.: Europe Update, August 22nd, Twenty+A Dime!

Sunday, August 22, 2010

Europe Update, August 22nd, Twenty+A Dime!

Just finished off a good block of training in the Crans Montana area. Its been a great trip and many blessings have come my way so far. I was a bit down after my first two races as I did not win and even though some say I raced well I did not feel I ran to my potential. Running is all about how you feel individually about your training, racing, and experiences. My friend Monika has in a sense nurtured my mental state back up by encouraging me and letting me know there are more races so I had to keep my focus up. Her cooking has gotten my physical side up to par with plenty of healthy meals! Being able to stay at my friend Monika's place was amazing, I really love the area. The training has been an adventure, exploring new trails everyday and even catching a few training sessions with my buddy Billy. Monika is the most hospitable person you could ever meet and I can not even begin to tell you how thankful I' am to have met her. Her chef skills, meticulous, rightfully so, her Risotto is the best you will find. I have eaten Risotto all over Italy and Monika's is above and beyond any in Italia.

(Crans-Montana during my walk to get Swiss Chocolate)

Its common in Switzerland to indulge in a bit of chocolate after dinner, and even cheese. Unfortunately for me, I do not like dark chocolate much. I'm a sort of rarity in the area as I have come to discover. I happened to land on a pot of gold one day during a visit to the local Migros with Monika in Crans. Since nobody likes Milk Chocolate in the Crans area, guess what happened to fill the discount bins? Thats right, rich, sweet Swiss Milk Chocolate! Needless to say, chocolate has been a major part of the diet this past week. When I arrived in Switzerland I attempted to persuade a few Swiss people that America had great chocolate, even comparable to Switzerland. Imagine the laughs I got. After trying some chocolates here in Switzerland I can admit I was a complete jackass for thinking America had better chocolate, yes I know, how stupid of me.

(SWISS CHOCOLATE)

On to the Matterhorn the day before the race to get settled in Zermatt. One of the feats on my adventure bucket list was to run up the Matterhorn. Many know, this is impossible. You can get pretty close on foot, but as you see from the pictures below, serious climbing gear is needed to get to the peak of the Matterhorn. However, I did find a race that finished close the mountain, smack in front of it. The race organization was not special and left me with mixed feelings. The race itself was quite the experience for the simple fact that there was good International competition and that you finished right in front of the Matterhorn. The race went out fast, straight through the middle of town. You feel like you are in the Tour de France, with the skinny roads, tight, filled with tourists and locals supporting the race and nearly grazing you as you fly by. You get whiffs of smoke every now and then and an occasional shout "up, up, up". Early in the race I was able to pull away and get a safe gap near the top where you get a panoramic view of the Matterhorn. I guess you could say when I got close to the Matterhorn the experience was truly breath taking as the air got pretty thin hanging around 2,500+ meters. The night before I had quite the experience. Met a lot of interesting people from Lucerne (CH), Tajikistan, Canada, along with a fleet of visitors from Japan and China. I can promise anytime you go to Zermatt you will most certainly come across a good amount of Japanese. I have no idea why, but for some reason its very popular for Japanese tourists.