the biking clothes. Six full minutes later I was out of there and on my way on the bike.

That morning they had announced that they had cut a steep hill out of the bike course because of the rain. They'd already accidents on it last year when it was dry and they didn't want to risk it this year on wet pavement. I knew that the course would be shorter, probably 80km instead of 90km, but nobody would confirm exactly how many kilometres they had cut out. The course was two loops out and back. While going out on the first loop I was passed by the last stragglers from the swim and then by the pros who were on the second loop. The road went up and down and curved around here and there but I never felt it was difficult. The only thing I had to be really careful about were these huge speed bumps that were placed in the town of Vogogno. There were about four of them and they were pretty high and wide. I had to slow down so that my tires wouldn't blow and then try and speed up to make up for the time lost in slowing down. When I started to get back to the turnaround I looked at my odometer and couldn't believe that there were only 37kms. I passed by some official that yelled "first loop!" and then heard Giorgio yell my name and saw Linda standing on the side of the road. I went past all of this and it didn't seem right so I slowed down and asked one of the officials where the turn around was. He pointed me down towards the lake so I went straight ahead but it still didn't feel right. When I finally got down to the lake and asked another official where the turn around was he said "It's not here! It was at the top of the hill!" I whispered "vaffanculo" under my breathe and headed back up the hill. Giorgio and Linda had all my special stuff so I stopped and got my peanut butter and jelly sandwich (thanks Nancy Toby!) and refilled my water and took off. Now I was definately last. I talked out loud to myself for a few minutes, I don't think anybody was listening which is why I did it. I just said that I was there to enjoy my day and who cared if I had ****ed up on the bike course, I was still going fine and I felt good and I was going to make the bike cutoff...I came to the turnaround and then started on the final 18km stretch of the bike. At one point I heard the sound of a truck following me. I knew what that was. It was the ambulance that follows the last person on the course. I motioned for them to come closer to me and even though I knew the answer I asked "am I last?". They confirmed it and told me to take my time, that I was doing great and that I was almost there. A half hour later I rolled into transition and had a little difficulty getting off the bike.

75km = 2:44:22

The weird thing about being last on the course is that people act as if the whole race is over. There were some people mulling around the trasition area and BLOCKING my way.
I did the best I could to quickly change out of my clothes. The transition guy made sure that I went the right way and I was off and...walking...

Mergozzo Half Ironman - Part III

After record highs in the 100's throughout Europe all summer long, in september it started to rain. It rained so hard it started to flood parts northern Italy with weather alerts and mudslide warnings. Whenever I had daydreamed about my race, rain had never been part of it. I sort of saw it as a farewell to summer celebration, except good weather was part of the day. When they started to predict thunderstorms I started to panic. The saturday before the race going up to Mergozzo, Linda (my traveling companion) and I stopped off at the Bike show in Milan. Besides checking out all the bikes I'll never be able to buy, I did manage to purchase some arm gloves and those booties for my bike shoes. Just in case. I mean saturday was sweltering hot and even in Mergozzo while I was standing in line to pick up my packet it must have been about 80 degrees.
But that night while I was in bed I heard a *CRASH* and recognized it as lightening and then *RUMBLE* came the thunder. It was 5:00 a.m. My friend Giorgio was coming the next day to watch the race and since he was still at home I texted him to bring some trash bags so that I could put my transition stuff in them. He answered me within a minute and then I fell back to sleep for another hour.
I woke up and it was pouring rain. It wasn't really cold but very very wet. When I got down to the transition area NOBODY had set their bike up. Everybody was just sort of huddling under the buildings and waiting until the last minute so that their stuff wouldn't get too wet. At 15 minutes before the men's start I decided to set up my transition and put on my wetsuit. Oops! Haven't tried that on in four years! With a little wiggling around I was able to slip it on, whew! It was still pouring. I separated my running and bike stuff into two different plastic bags, placed my helmet on my bike and hoped that I had remembered to do everything right. I watched the men's start. They had to be called back like ten times and delayed the start by almost ten minutes. After they took off I got in the water to check it out. It was actually warm compared to the outside temperature, plus I forgot how much bouyancy a wetsuit gives you. I just sort of floated in the water for a few minutes and then got ready to start. I positioned myself in the back and just waited for them to give the women's start.

Mergozzo Half Ironman - Part II

My training had its ups and downs all summer. I'm sure that it wasn't "conventional" triathlon training, at least nothing like what I've seen on this list. In June and July I tried to get to the pool a couple times a week and swim at least 2km. I have a chlorine allergy problem and they really load the pools up with it during the summer over here which is why I could never stay in for more than an hour. I went out on the bike as much as I could, which was probably not often enough. My running...well, it just was. I've been having back problems this year which extend to my left leg and hips. Sometimes it's not pretty to watch. My husband had me doing posture exercises while I ran and I was finally able to see my favourite osteopath in August who thinks part of the problem is in the lung region. I had x-rays done the other day that will be ready in a few days...(UPDATE: x-rays came back and I have a really bad scoliosi which curves right where the lungs are) .I needed to keep my running to a minimum so as not to aggravate the problem.
For the month of August we went down to our summer house in Apulia on the Ionian Sea. http://tinyurl.com/eteqs Since I couldn't bring my road bike with me I bought a really cheap mountain bike (usd 130!!) but it was so uncomfortable after a few hours that I never stayed on it for more than that. What I did do was a lot of uphill intervals. Once a week I picked this hill that was about two km straight up and I just road it up and down until I dropped (an hour and a half - I have no resistance). My thighs would quiver when I got off the bike, but the next day I was fine so I knew that I just needed to keep it up. It really worked because when I got back home to Modena in September it was like I had little jets on my legs, riding about 5kph faster than before. My tapering was, hmmm, long. I went on a five day trip to London with my daughter. We had a hotel room next to Kensington Gardens so I went running every morning, but... that was counterbalanced by a visit to Starbucks twice a day and many delicious English Carbohydrates.
The week before the race I went to the pool once and then road my bike for a 45km jaunt...and I started to have my doubts on whether I would actually finish this race or not.

