27 July 2013
Flat is boring. After running 3 city marathons, Edinburgh, Barcelona (highly recommended!) and Sevilla, I realised I needed something different: mountains! I had no clue of how to prepare for that, and what it would have involved, but I spent 7 months running as much as I could, everywhere.
The day arrived. After 1.573km run with 27.954m elevation gained I was so fed up of running, training, diet, well behave, that I just couldn't wait for it to pass. Le jeux son fait, now it was the moment of the truth. As some wise man said, “there is no much you can do during the last 3 weeks to improve your performance, but a lot you can do to fuck it up”, holy words. My focus of attention was on food – eat the right food, in the right quantity, at the right time – and reduce smoking – the original plan was quitting in favour of the electronic cigarette but I reached the compromise of a decent 10 average a day.
So packed and full of energies, I got the flight to Geneva and enjoyed a day chilling out at the shore of the lake. The temperature was 30+ degrees, and coming from Scotland that was a lot. I had the proof that the Sun still existed and tried not to burn while worshipping it.
Everybody says Switzerland is very expensive, but it turned out to be one of the cheapest holidays of my life! The marathon fee, around 100€, included also a train ticket valid for all the country, and what a pleasant journey. I didn't want to waste too many energies walking around, nor burning in the sun, so that the day spent travelling from Geneva to Davos was strategically the best option I could get.
In Davos I had first to go and collect the dorsal, and then find my Couchsurfing hosts house. As soon as I stepped foot outside the train, I sensed something weird around... It turned out that Davos, which is a major ski resort in winter, is a hub for Orthodox Jews from all around the world in summer. Orthodox Jews and Mountain marathon (and ultramarathon) runners. Now, I hope we will all agree that this is one of the most bizarre combination of groups that could have possibly have crowded the streets of the town. On the one side people dressed as a Bible history movie, and on the other people on sparkling coloured tight clothes showing off their last tech gadgets and sculptured body. Quite a contrast!
Puzzled and immerse in my thoughts of “is there anybody normal in this world?” I reached the Expo, got my number, tried not to waste money on beautifully coloured gadgets and went to the free medical examination offered to the participants. The queue was quite long but it was good to spend time chatting with fellow nutters. I met Mohammed, a guy from Pakistan who was going to run his first ultra, and his friend from England that had been persuaded to run the 20k, and was not too sure why he was doing that. Results were quite good: 39 heart bits per min, good lung capacity and muscle mass. The Doctor reading out the final results was just laughing, I guess it didn't happen so frequently to him to recommend things like “do less sport”, “you should eat more fats”.
The last mission of the day was to find the couple I would have spent the next 2 days with. Davos is not so big and that was not difficult, I sat down on the entry stairs, smoking a cigarette in the warm sun, while waiting for Martina to came back. Couchsurfing is one of the best invention in the virtual world, it somehow gives you back hope in the human race. I always had great experiences, all the people I met were absolutely brilliant people. Martina and Damian made no exception, and are by far one of the best couple I met in my life. Martina is by far the sweetest person I have ever met. When she smiles, which is pretty much all the time, she can enlight a room! Demian too is such a positive and energetic person, I've been so lucky to get to know them.
Another kind of awkward meeting took place when Martina told me her parents were visiting. Now, I don't speak any German, and they don't speak English, nor Italian, so I left all the talk to her. I didn't envy Martina at all when she first had to explain to them who I was and then what couchsurfing is. They looked puzzled and amused while I was sitting at the table stuffing down 1kg of pasta but eventually some Scottish whisky won them over and just accepted I was a wirdo who the day after, for some unknown reason, would have run 42k up and down the mountains.
I slept like a queen in this wooden room with a huge Che Guevara flag covering all the wall, and the sound of cow bells whispering me a good night. And a good night it was indeed! I woke up full of energies and feeling like a good run. Went to the train station, got the train and headed to the starting point, Bergün.
It was an amazingly warm day. I'm Italian and prefer hot sunny days to rainy ones, but 28 degrees felt too much for me too! I started with the second group at 11am, and that was late, and hot, and double hot! Gaining elevation meant some fresh air too, which was very welcoming. Reaching 2700m altitude, and stepping on the snow leftovers felt great. I run all the time, and I took off at the last downhill finishing the race in 04:56:06, and placing myself 9th among the ladies, quite an unexpected result which left me very happy and satisfied.
After that I felt I deserved a good smoke, and beer! The face of those sawing me on the way back home with dorsal, medal, smoking, and a pack of 6 beers, was quite worth a picture! Back in the flat I finally met Damian who was working the day before, and had a great evening with the guys.
The day after I felt quite stiff and reckoned I should try some shock therapy. I thus walked up the mountains on the other side of the valley, and it felt like paradise. I realised at that stage that I wanted more, and started to think of the Mont Blanc Marathon.
I really recommend this marathon, perfectly organised and offering stunning landscapes, go for it!
http://www.swissalpine.ch/en/swissalpine-marathon-davos/
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