Day 12 - Alpe di Suisi half marathon (Race Recap)

July 2
Day 12

Alpe di Siusi, Italy
Half Marathon #166
Weather - brisk, perfect!

Well as you can imagine, "sleeping" in the rental car did not go well. Being higher up in the mountains, it was chilly, and we had not dressed properly for it. Not to mention, three people trying to get decent sleep in a Ford Fiesta? Didn't happen.

Once the sun came up, we decided to drive down by where we had seen the expo. Didn't look like that was where the race was going to be, so we drove back up by where we had spent the night. Turns out that we had parked about 10 feet from the race start. Finally, a stroke of good luck! We parked right next to the start line, then went to a cafe to have some breakfast. I was able to get on some wifi and was able to get back in touch with our Airbnb host (who didn't seem to understand how we had so much trouble finding her) and Francesca, to see if we could meet up. Picked up my packet (which included 4 apples and an apple corer, random), then back to the cafe so I could change into my race clothes in the bathroom. As you can imagine, I was not incredibly optimistic for how the race was going to go.

Francesca had run part of the course the week before and said that it wasn't incredibly technical, and thought it wasn't quite as tough as the elevation profile would lead one to believe. I was a bit nervous for this race, the cutoff was 3 hours, and about 1900' of climbing. That's right around the time I finished my Eagle course preview, which had a pretty similar elevation change. Ugh. I hoped that the cooler temps would help me out.

We lined up for an incredibly late 10:10 start and headed out. The first few km were on the road, and I surprised myself with running a sub 11 minute mile. I wanted to bank all the time I could. I took of my windbreaker early, cursing myself for wearing it in the first place. We started some climbing, and I was able to pass quite a few people. We got onto some single track and I tried not to stop too often for pictures, knowing that I was running against the clock.

There were also more aid stations than I thought there would be, which helped a lot. The screaming downhill was really nice, and we looped around to a fork in the road for the second half. I had been running near Francesca for some time, I would catch her on the uphills, then she would blast by me on the downs. We decided to run the second half together, which turned out to be great. We had a decent amount of climbing to go, and since she was first-hand familiar with the course, she was able to give good insight on where we were and how much more climbing we had to still do.

More cowbell at the halfway point!

 

We had a 1200m out and back section and did not see Maureen. I was a bit worried about her as she gets out of breath very easily on the climbs and I know she was also very concerned about the time limit. Francesca and I were running strong, and we knew that we would have no trouble finishing in time. We thankfully had a full mile downhill before the finish - where we saw A. She had spent the morning at the finish line and going for a run up to the ski lodge on the course.

We finished in just over 2:40 - a time I'm very pleased with!

Garmin time - 2:40:43
Elevation gain - 1,834'
Mile 1- 11:00
Mile 2 - 13:07
Mile 3 - 14:33
Mile 4 - 10:17
Mile 5 - 11:33
Mile 6 - 11:27
Mile 7 - 12:29
Mile 8 - 17:19
Mile 9 - 14:07
Mile 10 - 11:25
Mile 11 - 10:39
Mile 12 - 12:02
Mile 13 - 9:29 (!!)
Mile 13.1 - 12:54 (cruel uphill right at the end)

Francesca headed off to find her cousins, and we waited for Maureen at the finish, who squeezed in at 2:55. The post-race party was nice, lots of food varieties and some cheap beer.

At about 2:30, we finally headed up to the Airbnb and restaurant, and got the keys. After showering, I took a much needed nap. We went back up to the restaurant for dinner - and had a great "last supper" of pizza and pasta.

View from our dinner table

A ran from the village at the bottom up to the tallest chalet in the picture while we raced!

Had to pack up all our stuff (yet again, so tired of that!) and then in bed as early as we could manage, we had yet another early start.

Steps - 33,274
Miles - 13.1

To be continued...

Day 11 - Venice, Bolzano, Alpe di Siusi

July 1

Day 11

We were able to sleep in for the second time all vacation. Since we had arrived at our hotel so late, and then we were gone the whole day at Cinque Terre, we still hadn't officially "checked in" to our hotel. Another place with ridiculous desk hours, I had let them know that we would be there at 9 to get copies made of our passports. The guy was pretty rude and said they didn't have the desk open until 10. WELL MAKE AN EXCEPTION! Urg!!

We stopped to pick up breakfast at the same cafe we had gone to the day before, then we got on our train to head back to Venice.

The only picture I took all day... at the train station

We arrived in Venice around 12:30. I had mapped walking directions of how to get to the rental car company. In a shocking turn of events, we wandered around for over an hour near the port, unable to figure out why our walking directions weren't getting us where we needed to go. We asked someone (who spoke very little English) for help and they directed us back near the bus station, where there were, in fact, car rental companies. However, the car company I had reserved with was not AT that location, and we were directed back where we had been before. We also discovered that it was not even POSSIBLE to walk there, as we had to cross water. Stupid google maps!!!!

By the time we arrived it was after 2:00, and our reservation had been for noon. The company, Sixt, was all locked up. We found a woman working at a tourist shop across the way who attempted to contact them, but with no luck. DANG IT. She let us connect to her wifi and I was able to book another rental car through Avis, for four times the money, and back where we had been before, near the bus station.

We arrived at Avis around 2:30, now over 2 hours after we had arrived in Venice. So frustrating!!! By the time we got all the paperwork done it was after 3. The drive to Alpe di Siusi was supposed to take about 4 hours, and we were all really hungry. I wanted to get out of the downtown area before finding somewhere to stop for food.

The gps directed us on side streets and tiny roads that had us turning every mile or two. I would not be able to replicate the route if I tried. The entire time I was wondering how on earth this could be the best way to get anywhere?? To add insult to injury, all the restaurants along the way were closed - afternoon naps? We finally found a little place where we got some small sandwiches. 

Got back on the road and finally started to enter the hills. I was a bit nervous about driving in this area - the roads were winding and narrow and people in Italy love to tailgate!

We got another hour or so away from Venice when we came to a screeching halt. We sat. And we sat. And then, for good measure, we sat some more. Cars were coming towards us, but we weren't moving AT ALL. People were turning around and telling us to the same. I finally got out and tried to talk to the people in the car in front of me - one of our first experiences with the language barrier, and learned that the road was closed. Unfortunately, I had no idea how to reroute us since we couldn't read any of the signs and we had no idea where we were. Finally we got someone who told us that if we drove about 5k back down the road that we could turn off, cross a bridge and go up the other side of the river and bypass the closure.

The road became only wide enough for one car. AWESOME. Then we arrived at a bridge, also only wide enough for one vehicle. The bridge was super sketchy and when we pulled up to it, the boards moved under the weight of the car. TERRIFYING. A was freaking out thinking I was going to kill us all. Luckily, it held the weight of just one more car, and on we went.

I pulled over at a little shop on the side of the road to buy a drink and connect to wifi. I started to Facebook message our friend Francesca, who is from this part of Italy, to see if she could give us more assistance with our drive. Nothing about it seemed "right" and it was taking substantially longer than we had anticipated. She helped us out by telling us what signs to follow, and I felt confident that I could figure out where to go. I sent another message to our Airbnb to let them know about the traffic situation and that we were going to be delayed and likely wouldn't arrive until after 8. She had said she wasn't going to be there and that we would need to contact her friends at the restaurant to get keys.

The strangest part of the drive was wondering when we going to hit the autobahn tollway. We never did... we kept driving and driving. We weren't seeing any signs for Alpe di Siusi and I was having trouble figuring out where to go. I had put gps coordinates for the airbnb in the gps since the address wouldn't pull up. The gps had us going up a ONE LANE UNPAVED ROAD?? No, this cannot be right!!! I am so pissed off and frustrated by now. We have been driving for over 5 hours, had arrived in Bolzano and STILL had not seen any signs for where we were supposed to go. By now it was getting dark, we were going to be even later than I had thought and we had no clue where to go. Stopped at a grocery store/McDonald's and couldn't connect to their wifi either.

Finally got back in the car and decided to drive into town. I stopped at a Sheraton to see if the front desk might have a map that could help us get on track, since obviously our gps unit AND the "very easy" instructions from our Airbnb weren't getting us anywhere. The woman at the desk had never heard of Alpe di Siusi and just said "not here," and gave me a local city map. Thank goodness that at the very edge of the map I saw "Bolzano Nord," which is the exit we had been looking for all along. Turns out, that exit was off the autobahn that we never figured out how to get on the entire drive up. 

By now it is dark. I am driving on even more mountainous windy roads and still not quite sure how to get to our Airbnb. It is after 10 pm. We attempt to put the address for the restaurant where we are to pick up the keys into the gps and NOTHING. After a bit of dumb luck, we found the turn for Alpe di Siusi ski resort. We happened upon the expo for our race, which seemed to be a good indicator of where to go. I retyped in the coordinates for our Airbnb and we made it there, only to find the entire resort was shut down for the night. After driving for over 7 hours, we had no choice but to pull over into a dirt lot and SLEEP IN THE DAMN CAR.

This was the least happy day of the trip.

Steps - 12,743 steps
Miles - 0

To be continued...