My main problem was this: I knew I would be last. People always talk about what a wonderful country Italy is with the Italians so laid back. Yeah, they have siestas and two hour lunches and one month vacations, but when it comes to sports, they are very very competitive. It's not entirely their fault, they're bred that way. In school when they play sports they're encouraged to participate only in sports that they excel in . No, you're not supposed to run because you enjoy it, you run if you're fast and can be competitive at it. Otherwise it's considered a waste of time. They carry this mentality with them into adulthood and that's where you'll find your competitive "amateurs" . This mentality has laxed a little on the running scene, but not yet with the triathletes. My age group, 45-49 women? There are four of us. Four. In the entire country.
The second problem was this: even though there was no drafting allowed in this race, from the look at the previous year's results everybody was drafting. I knew this because I had already competed against some of the women in Olympic triathlons and they had ALWAYS come in behind me. Knowing that I absolutely would-not-draft I was pretty sure I would be last. The time limits were 1.5 hours for the swim, 6 hours for the swim/bike and 8 for the whole race. My main goal was to finish within the eight hour time limit.

Mergozzo Half Ironman - Part II

My training had its ups and downs all summer. I'm sure that it wasn't "conventional" triathlon training, at least nothing like what I've seen on this list. In June and July I tried to get to the pool a couple times a week and swim at least 2km. I have a chlorine allergy problem and they really load the pools up with it during the summer over here which is why I could never stay in for more than an hour. I went out on the bike as much as I could, which was probably not often enough. My running...well, it just was. I've been having back problems this year which extend to my left leg and hips. Sometimes it's not pretty to watch. My husband had me doing posture exercises while I ran and I was finally able to see my favourite osteopath in August who thinks part of the problem is in the lung region. I had x-rays done the other day that will be ready in a few days...(UPDATE: x-rays came back and I have a really bad scoliosi which curves right where the lungs are) .I needed to keep my running to a minimum so as not to aggravate the problem.
For the month of August we went down to our summer house in Apulia on the Ionian Sea. http://tinyurl.com/eteqs Since I couldn't bring my road bike with me I bought a really cheap mountain bike (usd 130!!) but it was so uncomfortable after a few hours that I never stayed on it for more than that. What I did do was a lot of uphill intervals. Once a week I picked this hill that was about two km straight up and I just road it up and down until I dropped (an hour and a half - I have no resistance). My thighs would quiver when I got off the bike, but the next day I was fine so I knew that I just needed to keep it up. It really worked because when I got back home to Modena in September it was like I had little jets on my legs, riding about 5kph faster than before. My tapering was, hmmm, long. I went on a five day trip to London with my daughter. We had a hotel room next to Kensington Gardens so I went running every morning, but... that was counterbalanced by a visit to Starbucks twice a day and many delicious English Carbohydrates.
The week before the race I went to the pool once and then road my bike for a 45km jaunt...and I started to have my doubts on whether I would actually finish this race or not.

My main problem was this: I knew I would be last. People always talk about what a wonderful country Italy is with the Italians so laid back. Yeah, they have siestas and two hour lunches and one month vacations, but when it comes to sports, they are very very competitive. It's not entirely their fault, they're bred that way. In school when they play sports they're encouraged to participate only in sports that they excel in . No, you're not supposed to run because you enjoy it, you run if you're fast and can be competitive at it. Otherwise it's considered a waste of time. They carry this mentality with them into adulthood and that's where you'll find your competitive "amateurs" . This mentality has laxed a little on the running scene, but not yet with the triathletes. My age group, 45-49 women? There are four of us. Four. In the entire country.
The second problem was this: even though there was no drafting allowed in this race, from the look at the previous year's results everybody was drafting. I knew this because I had already competed against some of the women in Olympic triathlons and they had ALWAYS come in behind me. Knowing that I absolutely would-not-draft I was pretty sure I would be last. The time limits were 1.5 hours for the swim, 6 hours for the swim/bike and 8 for the whole race. My main goal was to finish within the eight hour time limit.

Mergozzo Half Ironman - Part I

The last triathlon I remember participating in was in 2002 near Trieste. There was a Bora blowing (http://tinyurl.com/guhk4) and I nearly drowned during the swim and could barely get any speed going on the bike portion. I guess that was part of the adventure though because at the end of the race I was already making plans with my friend Giorgio to go back the next year. That never happened though because that winter I was pregnant at 42 with my second child. I had Evan the following fall and had a tough time getting back in shape. I did though. I lost the pregnancy weight and I was running again fairly decently after a year. Eighteen months later I ran my first post pregnancy marathon. I really wanted to get back into triathlons but now I had two children and a husband that was away for work almost every single week so I just couldn't find the time to get to a pool or go for a two or three hour bike ride. Running was always easy though so I kept that up. I ran another marathon and then another and then...yawn...another...
One more year passed, and one became two and the thought of running another marathon just wasn't doing it for me any more. That's when I saw the advertisement for the Monaco Half Ironman. OOHHHHhhh...I could do that...now THAT excited me! They hadn't started accepting registrations yet but I got all the information on it from the tridrs list and then from some forums in Italy from people that had participated the previous inaugural year. I was visiting that site every second I could , studying the course, waiting for them to open registration. At the same time I started my triathlon training again: hitting the pool a couple of times a week (the baby was now in daycare), and going for long scenic rides on my bike on the weekends. I had that buzz back, I had a purpose to my training again which is really (for me) ninety percent of my incentive. An email from the Monaco organization announced that they were open for registration and that I'd better hurry since all the spots would be taken immediately. I typed as fast as I could and had nearly gotten to the end of the form when I noticed the price tag. 300,00 euro. A thirty percent increase in price from the previous year. It's not that I couldn't afford it, but I just couldn't justify plopping down 300,00 euro for a half ironman. Not right now. Not for a re-entry race. I was a little crushed but then my friend (and ex tridrs member) Mauro Mongarli suggested the Mergozzo "Medio" of 2km/90km/20km. Mergozzo is a very very small lake an hour north of Milan right above Lago Maggiore and just a few kilometres from the Swiss border. The entry fee was only 60,00. I signed up the next day.

Happy Birthday Cutey Pie!

Birthday number three!! (Isn't he just the cutest thing you've ever seen?!)

London

I can't remember the last time Olly and I had some one-on-one time together. Probably years, probably too long. She has a lot of behavior that she puts out that shows that she craves my attention, but sometimes I just don't have it. Too much work or Evan needs my attention or I'm busy with something else. Or can find it, and that's a horrible thing. So I told her we could go on vacation together, just the two of us. She chose London. We left Evan with his grandmother at the beach and P went to work for the week in Rome. It was a wonderful vacation for both of us and I learned a lot from spending time with her. I don't know if any of you have teenage children but somewhere around the age of ten or eleven they are at school all day and then they come home and close themselves in their room and play loud electric guitar music full blast. At least that's what's happened over here for the last three years. She's also had problems fitting into the small urban catholic school that she chose to go to. Well, when we landed in London she really fit in. I could really see her leaving Italy for a few years and living abroad when she gets older. She's very creative and has a lot of fantasy and ideas, she just needs to be stimulated more. She is also a hot head and loses her temper quite easily, and that is something we have to work on. We walked everywhere! I booked a hotel room right next to Kensington Gardens so I could go running in the morning while she slept in. We went shopping and marketing and took all the obligatory photos of the various monuments that she could show her English teacher. We went to Starbucks twice a day. I ate too many empty carbohydrates but they were delicious...We're already thinking about where to go next year, she's mentioned Berlin. I'll go wherever she wants.

Magic

We have two cars. One is a 1999 Volkswagon Polo (mine) and the other is a Lancia Dedra (sedan, Piero's). He bought it in 1996 and it has 412,000 kms on it. While all you Americans are trying to figure out the mileage, let me tell you, it's a lot. He travels a lot for training plus we go back and forth to his hometown at least twice a year and each drive round trip is 1400 kms.We've known for about a year that we'd have to start saving money to get a new car, and we have been saving, but then we had to get two new computers and I had to borrow some money out of the savings...anyway, we had enough to buy about a quarter of a car. The insides but not the body, the engine but not the rest of the car.
In the meantime P kept looking at what kind of car he wanted. He looked on the internet, we went to several dealerships: Toyota, Volkswagon, Audi, Fiat. We got in behind steering wheels and pretended they were our cars for several minutes. He would pour over the car manuals and add up how much it would cost to get the extras that he wanted. "So, what car should we get?" he would ask me. A few years ago I had a definate opinion. I didn't want a SUV and I didn't want an oriental car (Mitsubishi, Yyangsong, Toyota). As the years passed however and P changed his mind several times over on what he wanted, I started to not really care. I don't know about you, but I think this is much more a guy's thing. Cars. Too me a car is a car. I see if it pleases me ecsteticly, if it gets good gas mileage, but that's about where it ends for me. Guys get into fuel injection and horsepower and engine mechanics. I do get it, I mean I do understand where that can get really interesting and exciting but after you've been talking about it for two years solid in your free time, I just wanna get it over with. We finally settled on our dream car being a Volkswagon Passat station wagon. Last year we even went to this used car place in the south of Italy where they have new cars with under 5000 miles on them that they sell with a twenty five percent discount. Apart from the fact that we didn't have the money, P wanted to wait until the "new" model came out because he like the look better. Whatever. We were just dreaming anyway.
One day in the month of august, the eighth of august to be precise, P was looking on the internet for the dream car for the 128,948 time. I told him "Look, you talk about this car all the time but you're not doing anything to really make it happen. You just talk about it. You have to make it a REAL thing, something that you can touch or see." I told him that in order for it to be real, something he really wanted he had to print out a picture of his dream car and put it up in our office space so that he could see it every day. He was hesitant about printing up the best car. "Don't question whether you have the money or how much the car is going to cost or how it will happen. Just print up the car and it will happen".
On august 10th we drove down to Puglia clocking another 800 kms on the odometer. On August 12th P drove two of his athletes to the airport to go to the European championchips. Two hundred kms round trip. When he arrived back in town he took the road that headed to the beach but after five minutes on the road the car died. He said it made a big "click" sound and just died. Right on front of our mechanics house. The mechanic had been eating lunch and heard the noise and came out. He pronounced it dead on arrival.
The next day we went to the New/Used dealership. The one affordable car they had was a Volkswagon Passat tdi diesel, sedan. It only had 10,000 miles on it. We really wanted the station wagon but then the dealer showed us that the back seats come all the way down on the inside so that if you open the trunk and have the seats down you can fit as many bikes as you want in it (our main concern). The super magic part came when he showed us that he had a really good financeing for it and we could sign up right then and there and take the car away right immediately. And we did. The car is a HUGE improvement over the Dedra, but that's mainly car technology that's changed in the last ten years.
Please note that from the time I made P make his dream real and the moment we had a new car in our hands not more than a week had passed. I don't know how this works, but it does.
When explaining it to his brother P said "Do you have a favorite actress? Well, print out a photo of her..."

Buone Ferie!

We're off to the beach for the month. My husband's family has a huge house in Puglia just two minutes from the Ionian Sea. In the morning I can go for a swim in crystal clear warm water, bike on the coast and then go running on the hills. Oh, I'm bringing my computer too 'cause I do have to work...gotta make a living. But there's nothing better than working for yourself and being able to move your "desk" wherever you want. I'll post from the coast!

Dream Conclusion

Do you remember that dream question I wrote about in my May entry? If you're new you can go back and read it. I think it's somewhere around the 18th of May...anyway, I did come to a conclusion. An anonymous "Rusty" is the one that I think came pretty close as he/she said in the comments section:

"The fear of leaving things behind may not be the worst one, but for sure is the one more able to destroy our present – I mean making you unable to live it full force! The ability to live the present is probably the life itself, anyway, but a recurrent dream tie us to the past just because we want it, I think. In the end, it's always us: it can be scary to think we're not so different from 20 years ago, but it's always scary when you're TRULY in touch with youself, isn't it! hugs! Rusty"

I read that over and over. I thought about it a lot. Like three months worth of thinking. It's sort of hard to explain the whole thing without going into a huge autobiographical entry about my life, which could be boring and over dramatic. Then again I don't want to not complete the May entry, so I'll just try and keep it short.

I had one of those typical write-a-book-about-it childhoods...Mother dies in car crash when I was ten, alcoholic, separated father who works night shifts left with four children to care for on his own. He remarries twice to the wrong women, all within four years. I left home when I was sixteen and managed to finish high school and get a B.A. all on my own.

I had lived in Italy for a year after high school and then a year in college and I decided to go back there to work for a few years after I finished school. Everything had been so difficult up to that point that I just remembering thinking to myself - from now on life is just going to be grand! And it was for a while. I had a nice job and a boyfriend and I was young and living in Europe. But I never really thought that I would stay, I just wanted to play for a few years and then I'd go back home...
...and then my little brother died in a car crash and I just wanted to run away. I went back to Mill Valley for the funeral and we spread his ashes on top of Mt.Tamalpais and he was gone. I went back to Italy and picked up my plans to move to San Diego with my then boyfriend...but now I didn't want to go back. I just wanted to avoid reality for a bit and pretend that nothing ever happened. What happened was I fell apart. Before Billy's death I felt like I had already paid my karmic dues. As if all the bad things that were supposed to happen had been put into this little package that lasted until I was 21 and then after that I wouldn't have any more worries. Well, now I know that life doesn't exactly work that way, but it was a little more difficult for me to take when I was younger.
So the boyfriend moved to San Diego and I stayed at my job in Italy. It payed well and I liked it and I met another guy, and another...and all of the sudden I had a job in television, then modeling, and a few years went by and then a few more and then it gets to a point where it's more difficult to go back and start over again than stay where you are.

