Training Camp in South Tyrol

The running group I am in in Brugg does a weekly training camp every year. Apparently the last several years were in Spain, but this year they decided on Latsch, Italy (South Tyrol, Bolzano region). This is actually a pretty curious part of italy as they speak german as a first language, and seem to be a bit reluctant to speak in italian. Also the swiss people I was with, noted the accent was pretty distinct (quite something coming from people who germans cannot even understand)
So the point of the trip was to bond, run, and drink; all goals were clearly met. We started out each morning with a hearty meal and then proceeded to a morning run of sorts.
Here is the view from the patio of the Gallus Pension where we stayed


Saturday, we ended up doing a pretty solid hill-climb, and ended up going up around 2000 feet.


That night we went out to the nearby town, explored, had a nice dinner, and then went to a nearby bavarian-themed beer garden where we enjoyed the rest of the evening.

Sunday we had a nice easy run out.



This is just the pictures and the routes for the two bigger runs we did in Latsch or more importantly the hills around it, thus is our near walking speed average pace justified.

LSG Trainingcamp in South Tyrol

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Morning and evenings are wonderful the heat of the day is pretty brutal and can lead to barbaric thirsts. All in all, a great trip

And a photo of us all at the end

Schluchsee Lauf : The race around Lake Schluch

This weekend I volunteered at the Aargauer Meisterschaft working at the Food stand, and learning just how many ways you can order food in swiss german, and how confusingly similar (or exactly the same) many of them are. Kalbs-bratwurst and Halbe bratwurst sound just about the same when a swiss person says it (one is with beef, the other means half of), and so on. Basically ever person chose to order a different way. I was also put in charge of making hotdogs because 'as an american, I was by birth a hotdog expert', which is, I guess, not the worst thing in the world.

But on to the schluchsee lauf. This was s run in the black forest in germany around the largest lake in that region. It was around 11.5 miles and was absolutely fantastic. A good amount of hills, trees, lakeside, and fans. I would do the run again tomorrow. Also the food was pretty good, and the scenery was of course fantastic.

Schluchsee Lauf : The race around Lake Schluch

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Zürich Marathon

So this sunday I ran my second marathon. Unfortunately my training was much much lighter this year, and the weather was a bit warm for me, so my time wasn't very good, but nonetheless I enjoyed it. The first 8km (5mi) of the course was through a tunnel (roundtrip), which while initially interesting, and undeniably swiss was certainly a far cry from the hills of Hopkinton. Additionally tunnels have very much their own climate and thus whilst it was still cold outside, the tunnel was very very warm, causing everyone to sweat profusely. I particularly noticed my heart rate being unusually high for the pace. After the tunnel the course went along Lake Zürich down to a small town called Meilen and then back to the city center. There were a number of bands and sources of entertainment along the way, and the support was excellent. Quite a bit sparser than boston, but probably a good thing so you weren't encouraged to overdrink or eat. Sadly no popsicles, wellselley girls, or beer, and a much smaller expo with no particulaly good deals besides finnish toe-socks.





And as always the free video of my finish (I get in the frame around second 24)

Running Lausanne

I ran the Lausanne Half-marathon today. It is a fantastic run. Just about as perfect as I could imagine. The marathon would also be good, except its an out-and-back which I am not a huge fan of. The course runs right along Lake Leman and you have hilly vineyards on one side and the lake with the French alps in the background on the other. They also had an interesting assortment of bands playing nearly every kilometer ranging from YMCA cover bands (of course saying why-em-see-ahh instead of aye) to a guy and his accordian. The food support along the course was excellent, and at the start they had $3 pumpkin soup which tasted fantastic. They also had organized warm-ups with crazy-ish techno music and moves that more closely resembled irish dancing than stretching. So if you are looking for a new run to do, I would say it was excellent.