Eye Surgery, Racing, Exploring, you name it

So I am writing this from an Italian villa on Lake Garda where I am staying ALL BY MYSELF.  

How did this happen?

This past week has been CRAZY!  And nothing has gone according to plan!  We were supposed to depart early Friday to Italy for Columbus Day weekend (how appropriate, C was Italian) where I would be competing in my first race EVER. 15km at Lake Garda, foot of the Italian Alps.  I've had my eye on this race since the beginning of the year, and I've been training for the entire year too.  I had problems with my knees in the beginning, so it has been a slow and arduous process… but I finally arrived!

Well, long story short, Ben ended up in emergency eye surgery on Tuesday.  He tore his retina, probably playing soccer.  His words, "I think I might have gotten hit in the face playing soccer." 

 Who's unsure about something like that? 

 Anyway, he had to stay three days in the hospital.  I felt sorry for the poor guy.  I visited him Tuesday night after he just got out of surgery… he was pretty groggy… he was wearing a hospital nightgown, which even had a little blood on the shoulder,  white support hose, and a huge softball sized white plastic eye patch.  He looked rough. I'm not used to seeing Ben in this capacity. It made me sad.   I toyed with taking a picture, but decided better not.  Just use your imagination.  

So, the trip was very much up in the air.  I held down the fort all week, busy with the kids, preparing for our "maybe" trip, and trying to visit Ben too.

Friday late morning (we were supposed to have already left by this point) he finally got released with doctor's orders to not travel anywhere above 1000 meters because of air pressure.  Well, that threw a wrench in our plans.  To get to Lake Garda,  you have to cross the Alps.  There's no other way.  You have to go through the Brenner Pass, which borders Austria and Italy, and at its height is 1300 meters. 

  

After frantically searching the web, and pouring over our atlas, it slowly sunk into us that Ben would not be going.  So sad.  We had to come up with a contingency plan.  Should we all stay home?  Or find a girlfriend to go with me?  Kind of hard last minute when everyone has plans with their own families.  Should I take just the little girls with me?  They had been so excited to go!  But who would watch them during the race?  I called the hotel, no babysitting services.   In the end, I decided to go by myself. It was not an easy decision, and in fact, it wasn't even decided until I woke up Saturday morning… after mulling over it all day Friday.

So, I drove all day Saturday, it took me nine hours, but was a beautiful drive through German, Austrian, and Italian Alps, and quite pleasant with no one making demands on me every five minutes.  I finally arrived at Lake Garda on Saturday evening. It was pouring rain.  Sunday morning was the race. 

At 7 a.m. the owner of the villa brought me a HUGE breakfast.  He was so sweet..  He was very excited for me to run the race.  

I only ate a few items, was worried about getting a "gut bomb" (Ben's terminology, not mine) before the race.

The "villa" I'm staying at, by the way, is very strange. 

 For instance:

Here are some beautiful pics as I walked along the shoreline to the starting point Sunday morning:

And the starting area:

So, here are a few lessons I learned after racing for the first time:

1.  Don't race on a Sunday.  I really struggled with the decision to run on Sunday (it going against my religious beliefs), and in the end it would have been better if I had found a Saturday race.  We ran into so many obstacles trying to do this race… and I really wonder if I hadn't signed up for a Sunday race that blessings, instead of obstacles, would have flowed our way.  In my defense, I combed every freakin' race schedule in Europe and almost all of them are on Sundays!  Doesn't make sense, wouldn't you want the Sunday to recover from a Saturday race?  There were a few Saturday races in France but they were either too far or on a weekend that didn't work.  

2.  Don't forget your safety pins to pin the stupid bib (or number) onto your shirt.  Before the race, I was running around in a panic asking people (more like gesturing to people because no one spoke English) if they had any spare safety pins.  It was kind of embarrassing/awkward.  No one could help me. I ran into a hotel.  Then into a bakery.  Then into another hotel and finally struck gold with the receptionist.  She scrounged up some safety pins and I hastily pinned it on and I'm not kidding, I ran out the door as the gun shot went off right in front of me… I basically just jumped in front of the line.. cut everybody off.  It was glorious.  Except that instead of stretching and mentally preparing myself for the race, I wasted those precious 30 minutes looking for safety pins. 

3.  Go to the bathroom before the race.  I blame this one on the Italians.  There was only one bathroom at the starting line… and the line was FOREVER long.  So of course I didn't bother.  I figured there would be bathrooms along the way.  I was wrong.  No bathrooms, but I saw several guys run off into the bushes.  It's not fair it's so easy for guys.  I was really hurting' and finally just darted behind a little wall that was behind a water station and took care of business mother nature style.  I'm sure several people caught on to what I was doing or may have even caught a glimpse, but I was desperate!!!

4.  Focus on running instead of taking pictures.  I noticed I was the only dorky person taking pictures…. but it was sooo beautiful.  I couldn't help it… 

5.  Only compete against yourself.  Running a race can be intimidating.  It seemed like I was only getting passed but wasn't passing anyone else.  After going through this whole ordeal, I admire anyone who can run long distances… it takes so much discipline to train your body.  So, instead of focusing on how lame I am compared to other runners, I've tried to focus on how far I've come.  In the beginning I was having a hard time running just a mile or two.  And I was so slow!!  I have come so far the past few months and am grateful that I decided to do this. As long as I'm improving then that's all that matters!

And aren't the pictures just lovely?  
We ran from Malcesine to Torbole

FYI… that was NOT my finish time.  

Kind of sad no one to cheer me on at the finish line… and I had to take a selfie.  Selfies are so unflattering anyway, try taking one after running!


Many of the runners cooled off in the lake.  Awesome.

Some pretty views of Torbole:

We had to take a ferry back to Malcesine… this was my favorite part of the race.  Relaxing on the boat and letting the wind carry my odor to the other passengers :)  I met some really fun people on the boat from Scotland and Finland.  And it was nice to see the route we ran along… it seemed so long, made me more grateful for what I was able to accomplish.

After coming home to a much needed shower, and sitting in the hot tub for a solid hour, I did some exploring in Malcesine.  

Ok, this is when I started to think, "Hey traveling by myself aint so bad."  It was a fun, stress free afternoon.

The coolest part was exploring the castle featured in the first pictures… it offered the most amazing views! 

Selfies!!!