Twenty eight years have passed since I came to Italy. I've spent more time here than I have in the States. But there was never a moment when I ever said to myself "Okay, this is where I want to stay. This is my home."

Since I came upon this realization some of my attitude has changed.

More importantly, I've stopped having the dream.

Aceto Balsamico

I love Balsamic Vinegar. Love, love, love it. Whenever I've done test for food intolerance they always find me intolerant to yeasts. I can do without bread and cookies and even tea for a certain amount of time, but I absolutely CRAVE the balsamic vinegar. It totally changes the flavour of a salad or even on other vegetables. My bonus is that I live in the town where BV originated. They have "Acetaia", vinegar estates everywhere and they put it all sorts of food preparations, even ice cream. Balsamic vinegar is different because it's made with a specific grape (usually trebbiano) and then at harvest they're crushed and boiled down to 50% volume. Then theyt're aged in wood barrels for at least ten years...and voilà, you get this thick, aged liquid to pour on your veggies.
The other day I was at the supermarket getting groceries and I ventured to the Balsamic Vinegar section. Up until now I've always gone for the moderately priced ones that didn't have any artificial colouring in them because what many will do is take regular vinegar, dye it black and slap a BV label on it. While I was studying the various brands labels there was another man next to me doing the same thing. All of the sudden this lady plowed between the two of us and grabbed five bottles of one brand called "Due Ponti". The gentleman and I exchanged popped eyed stares at each other. I stopped the lady as she was walking away and asked her about her choice. She said she thought this was the best choice with a quality/price balance. A 250ml bottle costed € 9,10 euro, twice the price I've been paying. But I decided to try it out and see if she was right. OMG! What have I been ingesting all these years? The new brand was thick as syrup and you really only needed a few drops to get this wonderful cherry flavour. Makes me want to lick my plate!

Internet Fancy and rain break

I'm not very good at codeing...or rather I actually could be good but I don't have the patience to sit there and figure it out for very long. Short attention span. Anyway, please notice that I've put a new feature in my right side bar: my workouts. Fancy, fancy!
This morning I had scheduled the babysitter to come at 8.00 am so I could go running. Instead she came at 8.30. This is totally inconvenient because it's like a hundred degrees here every day right now and I don't do well in the heat (Thailand withstanding...). I was supposed to do 1km intervals but all I could do was just run them without looking at the watch. I DO have a new determination because even though I was really going slow I just kept saying to myself that I HAD to get through the workout. And I did.

It finally rained here today after two months of no rain at all. Too bad I couldn't have gone running this afternoon!

My longest ride

My original plan was to go out for a three hour bike ride. My instructions from IronMauro (friend and personal Triathlon Guru ) was to find some hills. So I headed out towards Reggio Emilia and turned up to a little town named Baiso. The most important thing I learned today was that I really do have to eat or ingest something every 30 minutes. At 30 minutes and then 60 I took a PowerGel and was doing fine. Then I started on the uphill portion of the ride and met with two guys that were riding up also. We started chatting and I forgot to take my gel. At the 40' mark I started to get the shakes. My hands were trembling and I grabbed the other gel I had and took that. Within two minutes I was fine again. At the top of the hill I refilled on the water, stopped at a bar to eat a simple briosche and then take off back down the hill (wheee!!!) . Going home I took another Gel, stopped and bought (and ate) a banana and then had still some energy to cruise at a decent 25km/hour.

Total distance: 85.39 km
Time: 3h44'10"
Average: 22.8 km/hr.

I got home and felt fine. Felt really good. So now I just have to persist!

Fickle

Did I tell you that I was training for a half Ironman? I don't remember 'cause I talk to myself a lot and think I've told someone or written about it and then realize I just have lots of scenarios running around in my head.
First I was going to do the Monaco 70.3, but then they wanted to charge 350,00 euro for the entry fee and I just won't pay that kind of money for a half ironman. A full yes, a half no. So then I found an alternative Half in Italy at the Lago di Mergozzo in the lakes area above Milan. So I was training for that but then Piero started going on week long, out of town business trips and I was discouraged about actually finding the time (and babysitter) to train for the race. So I slacked off. Then those scenarios in my head started playing around and all of the sudden me, myself and I decided that I wasn't doing the Half anymore.
Fastrack to yesterday afternoon when Hubby and I are looking at our calendars from now until the end of september. First we're here in Modena, then he goes to Gotenbourg for the European Athletic Championships (he has three marathoners running on the teams), then down to Puglia to the beach for the rest of august, and then before school starts I'm taking Olly for a "girls only" trip to London.
"And then you have that Half Ironman Race on the 17th"
"Oh, I'm not doing it anymore".
(Blank stare)
I started to explain that I didn't have time and he wasn't helping me out and I really needed some encouragement. He went on that I knew how to train myself better than he ever could and that my schedule was so erratic that I really had to live it day by day rather than write out a schedule that I try to stick to.
One hour later I was on my bike doing a 60km workout.
I have eight weeks to get ready for it.
If I cut out all my "waste" time I can do this.
Today I'm going swimming. Maybe running too...

