About the shoes

The real problem is that I can't find any American-strength duct tape over here. Friends, if you come to visit me, please bring me some! The back end of the left shoe has stuffing sticking out everywhere and it is Killing my a-Kill-es.

Anyway, it is FRIDAY and I have completed the first five days of week one of fake Marathon training. Today is rest day before tomorrow's 6-miler.

Also, I started riding my bike to and from work this week, as I have no doubt mentioned (I thrive on extrinsic awards, so yes, yes, PLEASE tell me how wonderful, sportiva, and coragious I am, again and AGAIN and AGAIN! I can't get enough. If you do, I may just do it again next week!). And TODAY I felt EUPHORIA in the streets of Trieste. I ran my errands (Ufficio Tavolari, Unicredit Banca), figured out how and where to park my bike in front of both places, and I was a total bad-ass in traffic because I (finally) understood the secret of how to ride here. You don't go on the slow side on the right. You do like the scooters do and ride on the center line so that when there is a traffic light you end up right in front for when it turns green. Brilliant.

Yesterday I was supposed to do a 3-mile run. I finished work early so I decided to take Luna (my lab) with me on the bike path. The little lady is getting a bit long in the tooth (she's 9 soon), so I took a bottle of water to dump on her every time I found a water fountain. She was a trooper. We didn't do the whole three, but we did at least two, and probably closer to two and a half. It had been forever since I took her up there. She was like a puppy again, and I ran nice and slow with her and walked when she got tired, which I totally didn't mind. I think it's important to do that, too.

So, to sum up the week: I feel great physically. Work-wise it was a hard week, but in the end it was all like water off a duck's back. When you have your eyes on an impossible goal, everything else just feels like no big deal.

I'm toying with the idea of signing up for the Venice marathon (Did I ever tell you it is my dream to run Venice? Did I ever tell you I wanted to run it to celebrate my 40th birthday? Did I ever tell you I just turned 40 so the time is right?). I want my husband to run it with me. I don't think he will want to. But you never know.