Accrobranche (2)

(Ps: I found this video on Youtube shot at the Accrobranche in La Bourboule. For those who still wonder what accrobranche is…)

Accrobranche

A bit Tarzan, a bit Avatar, a bit Indiana Jones - accrobranche (tree climbing) is the new ‘vogue’ in France. It is a recreational activity that consists of ascending and moving from a tree to another along a circuit made of bridges, ropes, nets, platforms, etc. (a sort of a training course for marines) using various climbing techniques.

It was fun! (and far from being easy…)

Los tres caballeros

Distrust the originals…

Leo’s first run

Today we run to support the research against breast cancer.

And for those who may wonder why Mathilde is not in the pictures:  she was running - she run the whole race! - while Matteo and Leonardo were lazily strolling behind the lines…

(Tonight I’ll be leaving to Pakistan. See you in about a week. Bye for now).

In the club (of those who made it)

Under a torrential (and freezing) rain, on roads that looked like mountain streams in flood, and puddles as big as lakes, I run today my first (and as of today last) marathon, in Milan. Probably not the ideal day for my baptism in this discipline, but, with hindsight, I can say that the fury of the elements made this race epic.

And as the epic poems, I could write pages and pages on today's adventure.

But my first words are words of thanks instead. When I first started preparing for the marathon, an experienced marathon runner told me ‘Mindful: preparing a marathon does certainly require a lot of commitment on your side, but it requires even more commitment from the people that surround you, and that do not necessarily share or understand your motivation’.

True, and for this reason I would like to thank Mathilde for having presented me with the time for training.

Thanks Mathilde, when I faced ‘the wall’, the stretch between the 30th and the 35th kilometer, I thought that if I had given up, I would have wasted your present. And I clenched my teeth and continued...

(And now, what will the next challenge be?)

Done

…and tomorrow I’ll go to the orthopedist to be reproached…

The end of my marathon runner career?

At the beginning it was just a light pain, a pinching on the external part of my knee, and did not pay much attention, because when you prepare a marathon you learn to cope with pain.

But then, suddenly and unexpectedly, the pain burst, as if someone threaded a knife on the side of my knee, and could not bent it anymore, could hardly climb or get down the stairs, and had problems even to walk.

The first time it went over in a couple of days, and I didn’t bother too much. I reduced a bit the number of kilometers and the intensity of my trainings, to give time to my body to recover. But the second time I got scared.

And unfortunately the orthopedist’s diagnosis confirmed my fears: ilio-tibial band syndrome. Prognosis: 20-30 days of rest and physiotherapy (but it may take months to be completely recovered).

With six weeks left to the Rome marathon, this basically means I will not be able to run it.

And I don’t know what bothers me more: the fact that I will not be able to run this race that I have been meticulously preparing for almost six months, the fact that I had to interrupt the preparation just when I got very fit (last week I was literally flying) - and who knows how long it will take to be back in good form, or the fact that this is an unequivocal sign of the fact that we are getting old…

Run for food

With hindsight, I think one of the (rational or irrational) fears of becoming father I had was to see the time I used to have for myself drastically diminishing - till (eventually) disappearing. In particular, I was afraid of not having time anymore to play sport, my hobby and safety valve…

Interestingly, the first day back to office after my paternity leaves I discovered there is actually an IFAD running group, who meets every lunch break and goes running in the neighbourhood.

Half in jest, half in earnest I decided to join the group, and since then I have been running at least twice per week with them.

And on Sunday I had my first competition: the ‘Run for Food’ - a 10 km competitive race to raise awareness and collect funds to fight against world hunger.

And well, to my own surprise, the race went better than expected. A boost to continue training - till the final goal: the Rome Marathon in March 2012… J

La mia prima sciata della stagione

Traditionally, the skiing season for Italians starts on December 7th, day of Saint Ambrogio.

With only a few days of delay, I officially inaugurated today my skiing season 2010-11. In Dubai, United Arab Emirates…

Find Charlie (Ou est Jacques?)