Epilogue: Bangkok

We left our cocooned existence in Phuket on thursday morning, but before returning to Italy we decided to stop in Bangkok for three days. Our first wake up was at the Phuket airport where we realized that Linda's travel agent had not put us on the same flight, and she had missed her's by two hours. A little scrambling around and exchange of credits cards, they were able to put her on a flight right then and there, but in first class. Not only did she have to pay for the upgrade but she also had to pay a penalty on not taking the other flight. Never heard of this before, but, whatever. In the end it all worked out and we met up again at the Bangkok airport. Bangkok was sweltering hot and we took a bus to our hotel. By now we were slightly spoiled by our luxury resort enviroment and the more than adequate hotel room in Bangkok seemed small to us. Oh, well, we didn't really have to spend a lot of time in the room...It was about five o'clock at this point and the we just started wandering the streets looking around. Bangkok is an insane city. It has tons of traffic, lots of pollution intermixed with all different kinds of people. At one point we were just starved so we walked into this local restaurant where they had a picture of the food for a menu. Guess they're used to the international crowd... There were about ten cooks crowded into this little kitchen. I ordered some sort of chicken curry with rice dish and Linda a vegetable and noodle dish. It was really,really, really good and we only paid six dollars for the entire meal for BOTH of us. On the way back to the hotel to watch the world cup game (Italy vs Rep. Ceca) we stopped in an eyeglass shop where I ordered a new pair for myself (only seventy dollars!). Day two in Bangkok is sort of a blur. We started out thinking that we would just go shopping and actually we DID do that but we had two problems. Problem one: We couldn't find the stores we really wanted to go to. We kept getting sidetracked down all sorts of strange and crowded streets that then lead to scary quiet ones. Problem two: I ate something that my intestines did not like. I had to keep finding bathrooms and at the end of the day had hit them a total of about fourteen times. I was afraid to really go to far from anyplace that looked like it might have a restroom 'cause when I had to go, I had to go. A few times we were so frazzled and hot that we went back to the hotel just to sit in a quiet air conditioned room for an hour. On our last and final day we decided to go to a huge market on the outskirts of town. We found directions on how to get there by public transportation and were successful in getting there (Whee!!!) . It more than made up for our no shopping day from the day before. The market had everything we had hoped for: food, clothing, souvenirs, jewelry, spices, paper (I love buying paper in foreign countries), shoes. It also had animals and a lot of local Thais doing their weekly shopping for food and fruit and veggies. The one thing that I haven't talked about on this trip are the Monsoons. Every day has been in the 90's and then about three times a day it rains. But it doesn't just rain a little tropical rain, it pours like someone is pouring a big bucket of water from the sky. It usually doesn't last for very long but the force is so strong that the sewage system that they have can't handle it. Everything clogs up and gets swamped. This happened both in the city and at our little market place on saturday. We were pretty much trapped for about an hour because anyplace we wanted to walk to had a foot of water. We both had on disposable shoes but Linda was kind of squeemish about not knowing what was in that water. The monsoons reminded me of all those Vietnam films where they picture troops in the rain for days and days. It was always this pouring rain, at that really is how it is. We finally made our way back to the overrail transportation and went back into Bangkok. We stopped at a few of the really huge , five story, indoor malls (gigantic!) and then went back to the hotel to pack and leave. I'm pretty sure that I will go back to Thailand again one day. It is a really beautiful country and has such wonderful people. Definately a part of the world that I've enjoyed visiting.

Phuket Marathon, Part II

Running in heat and humidity is not easy. To run 42km (a.k.a. 26 miles) in heat and humidity is even more difficult. It's doable, but you do have to set a few rules for yourself from the startline. Rule number one: forget about any record times. You just have to concentrate on the experience and not pay much attention to your stopwatch. Rule number two: drink, drink, drink. Throw water on yourself, dunk your head in it, do whatever you can to cool down. The organization had set up water stations every 2.5 kms which was really great. Only trouble was that when we came up to the first water station (and it was still pitch black dark out) I think I was one of the few that actually stopped. It was really humid out even at 5.00 a.m. They had big tubs of ice so I took handfuls of that and put it down the front and back of my bra and inside my hat to try and cool off. I ran the first kilometre with all the other journalists but then Liz and the Running Times girl took off so I just stuck to my own pace. Around 6.00 am it started to get light and there was a nice breeze that came along with it. The course went down a lot of country roads where people were sitting around breakfast tables on the sides of the roads looking sleepy but awake. There were some really cute kids in pajamas sitting on their front porches waving to us as we went by also. Someplace around the 21km mark we hit the coast...ahhhhh, a really nice sea breeze accompanied us for about 5km. My half marathon time was 2h15. The refreshment stations started to have a better selection with the halfmarathon one full of fruit. You could also see who was in front (or in back) of you. I was surprised to see Liz only about 3km in front of me, and even more surprised to see Julia (RW Australia) 3km BEHIND me. Last year at the Thailand Temple run she had run an hour faster than me. As soon as I came off the coast and headed back to the inland it started to get hot. It was about 8.00 a.m. at this point and I would estimate it to be 30° (about 90 degrees fahrenheit), but the humidity is what kept me filling myself with ice and trying to stay cool. We were routed on a main road with a little traffic. The drivers were cool though and not zooming too fast as they went by. There were some big hills that we had to climb up and I opted to just power walk them. I was doing fine, humming along, passing people that were walking but pretty much having a good time when I came upon Liz, the RW UK journalist. She was walking really slow and not having a good time. Don't ask why but she was wearing LONG pants and a LONG SLEEVE shirt. I don't know how she thought up this outfit. I mean, I would have run naked if I could, it was so dang hot. She said she felt dizzy but she didn't want to take off any clothing for fear of getting sunburned (she was that pasty white, english pale rose type). So I had her stop at the next water station and fill up her shirt with ice and drink more gatorade instead of just water. I made her walk a little faster and then got her to run one minute and walk one minute while I talked away...and this is what we did for seven miles, all the way to the end of the marathon. My thinking was that it was better to get her out of the sun and finish the race rather than walk a slow death march. It worked. She actually wanted run the last kilometre in. Our final time was 5h21'. We were 159 and 160 out of 280 runners. The first thing I did was hit the massage tent and have a foot and leg massage. Now this is something they should have at EVERY marathon. They had also set up a VIP tent for us where I had a delicious meal of rice and some Thai cooked veggies with curry. Yum! I would probably vomit at the thought of eating something like that after an Italian marathon, but it seemed to fit in fine in Thailand.

Phuket Marathon, Part I

Those squinty eyes come from me sleeping about four hours for the night. I tried as hard as I could to get to bed early, but when you're not tired there's just no way. The alarm clock went off at 3 a.m. and I immediately turned on the television to get in some Italy vs. USA soccer World Cup action, unfortunately I didn't get to see the best part. Anyway, I got dressed, ate a Powerbar, a banana and made myself some tea. Linda was also up and about and concerned I wasn't eating enough. I wasn't hungry at all and frankly just couldn't stomach anything at that hour of the morning. We went down to the reception where they were very sweet to have prepared a breakfast box for us to eat (bread, fruit, cookies, and other unidentified foodstuff). Too bad I hadn't seen it earlier. We took the hotel bus to the start which was only about a kilometre from the hotel. People were just kind of roaming around, getting excited. There were all the Japanese journalists filming everybody and a few Japanese personalities trying to get in their TV appearances. I just walked around, went to the restroom a few times and tried to relax. My favorite pre-race photo (courtesy of Linda) is this one of the product "Counter Pain Cream". That's what the girls t's spell out and they had to walk around together in the same line order for about two hours. At about 4.40 am the speaker for the race started asking us to line up. There were 280 runners signed up for the marathon so it wasn't a huge crowd yet. A lot of the half marathoners were already there even though they weren't schedule to start until 6.00 am. I lined up with a few of the other journalist that I knew: Liz from RW UK and Julia from RW Australia. There was a new girl that hadn't really introduced herself but I knew she was from Running Times. Slim and fast with about 2% body fat. Definately not in my league. Just as we were about to take off other journalists from Australia came racing down the road towards us. Apparently they didn't hear the alarm clock and woke up at 4.30 am! They blew some sort of horn and we were off...

