Checking in with an update on the training for the Switzerland marathon.  I have been in Tuscany, Italy for almost a week now, and can tell you one thing for sure.  There is not a flat spot in the whole area.  I have been averaging about 6.5 miles per day and about a half mile of vertical.  The roads are not much better than a trail, so I have had practice paying attention to where I step so I don’t trip and fall.

I have found that at the top of every mountain is a church or castle/fort.  Each and every one of them I ask how did they ever build these without a helicopter?  They are all big and tall and at the peak of the mountain.  So far I have made it to the top of three of them and back before anyone else is up.

Checking out the churches in the rolling hills in Italy

Running uphill is pretty easy for me after running all the miles on the beach.  The issue is really the pounding the quads take running downhill on steep inclines.  The other morning I was convinced that someone had beat me with a baseball bat on my quads.  I went out for my morning run only after convincing myself I would only run two miles.  After two miles the pain and the stiffness was gone and I went off to find another castle.  Instead I found two wineries and a church.

Sunflowers in Tuscany

The area is beautiful and there are olive trees and grapevines everywhere.  The sunflowers are in bloom and everything is green because every afternoon there is a thunderstorm.  One morning running on a section of road with a steep drop off to my right side proved what the vintners had always told me.  The have their own micro ecosystem.   The road was clear as day and the sun was starting to shine but just to my right and below me were the grapevines covered in a moist dense fog.  You could see the dew drops that had formed on the spider webs and the grass around the vines.  Kind of makes you forget about sore quads and tight calves.

Grapevines

Maria and I will leave on Friday morning for our 350 mile drive to Davos, Switzerland.  We will time our arrival so as to be able to pick up my race number that afternoon or evening.  Then it will be a countdown to crossing off Continent #3!