‘Best Route in Minnesota’, 30 m, 6c, quite technical, it goes up vertically along the edge of a massive pillar that sustains the huge vault of the cave at the end of Pra-Nang Beach - beautiful! One of the best routes I have ever climbed…

No limits

My days in Railay

Breakfast

Climbing

Blog

My first week in Railay Beach

Random thoughts:

- Rock climbing is still the activity that fulfils me the most. When I climb I literally enter in another dimension. It's a kind of magic!

- After one year and half of inactivity, two considerations: (1) My technical skills are still rather good. (2) Unfortunately, at 36 the body does not respond anymore as when I was 22...

- A third consideration: interestingly, at 36 I feel mentally much stronger than when I was 22, and I feel I can control my fears and emotions on the rock much better.

- We are in Thailand in December, and in a week I didn’t see the sun a single time: it has been either cloudy or rainy the whole time. Climate change is real: do something!

- Travelling ‘solo’ makes you more open and receptive to the outside, while at the same time it allows you a lot of time to think and reflect by yourself - and I think it is a healthy experience once in a while. But I think I fundamentally remain a ‘company traveller’.

- I like Thai food, but after only one week I crave ‘un piatto di spaghetti allo scoglio’...

(Half) Marathon man (2)

The first and last half-marathon I run was the Stramilano in Milan, about 23/24 years ago. I can thus rightly consider the Delhi Half Marathon I run on Sunday as my baptism to a long-distance race in all respects.

And the immediate feedback could not be more enthusiastic. I enjoyed running. I enjoyed exploring my limits. I enjoyed this disciplines that merges muscles and brain, lungs and will, endurance and focus. And I like to think this will be the first of many others…

In completing my first 21.097 Km, I would like to send a special thanks to Riccardo and Toshi, friends and training mates in this adventure.

Riccardo was the one who, with his enthusiasm and his passion for this discipline, motivated me to enroll to this race. He was the one who taught me how to train, and the one who pulled me for the first 10 km on Sunday, setting the pace and lavishing advices during the race (when to drink, when to suck a candy, how to deal with the slopes, when to accelerate and when to hold myself, etc.) - allowing me to achieve my objective.

Toshi is a mystery of the nature, a case-study for the anti-doping commission: he is the one who trained the least among the three of us and nonetheless the fastest among us. The only explanation we could find is in the Japanese delicacies that his wife Saki prepares him every day for lunch. Not sure what the algae in his lunch box contain and whether they would be allowed by the IAAF… The Sunday run at 4.30 pm in Lodi Garden with Toshi had become a nice ritual. And it is indeed a pity that we could not meet at the departure on Sunday - too many people - but it was nice to meet and hug each other, exhausted but happy, at the arrival…

A special thanks to Massi and Muna as well. Their dinner on Saturday night was not exactly what the ‘marathon runner manuals’ prescribe (and in fact I finished digesting it at the eighteenth kilometer the following morning), but it will be hard to find such a good friends wherever we’ll go. We will miss you.

But completed a challenge, we started immediately thinking to the next. Perhaps the Romaratona in March 2011?...

(Ah, I almost forgot, the timing: 1.39.18 J)

(Half) Marathon man

South Africa 2010

South Africa 2010. No, it’s not the venue of the World Cup 2010, but the winner of the ‘United Cup 2010’, the yearly six-a-side football championship for foreign-residents organized by the New Delhi United Football Club.

It was an extraordinarily well organized event: 16 teams representing 15 different countries of 4 continents (from Chile to Bangladesh, from Tanzania to Malaysia, from Austria to Malawi just to name a few) + us, the World Team (2 Irish, 2 Colombians, 1 Brazilian, 1 Argentinean, 1 French, 1 Ethiopian, 1 Kazakh, and of course 1 Italian). 4 Groups of 4 team each. Qualifying rounds, quarter-finals, semi-finals and final. Sponsors. National anthems at the beginning of each match. 1,500 US$ prize money. VIPs. Fireworks during the prize-giving...