Pasta-Rice-Curry Party

While Linda went to lounge at the pool and walk on the beach I went and did a course inspection in the morning and then a press conference in the afternoon. The course inspection was pretty uneventful though about three or four miles of it was on the beach area where the Tsunami hit the hardest. This is low tourist season on the island 'cause it's technically their winter, so there were few people out in their hut/shops. In the afternoon they held the press conference at the Dusit Laguna Resort where a very cute and sweet Naoko Takahashi, gold medal marathon winner at the Sydney Olypics talked about her involvement in the Phuket race. Apparently the japanese won't travel to Phuket because anyplace that has had many deaths is considered bad luck. It's true that countries hit by the tsunami received a lot of monetary support to reconstruct damaged buildings, but only 50% of tourists have come back to the island so the real people suffering from all of this are the common workers that live off of tourism. Naoko Takahashi brought about one hundred Japanese runners to the race plus a handful of journalists and two television crews. She's hoping to bring more next year and show her country that all the "evil spirits" have left.
At six o'clock that evening we went to the pasta-rice-.curry party. It was held at our hotel which made it even better. I didn't eat pasta, but plenty of rice and a really good chicken dish. There was a great dessert spread too and everything was in bite size pieces so we indulged there too. Yum.
Our wake up call was to be at 3.30 am so we skidadled on out of there right after we were finished eating.

Fantasy, oops, it's Fantasea Land!

On the first night we were in Phuket the Thailand Tourism Agency offered us a dinner and show at "Fantasea Land". This photo with Linda is really dark and you can't see much but I'm sure you can make out all the neon lights in the background. The entry was FILLED with neon lights and we sort of thought it might be like a fun park with rides...but it wasn't. They had all sorts of booths where you could knock down pins with balls and other assorted '50's type carnival games. We went straight to the buffet dinner which was actually kind of nice. Well, to me anything with curry and hot sauce is great so I'm not a very good judge on that. Also if just plain steamed thai rice is involved I'm okay. Plenty here too. After eating and getting to know a really nice journalist from Singapore (Wayaong was his name, not so sure on the spelling), Linda and I feigned sleepiness and asked to be taken back to our hotel. The others stayed to watch the "Fantasea" show of elephants and plenty of thai dancing with chimes. What we actually did was get dropped off at the massage place next to our hotel and had a foot massage. Two Thai ladies spent one-whole-hour massaging and pampering our feet. If you haven't ever had this done you have no idea what you're missing...

(picture of yummy chicken curry and fried noodles)

Take off

I have this thing about goodbyes. I hate them. Has to do with never getting to say goodbye to people that then never came back...so everytime that I have to go on a long distance trip I just relive it all over again. I'm a mess, I cry, it gets really bad, and I pretty much don't get over it until I'm on the airplane and practically in the next country. I had to say goodbye to Evan and Piero at the Rome airport where they dropped Linda and I off to take our flight. Evan just waved and said "Bye Mom!". I told Piero to message me even if I was on the plane so that when we landed I'd get all the messages. The flight was pleasant, all eleven hours of it. They showed a bunch of bad movies that I didn't watch 'cause I was busy reading "The Da Vinci Code". I think I'm the last person on earth to read that novel. I was captivating and I finished about three quarters of it on the plane. There was a plane switch in Bangkok and then the next flight down to Phuket. We got picked up at the airport and swept off to the Laguna Beach Resort. It is so so beautiful. Tropical and calm and beautiful...

I had to go to a lunch right away where I met all the other journalists. There were most of the RW's from around the world (except the US, surprisingly), plus Running Times and many Asian publications. Lots of Japanese since there was a huge Japanese contingency running the marathon. After lunch I went back to my room where I hung out for an hour and then I went down to the pool...which is right in front of the beach. The pool is huge and has all sorts of places you can go: caves, waterfalls, slides, a jacuzzi corner. Very very cool. Tomorrow I'll tell you about this freaky place we went to for dinner called "Fantasea land".

We're off!

Thai Air said that Linda could get on the airplane, no problems (if it had been her leg, the answer was no). So, I'm scrambling to get everything together. Tomorrow is a huge busy day 'cause I have to bring Olly up to Milano, then go to the physical therapist in Parma on the way back. We've decided with the broken arm dilemna to spend the night in Rome, where we leave from Fiumicino airport at 15:20 on thursday.
Linda was feeling bad about coming and being a "burden", but I'm so happy that she CAN come I really won't mind cutting up her tropical fruit for her. Positive points: 1) good thing she didn't break her leg 2) good thing she wasn't planning on running, cause then she would have done all that training for nothing. See you on the other side of the world!

OUCH! Oh no!!

Yesterday I had my last long run before the Phuket Marathon, 2 hours for a total of who-knows-how-many-kms. Linda, my travel companion, was ever so nice as to offer to follow me on her bike so that I'd have company and she could hand me over my water/gatorade. We were in the last half hour when I need to stop for a second, so I said "stop!". She did, but she wasn't able to get her right cleat out of the peddle so she fell to her left. She wasn't moving when it happened and instictively put her left hand out to break the fall. A little bruise, nothing bad...until this morning when she saw that it was swollen. She want to the hospital to have it x-rayed. The wrist is broken. She's in a cast up to her armpit. She's calling around to see if they'll let her on the airplane on thursday when we're supposed to leave for Thailand together. I feel so bad...I've never broken anything but I can't imagine being restricted in a cast like that.
I hope she's still able to come with me. Ten days in Thailand ALONE would really be, well, lonely.

Mobile

We bought Evan a bicycle last year and for the last twelve months he's just sat on the seat. No matter how many times we tried to get him to peddle, it just wouldn't connect for him. At school they told me that he would try all the tricycles by sitting on them and then saying, "Nope, this one won't go", as if they're supposed to magically move by themselves. Last week I noticed that he was getting on the bike by himself. He'd just sit there, but it was already a step ahead that he was able to get on and off without calling me a million times to do it for him. A few days later I saw that he was able to move the left peddle. He's back track and then move five inches, backtrack and move five inches. A couple of neurons must have clicked together in that baby brain of his 'cause all of the sudden he was peddling! What freedom! Now he peddles around and around and around the building for twenty minutes at a time (which is a lot for a two year old). Today he even dared to wave to me with one hand! The helmet is mine, he insists on wearing it rather than his Mickey Mouse helmet.

