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!

Not always what you think...

This photo has nothing to do with my entry, I just thought I'd put it up 'cause Evan's a sun- shiny kind of kid that is always smiling and happy. He makes me happy and smiley too!

I went to a new doctor in Milan a few weeks ago. For the new and memory lapsed, I'm having trouble with perimenopause, I like to look into alternative medicine thus, the new doctor. He had me do a food intolerance test and talked about how I should eat. That merits a whole other entry so I'll do that at a later date. ANYWAY, he asked me to do a few blood tests to look at my hormone levels. My sister in law is a lab tech so I had her do the tests and she decided to include everything else she could think of. I got them back and noted that I have iron levels at an all time low. I've been really really tired and sleepy and lethargic. I am so happy to know that there is a cure! For your info I looked at the Sideremia (Iron). Normal levels are 50 - 160mcg/100 ml. Mine were at 2. Two! And the minimum is fifty. Sheesh...I'm still waiting to hear back from the doctor on this (It's a never ending holiday over here between Easter, Liberation day and Labor day), but I'm pretty sure the new diet will take care of it. Just to be on the safe side I'm taking a supplement until I hear from him. It's only been a few days but already I feel better. I didn't even have to take a nap yesterday!