Tuesday - February 7th, 2006 - Leaving for Portugal tomorrow
Training: 45 minutes
Day mileage: about 5 miles
Week Mileage accumulated:
Where: Wildegg (Argau)
Weather: Freezing
Training Details: Taking it easy for now, preparing to rock some good miles (km) and workouts in Portugal. Heck yeah.
Wednesday - February 8th, 2006 --- Monte Gordo PORTUGAL TRAINING CAMP DAY 1
No extra motivation needed here, thank you, we got plenty!
Training: AM: Trip to Faro, Portugal with Berlin Air and then to Monte Gordo with a bus.
PM: 60 minutes easy
20 mins light exercise for core
Day mileage: about 8 miles
Week Mileage accumulated: RESET MILES TODAY FOR TRAINING CAMP....8 miles
Where: Monte Gorado
Weather: 17 degrees Celsius, about 62 degrees Farenheit
Quotes: "This reminds me just how much I love to run. In Switzerland when it is so foggy and cold, I really have to force myself to run...but here, my legs and my mind just go on their own...I don't have to think, I just run and love it. My sign at home isn't needed here...You either ran today or you didn't....The enviornment motivates us. "
Training Details: We did our run today to kind of stretch out our legs from the long trip. It was a gorgeous day, 62, shorts and t shirt weather, oh man!!!!! We are so psyched to run in our sports bras and shorts...well, speaking for Asi and I. We were all so pumped, we said we could have done a workout right then because the weather was just amazing (especially coming from Switzerland, where we hear it is snowing right now). So of course I had to make it known to Monte Gordo and started yelling hello to everyone and saying how nice it was and then proceeded to run ahead, rip my shirt of like Brandi Chastane and ran and began whipping it around my head like a cowboy, while the residents of Monto Gordo looked on. hahhahahahhaha My fellow running campers seemed to get a kick out of it! There are 15 of us here ranging from race walkers, middle distance, and long distance.
We are super motivated here. Like I mentioned earlier, we don't need to motivate ourselves, we are so motivated by our surroundings. We can see the beach from our hotel, the stadium (track) is a jog away, the trails are awesome and the weather is perfect. No extra motivation needed here, we have enough!
Introduction:
Astrid Andrea Leutert, like me, is not your typical distance runner. One cannot put into words why she isn't, but hopefully you all will get to know her a little better over the next two weeks and discover why she isn't...
Astrid's athletic career actually began in skiing. She started when she was 6 years old with a Bernese Alpine skiing club, where she would prove to be quite successful as a youngun. Her specialties were in the slalum and giant slalum. To prepare herself better for skiing, Astrid began to run. She ran road races, where Fritz Schmocker's running club were the organizers. Was it fate that brought Astrid to Fritz Schmocker, who would, a couple years later, become the Swiss National coach? She decided to join Fritz's running club, Thun AllBlacks, while still on the skiing team. Her running career improved over the next couple of years while in the Thun AllBlacks running club. Astrid enjoyed both sports, but when she turned 15, she had a big decision to make. She had to choose which sport she wanted to dedicate herself to because she could not physically do both. In skiing, her coach said she would have to begin to lift weights, gain weight, and continue to spend the money in the expensive sport. Since she excelled at both, the decision was difficult. Would she continue the sport she started with? Or would she decide to stay off the cold glaciers and switch to tar and trails? Astrid decided to set her path and heart on running, and now 4 years later she is happy with her decision, as her running career is taking off. This past fall and winter, she qualified for the European Cross Country Championships and placed 24th!!!!!!!! This was a huge accomplishment and we were all really proud of her. Astrid is now looking to compete on the World circuit...Good Luck Asi!!!
"Asi's" Corner
When I stepped out of the plane, the first thing I recognized was the beautiful sunshine. It was a lot warmer and nicer weather compared with the conditions in Suisse. ( From some friends of mine, I heard by phone that it has begun to snow at home..:-).brrrrrrh...!! The long trip from my home to the airport of Faro was stressful. In Palma de Mallorca, where we had to take another plane to get to Faro, something awful happened. Josi-Bosi (so I often call her, isn`t it sweet?) and I lost our group because we had to go the bathroom and the others just went on. Then we had to rush so that we could reach them. But unfortunately, we didn`t find Fritz-Boss an Co. "What can we do?" We were in a hurry, so we put up our bags on a cart to go on faster. Then it happened. While we were running next to each other, my bag felt down on the floor. We both didn`t notice it. Suddenly, a couple minutes later, a nice woman came towards me and she held my bag in her hands. Oh damn, I was so shocked, but I was so really thankful for the woman. It would have been a catastrophe if I had lost my bag. There was so much money (my Euros, my mobile phone, I-Pod and a lot of others valuable, priceless things in it.
After a little trip by bus, we arrived at our hotel called "Baia". Oh man, I couldn`t wait to go on our first run.
At 6 o` clock we did our first jog in Portugal. It was just wonderful. The environment, the climate and the trails (it`s orange-red) were nice. We couldn`t have it better here.
Luckily, our group is really funny. Josi is always joking from morning until the evening. I really never met such a crazy girl as she is.
After a good dinner (the fish was great), we were only able to go to sleep. In bed, Josi an me disussed also several things before we fell to sleep...
NEXT: February 9 – Giving Josi a microphone is like... well, find out for yourself...
PREVIOUS: February 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 – Patience. Patience. Training will pay off in the long run...