Tuesday the 6th

I have so much stuff going on I don't even know where to start!
Last weekend was a three day holiday here in Italy, so no school on friday and the kids were home with me. I practically slept for three days. Friday morning I slept in until 8.30 am (as opposed to the 6.00 am wake up) and then in the afternoon I took a three hour nap with Evan. Saturday, um, the same. By Sunday I was feeling pretty rested but I slept in until 10.00 am 'cause Piero was home and could take care of Evan in the morning. I decided to not feel guilty anymore if I need to sleep. I'm nicer, don't get as sick and am much more pleasant to be around if I get my sleep. Sunday afternoon I had a 2 hour long run scheduled. I was a little apprehensive about this since my running has been going so bad lately. But I put my Heart Rate Monitor on and decided that for the first hour I would not let it go past 150 bpm and then on the way back I would just do fartlek work between 150 and 160 bpm. I'm happy to report that I never had to stop and I made it back with no problem. I think I'm finally getting over the anemia bout. Yay!
The other thing I did was finally go see a physical therapist. I've been having a lot of problems with my back and the muscles down the back of my legs , from the gluteus maximus all the way down through the ham strings. I can barely get out of bed in the morning without some sort of strange maneuvers. Then I warm up and I'm fine. Doesn't hurt when I run, but on the other hand the "injury" involves such an important muscle group that it couldn't NOT have some effect on my sports.
So he looked at me and figured out that my pelvis was blocked and slightly twisted to the right. This, probably thanks to the last pregnancy and consequent explusion of junior (which is when I started having the pain). I also have a vertebrae out of place and he asked me to have an x-ray so that we can see if it's hereditary or not. He did a osteopathic type treatment and then showed me some exercises that I'm supposed to do every day at home. I already feel about 20% better, which doesn't sound like a lot, but for the type of pain I was feeling is really a lot.
I'm also thinking that maybe this is why I was finally able to run continuosly for the first time in a few months.
So, in short, things are looking up :-)

New Tech, Old Tech

I'm so upset...Last month Piero bought me a new computer. It's a very weird story too. I didn't really want a new computer, I had a nice comfortable ASUS laptop that I used with no problems except for that every once in a while the cooling fan would get stuck and make this weird noise. Anyway, he insisted so I let him buy me a new Toshiba - very basic, no frills, but the ASUS I had bought in 2001, so the Toshiba had five years of technology on the ASUS. This was wednesday evening. Thursday morning my ASUS wouldn't start up. It just literally died on me...the weirdest thing, like it was waiting for that to happen. Or maybe it got offended that I bought a replacement. Anyway, I just discovered that my new computer doesn't have an infrared portal, which means I can't download photos from my telephone! I am so bummed. I went on this ride sunday and took a ton of photos to decorate my blog with and now I have nothing to show you!
The ride was 70km and it took me 3:20:21 to do. The pics you would have seen:

- Leaving from Modena the first town you would have seen is Maranello. Maranello is known for one thing and one thing alone: Ferrari. I took a photo of the test track (you can see it from the road) and then the front of the Ferrari office building, which is actually kind of boring. I think it was constructed in the sixties and they've never updated it.

- This particular road I took goes up to Serramazzone and has a 15km 7% climb. I kept getting passed by a bunch of cyclists as if I was standing still so I got really really excited when I saw that I was going to pass someone. I even took a picture of him as I passed. In the picture you would have seen his yellow WOOL jersey (which should have given me a clue there...) and his LEATHER cleats (clue number two...) and I just about laughed out loud when I saw the poor guy was about eighty years old. WHEEE, I passed you old man!!!

- Several pics of the beautiful Emilian mountains and farms.

- A lovely photo of the pastry I ate back in Maranello on the way back. I swear I do this ride JUST to be able to eat those things...they're this crunchy pastry layered thing with a Chantilly cream inside. Comes in small or super large. I've only ever bought the small so far...I'd have to do 100km to buy the super large. The picture at the top was the best I could do...

Thailand, again!

I don't think I've mentioned it but I'm leaving for Thailand in three weeks. I went last year when I was invited as a journalist to write (and run) about the Thailand Temple Run .
A few months ago they contacted me again and asked me if I'd like to come and write (and run again!) a new marathon that they were organizing in Phuket. Um, yes, I'd like that very much! I talked my friend Linda into coming with me and I'm making it into a mini-vacation. I'll be leaving on the 15th, arriving in Phuket on the 16th. The run is on the 18th and starts at 5.00 am. Linda will probably do the half marathon, though if her foot continues to give her trouble we'll rent a bike and have her follow me. I'm really excited about the prospect of going snorkeling and sitting on a beach with nothing to do. I'll take my computer so that I can write the article under a palm tree while I sip on some tropical drink. Did I mention that a Thai massage here for one full hour costs about three dollars? I'll be getting one or two a day!
On the way back we've decided to stop in Bangkok for some shopping. We went online to look at hotels...OMG, they were so inexpensive! I'm so used to New York, Paris and Rome prices, which are sometimes bordering on ridiculous. The most expensive hotel that we saw was the Marriot Resort and Spa, a whopping $110.00 dollars for the room for one night. But we thought that we'd then have to "dress" the part and really didn't want to have to bring along formal clothing. So we went with a nice three star superior called the Narai Hotel. It has nice rooms and a pool and a fitness center and three restaurants. Breakfast is included in the 40.00 dollar per room per night tarif. That's twenty dollars apiece. Last year when I was in Bangkok I went to some all you can eat Asian Buffets for four or five dollars. I think I could retire here...
Plenty of photos will be coming on this page at the end of the month. Stay tuned. The kids? Oh, they're going with Piero to Grandma's at the beach. They'll be out of school next week so everything is taken care of on that end. WWWHHHHEEEEEEEEE!!!!!

Body Composition (or Fat fat, fat)

In my quest to put the scale away and ignore the numbers, I went and had my body compostion tested. I had already done this in 2001 when I was training for my last "half" Ironman, so I had old numbers to work with, specifically 64 kg x 19,7% body fat. I felt really good then, it was easy to maintain and racing triathlons was FUN when I didn't have to worry about stuff jiggling.
Since having Evan I really felt that my body comp had changed. Some of that could be age or just having another baby, but with all the physical activity that I do I knew that I could reverse it a bit. Most people will look at me and tell me I'm thin but I knew that my composition was off...and now I have the proof! I measured out at 67,5 kg x 25,2% body fat.

