Final Five

Well, I’m officially trained and tapered. Last night I took a fantastic five-mile run, and if the first 5 miles of the marathon feel that easy, I’ll be 1/5 of the way there without any pain! It was fun to take my last training run, though by no means my last run, in Florence, along the Arno with all the lights glittering up and down the river. It’s really weird that it gets dark at 5pm, but I like it for running. It’s cool out, and I’ve always run stronger in the dark. Not sure why that is.

On the way home, I stopped at the ATM and then at the supermarket for some supplies for the trip, and if anyone had wanted to mug me, that would have been a great opportunity, because not only was I carrying a lot of cash, I was carrying peanut butter! In Europe, that stuff is a precious commodity.

Also, I got an email from Runner’s World today, encouraging us to “Recover with Oatmeal and Coffee!” Well, I would love nothing more, RW, but oatmeal is nowhere to be found on this continent. I love the combination of oatmeal and coffee. Sometimes I even put coffee in my oatmeal (cook 1/2 cup old-fashioned oats in 3/4 cup vanilla almond milk. stir in 1 tbsp instant espresso powder, 2 tsp-ish cinnamon agave nectar, 1 tsp cinnamon) and every time I see these scrumptious looking pictures of oatmeal (especially with protein powder and pumpkin) on fitness blogs, a little part of me dies. So, RW, why don’t you send me emails that say “Recover with Pasta. Every. Single. Day.” because that would be more realistic right now.

Ok. Done ranting.

Anyway, I wanted to share some pictures I took on my last run, because I think they sum up my past couple months pretty well.

I’ll be writing from Athens as soon as I can get on the internet, but if for some reason I can’t and there’s radio silence for a few days, I probably haven’t been blown up in a riot, I’m probably just having a great time away from the modern luxury of free WiFi. But all the same. I’ll try to check in.

Until then, thank you, thank you, thank you again for all the comments, emails, Facebook messages, postcards, and words of encouragement. I’ve gotten all of the above, and they mean the world to me.

Bye for now, Florence,

Jane