"Best Idea Ever"

I have a great friend here in Italy named Larissa. She is my running buddy, and a great friend I know I can talk to about anything. Well, this past Sunday we went out to dinner for her Birthday. At dinner I asked her what we should do Monday (her actual birthday) and she suggested we go on a run. That was normal, we went on a run on my birthday a few weeks ago, so I said sure, where should we go? Her answer almost made me fall off the chair. She says "well I know we've been talking about it, so I say we just do it...let's run to Piancavallo" WHAT?? First of all, WE have never talked about it! Piancavallo is a 30-45 minute drive UP the mountain, there is no way we are going to make it! But, it was her 30th birthday wish...what is a friend to do?

So, Monday morning we start out on the back road (we had intel that it was not as steep as the main road). Well, as soon as we lock the car and get going up some very steep terrain it starts to pour down rain! It is not super warm, probably in the 60s, and we are in shorts and long sleaves...we are now soaked and freezing...and the hill is so steep we can only run about 30 ft at a time. We huddle under a tree for a few minutes, and have the first of a series of discussions that could have lead to us freezing to death. We conclude that we are already wet, so we might as well push up to the church and reassess. At the church, I feel my heart might explode and it's still raining...so the only logical choice was to keep going. The road did level out a lot and we were able to push about 3 more miles uphill. At this point we were feeling really good. We decided that this was not going to be impossible afterall. But, we were not prepared to push on that day. We needed more water, and more food if we were going to get all the way to the top.

Yesterday (Thursday) we went for it again. We pushed all the way up to the antennas. For those who don't know Aviano that was 9 miles up hill, with an elevation gain of about 3,000ft. We then went down the main road (more direct, but steeper) and got back to the base 6.5 miles later. It was not fast, it was not pretty, but we finished it and it was awesome. The entire run, as things got really ugly, Larissa kept reminding me that this was the "best idea ever"...best idea ever:)

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/83673803

We did not bring a camera, but here is the link from my GPS watch...we had to prove we actually did it!