Gulp.

For women, a body fat of 10-12% is essential, 14-20% is considered a healthy range for athletes, 21-24% is healthy for fitness, 25-31% is considered an 'acceptable' range and anything above 32% is considered obese.

So I'm not obese and I am "acceptable", but from an athletic point of view, I have to knock down some of those numbers. I'm even slightly out of the fitness range. I'm actually excited about it. I'm not interested in "losing weight", just in changing that fat number. I'll need to gain some muscle too, which is why the numbers on the scale won't be important to me.

I'll go back in about 8 weeks to re-test.

Excuse me now while I go have breakfast...

My First...um...Ultramarathon

I didn't really mean for it to be an ultramarathon. Actually, I didn't even mean for it to be a marathon! I had signed up for the Pisa marathon back in february. I liked the course because it was in the area where I used to live in Tuscany and I really hadn't gone back since then. But then a few things came to hinder my even getting to the starting line:

- my blood test the month before with the low iron
- my getting a huge charley horse cramp in my left calve that left me limping for days before the race
- Evan coming down with a 101° fever for three days before the race.

Well for the first consideration I just thought I'd run the marathon and not care about my final time. For the second I put hot packs on my calf and then ran a half hour on the saturday before the race and it seemed okay. We took Evan to the doctor on saturday afternoon where he was given an antibiotic and said he'd be fine.

It rained just as we started out, but then the sun came out. It was hot every once in awhile but not unbearably so. Don't ask me what happened but I had to hit the bushes THREE times within the first 12km, at that point the "race" part was pretty much over for me and I just decided that it would be a lovely day to walk to Pisa. It was. The weather was beautiful and I had a friend that walked/ran with me and we were having such a nice time that right after the 34th km we found ourselves alone. We kept going forward and then we got to an intersection and demanded to know where the course was. The police officer said: one km back! AAACCHHH. I stood there stunned for a minute, looked for a way to cut the course, but there wasn't. So we walked back the whole one km and rejoined the race. I ended up finishing 44,195 km in 5:26:32. It really proved to me that I don't EVER want to run anything beyond a marathon. No thank you.

Dream: what does it all mean?

Please help me. I know how many of you are reading these entries, I even know where you're from. I have this "problem" and I really need some collective anonymous advice.

I have this dream that I dream periodically. Sometimes I'll have it once a month, other times I'll have it even more often than that. This week I've had it three times already. Last night was even more intense than usual.

I've had this dream, on and off, for the last twenty years.

I've always read that a recurring dream is an unsolved problem and once you get rid of the problem you stop having the dream.

For simplicity I'll give you the dream I had last night.

The Dream:
I'm in Italy. I'm the age that I am (45). I don't have children. I do have Piero. I decide that nothing has really happened for me here in Italy professional-wise and so it's time for me to go. I have to go back to the States and start over again. Much of the dream is centered around planning what job I'll have, where I'll live, whether I'll go back to school. I always start out with zero money so I have to get like a quick waitressing job first in order to get back on my feet and have some cash. I'll send for Piero later when I have some money. I'm sad that I wasn't able to make anything out of myself in Italy. Really sad. But then I realize I have another 20 years to be able to do something with myself in the States and I get excited.

End of dream

Through the years the dream morphs. Sometimes I have one child or both of my children. Sometimes none. Sometimes no husband, or sometimes he'll come "later". Many times I'm going back to school to be re-educated, other times I spend all the time looking for an apartment to live in, in San Francisco.
There is always a huge sadness at leaving Italy and not doing something with myself there. It not happening or my not having done anything. I'm always really excited about the new prospects, the new life, though still sad to leave the rest behind.
When I wake up there is always a huge relief. Or is there?

What do I have that is unresolved?
Is there something in this dream that I'm not seeing or don't want to see?

If you need any pieces to the puzzle to help me out I'll be glad to answer any questions.

Payback

This has been a really difficult and emotional week. Olly is having some problems that we're trying to sort out, but in the meantime it's a daily battle. Throw in PMS for both of us, Piero gone for the week (solo parenting), I was really a wreck yesterday.
When I went to pick Evan up and nursery school at 1.00 pm he was all happy 'til we got to the car and he started to cry because he wanted the other car. After that he cried for anything and everything. Finally at about 2.30 pm I took him off to bed. He fell asleep within five minutes and didn't wake up for another four hours. When I woke up an hour later I found Olly asleep on the couch. Then at about four o'clock she started sleep talking and asking where all her friends had gone. I led her back to the couch and closed her eyes. She slept another hour. Surprisingly we all went to bed at 10.00 pm and slept instantly, waking up at 6.00 am.

Last night we all piled into the same bed. I had already turned off the lights when I heard this really feable "I love you Mom". She was so faint in saying it that I had to have her repeat it a few times. She did too.

This morning while I was getting the laundry Evan made me stop and lean over to him. He caressed my face and said "Tu sei brava" (you're good, as in a good person) . Almost made me cry. It certainly made up for the emotional crummy week.

Finding Myself

I don't remember how it came to me or what made me even think about it. One day I was surfing the web and found THIS.
I've always wanted to do a half, in fact in 2001 I actively looked for one to do but the closest was in England but I didn't have the time to travel for it. Instead I found one on the Island of Elba.
It wasn't a full half (make sense?), but with a 2km swim/66km bike/14km run, it was pretty close. I can positively say that in the summer of 2001 I was in the best shape of my life. I finished that triathlon and felt fantastic. Which brings me to now...When I saw the Monaco Half the first thing I thought was summer 2007. Then I thought, why wait? I always say I don't have the time to train but if I cut a lot of the wasted time I produce during the day and get myself (and the family) a little more organised, I do have the time. The most difficult in training and on the course will be the bike. If you're so inclined go check out the bike course.
I'll have to do some REAL cycling training. I have some good size mountain ranges near my house and then we'll spend the month of july in St.Moritz so it shouldn't be a problem finding training routes.
So this will be my new focus. It's interesting how your perspective changes. I'm slowing weeding out the fat loss blogs (especially people that don't do the talk or walk the walk!) and replacing them with inspiring Tri Blogs like this one or this one.
Monday (a holiday here) I road 60km on my bike. It was good to do that. It confirmed that I'm still in good biking shape but that I'm a little rusty. Second it reminded me to lubricate certain body parts for me next ride. Ouch!