And, in a way, our tournament has been truly epical. It had a bit of everything: thrilling and glory moments for an unhoped recovery and a last-minute win, the controversy for a bad referee decision, the pathos and the drama of the penalty shoot-outs, and, unfortunately, the bad luck in some key moments...

Passed the qualifying round as second-best team in our group thanks to the goal-difference (actually this happened last week-end, when we were in Kashmir), we won our quarter-final against Israel on Friday in an epic match, during which we had a terrific comeback from 0-3 to 5-3 in the last 15 minutes. It was a particularly sweet victory, as Israel played a very rough game. Their players (skinhead he-men - certainly from the Mossad!) seemed in fact more focused on tackling our ankles and challenging any referee's decision than on scoring in our goal. But precisely because of that, in the end the victory had a very sweet taste...

The semi-final against Gambia on the contrary was a paean to bad luck. Ahead 2-0 with only 5 minutes left after a match that - without rhetoric - we dominated, we were reached at the last minute because of an unfortunate deflection of one of us in our own goal. We eventually lost at the penalty shoot-outs, but can rightly complain for a ball that bounced behind the line of the Gambian goal that the referee didn’t convalidate. If we only had the instant replay!

We finally easily won the final for the 3^rd place against Russia (3-1) in a match that left in us a lot of regrets: “Ah, if we had played catenaccio the last five minutes of the semis!”. But with only one Italian in the team, this was not possible...

Anyway, beside the bruises and the entertainment of the past days, I leave this tournament with the feeling of having found in my team mates a group of very nice people - with whom I easily got along and with whom I feel I could hang out in the future...

And in fact tomorrow, 8 am, I’ll be again on a football pitch playing with them. We need to start working hard to prepare the next tournment...

From the heart of Europe to the hights in Kashmir (and return) - bye bye Elisetta

From Switzerland to the Himalayas, from Geneva to Gulmarg (via Delhi) - and return. Elise (‘Elisetta de la montagna’ as she used to sign at the times of London) brought us loads of smiles and good mood for the past six days, but, alas, time has come for her to leave us and come back to the Alps.

Bye-bye Elisetta, have a safe trip back, and see you soon in Geneva, Paris, or (who knows?) Nairobi…

Skiing on the Himalayas: done

View from the hotel. (Photo credit: Mathilde)

Together with bungee-jumping, climbing Torre Aguglia in Cala Goloritzé, and visiting Antartica, ‘skiing on the Himalayas’ was certainly in my list of the ‘things to do before 40’.

Well, ticked it off.

Stories and pictures in the next few days. Meanwhile, a few videos…

- Matteo & Elisetta - Skiing on the Himalayas:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YaaHnF1B3Os

- Elisetta - Milka style: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOPy2RRMzTc

- Matteo - how to fall: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIirSJeDPkg

Les M&M's font du ski...

Gulmarg, Kashmir (India)

Imagine you are given the map of India: what are the first images that come to your mind? Unbearable heat? Half-naked Brahmins that plunge into the waters of the Ganga or the Brahmaputra rivers? The sunny beaches of Goa?

Now, imagine you are preparing your luggage to India; what would you try not to forget? Your linen shirt? Your favourite swim-suit? An umbrella and a raincoat for the monsoon season?

Well then, when I was packing for India, I put in my luggage my ski-jacket -pants and -gloves, and my pile hat. And a little dream: skiing on the Himalayas.

And now, on the occasion of Holi, the ‘festival of colours’ and national holiday here in India, we are about to fulfill this little dream.

In company of Elise, who is visiting us from Switzerland, we are leaving today to Gulmarg, in Kashmir. We know very little about this place, besides the fact that it is supposedly a very wild and pristine spot for skiing.

We will tell you more at our return on Monday evening...