Monday, May 26, 2008

Italian Taper

I found out in early May that I would have to go to Italy on business and stay for 2-3 weeks…I wasn’t sure, until the middle of the month, exactly when in May it would be or how long I would have to stay. This was an important business trip…by no means did I want to say I couldn’t go, but I had a conflict in the back of my mind. In February, I had signed up to run the Newport Marathon. The race is on May 31st, and initially, it was looking like I was going to miss it. But when everything was said and done, my trip had me leaving for Italy on May 17th and returning home on May 30th. I’m just glad I’ll be back to see my sister finish her first marathon.

So I’ve been in Italy now for a little over a week…unfortunately, things have not been very conducive to running. The hotel is basically surrounded on all sides by busy highways, and even if it wasn’t, I’ve been driving on these Italian roads quite a bit and I know I wouldn’t want to be a runner out there. My only saving grace has been the hotel fitness room which does have a couple treadmills. Interestingly, running on a treadmill in Italy is just as boring as back home. The only added excitement is figuring out distances and pace in km and km/hour…it’s funny that running on the treadmill seems to take even longer when I have to run 8 kilometers to get 5 miles. I’ve actually been a lot busier in the evenings then I thought I’d be too…so I haven’t exactly been keeping up with the running schedule I had planned. The Italian taper includes several days of zeroes.

Right now it looks like things are still on track for me to return home the day before the race. I leave Italy on Friday at about 7:00 AM and get back to Corvallis around 2:00 PM…pretty weird since it seemed like it took a whole day to get here. I was pretty wiped out after the trip over here…my only hope is it will be easier traveling back the other direction. My plan for the race is really just wait and see how I feel…if things are good early on I’ll push, but if things aren’t good early on…actually…I’ll probably still push and completely crash and burn! We’ll see…it should be interesting. Who knows, maybe this Italian taper will do me good…I was definitely feeling rundown after McDonald Forest. Taking this time to recover might help me.

This past weekend I drove over to Mount Blanc to check out the area where the toughest foot race in Europe is run…The North Face Ultra-Trail Tour du Mont-Blanc…more on this topic later…I need to get back on the treadmill.

5 comments:

Tonya said...

Glad to see you blogging again! Where are the pics??? We'll have to go back to Italy and see you run in that Ultra!

juliette said...

Hey, pretty cool blog. Uh, can I remind you, you're in Italy, you're not supposed to run, you're supposed to EAT! Can you tell me how to do that cool thing that makes someone's name blue in your post so readers can click on the link? It's obvious to you but I'm pretty much computer illiterate (well, actually just plain illiterate) and I want to have a cool blog someday so my two readers (Kara & Tonya) can be entertained.

Matt said...

C'e posto in ascensore per una sedia a rotelle?

Mike Rosling said...

Juliette, you've got three readers now...you'll be happy to know I did very little running and a lot of eating while I was in Italy. To create a link in my blog, I highlight the word(s) and then click a button that I think looks like a little chain link...you should get a window that pops up asking for a web address.

Mike Rosling said...

Matt, I only picked up about a dozen words of Italian while I was there...it made for a few interesting situations...as best I can tell, your question has something to do with an elevator and a wheelchair?