I own Vesuvius now

You heard me, I ran around it, I own it. That’s how it works right? Or did I need a flag?
So this was a tough one. About 2 miles in, my stomach decided it didn’t want to cooperate today, so I had to stop at a cafè and ask if they had a bathroom I could use. they did. Now, here’s where things get tricky, here in the Napoli area, I’m pretty sure no one’s ever supposed to poop outside of their own home. Even when you rent an apartment, you are expected to supply your own toilet seat. So basically there aren’t toilet seats anywhere and nowhere has toilet paper, well almost nowhere. But I didn’t have time to think about that, my colon was in full, emergency, settings and that was that. So as I finish up I look for anything that can be used for toilet paper and there’s nothing. Lucky for me, the sink had soap, so I did what no one should ever have to do, and cleaned up the best I could. At this point, I still had 22 miles to go!
So then I’m coming around the mountain and I accidentally took a wrong turn. Ended up going up the hill when I was supposed to go down, added a mile and screwed up my rhythm because I had to go onto a trail at one point, and climb a fence after getting turned around a couple time. There were gates everywhere, it was maddening. Dear Google Map, don’t say there’s a thru street when there is no thru street! Sincerely, every runner on Earth! After I got back on course I was cooked. A little past halfway, I was just done, but I kept motoring on the best I could.
I also had to keep a watch out for my hamstring, which is still tender and not enjoying any of this. Then of course I ran out of water, which wasn’t unexpected, as it’s a little sunnier today than the weather had reported it would be. But that’s alright, popped into the supermarket and grabbed a Gatorade. Now I’m a fan of orange…In the US…turns out the orange in Europe is wildly different and tastes fairly grotesque. But at least by the time I finished it, I had started sweating again. Rounded out my run a little slower than I would have liked, but all in all, with all the adversity not a bad day. Just a nice, not so easy Sunday morning long-run. So to all my friends who ran Savin Rock yesterday, and all my friends running Bataan today, I’m there with you and I claimed Vesuvius for all of us. I’ll leave you guys with this, one of my favorite covers of all time, take it away Mike Patton (plus this video cracks me up, and was totally progressive for its time):

Right, have fun, keep running, and remember; If Gil can run then so can you!


Posted in Uncategorized by with no comments yet.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *