Photo Review leading up to and post WC 100km, Italy 2012

In my last post earlier this week, I threatened that my next post would be a detailed description of the WC 100km in Seregno, Italy.  With further consideration, I will leave it to our World Champion and Team Leaders to write play-by-plays, and I will instead elect to continue to appreciate my participation in the event and celebrate the strength of Team USA Men and Women without further commentary of my own experience. If you have not read the blurb I posted last week, please go here.http://annettebednosky.blogspot.com/2012/04/excited-for-usadespite-personal.html

Instead, I will share a smattering of photos gleaned from pre- race, parade, awards ceremony and travel day after the race.

La Mountainia-a Catholic retreat center 1000'  above Lake Como. This is where Team USA and a handful of other teams stayed. Yummy, but starchy and virtually vegetable-free food was served:

 Though amazingly beautiful when it wasn't snowing or raining, it took at least 2 hours to get from our accommodations to race activities in Seregno. Bunk beds and dorm living is what no one expected, yet the proprietors were patient  and kind and did their best to roll with difficult situations.

Pictured above is Amy Sproston, Sean Meissner and myself all of Team Montrail, loving the sun!

These race posters were seen all over the city!

On Saturday evening, there was an athlete's parade in Seregno. Unfortunately due to transportation snafu's many delegations, including USA didn't have a full showing of runners during the parade, or in our case, until much later.

Team Italy and Team USA while awaiting parade

John, front Left, survived his snafu ed 6 hour bus ride to join us at the end of the parade. Wow! We were relieved to see him!

...I have no photos to share from the race, though some cool ones can be viewed at this website: http://www.stampaeventi.it/index.php?idr=1482


The following photos are of the awards ceremony and post race activities.

Amy (World Champion!) and Meghan, 2 of our awesome tough girls. (Lin Gentling, team manager in back with Pam, another of our awesome fasties!).

Meghan, celebrating another World record run!

Team USA (center) celebrating GOLD!

Team USA men, celebrating silver and 4 top 10 finishes!

Federica, Giuseppe worked like dogs around the clock assisting Team USA and other teams. They were volunteers and were so patient and fun and kind, you'd think they made the "BIG BUCKS!" Grazie!

The medal ceremony was a fun and celebratory event! USA showed is colors strongly! When the ceremony was over, we endured a 3 hour transport back to our accommodations...

Next morning, dressed for warmer climates, Pam and Mac were looking forward to getting off the mountain!

Snow was pouring down as we departed our lodging...We kept our fingers crossed roads would stay clear so we could get to the train station!

I must say that despite the challenges with transportation, food and lodging, the race itself was superbly organized! No complaints at all there...and, truth be told, I expect my high-strung personality made the challenges harder to bear than my teammates who were able to access the more flexible parts of themselves. Still, after feeling "out of control" with our personal space, food, and schedule, I know we were all eager to leave "The Mountain".

While teammates departed for extended travel or a handful to go straight home, George and I headed to Milan. While in theory we could have made it home Tuesday, it would have meant crawling in at 12am the night before showing up for work, and we both knew that would not be conducive to being productive. Instead we elected to stay at the Milan airport for 2 nights, take it easy and explore Milan for a day and arrive in the States at a more reasonable hour of 3:30pm in Charlotte.

George and I on the train from our hotel at MXP heading into Milan on Tuesday morning.

The weather for Tuesday was forecasted to be RAIN...so we wore out long rain coats and expected to be freezing and soaked the whole day. Boy, were we joyously surprised!

Taken from a roof of the Duomo

Upon arriving in the City, Tuesday am, we bought tickets and walked 250 steps up to the roof of the Duomo. (Admittedly, I walked slowly)...What a sight! This huge cathedral seemed like a medieval space station!

My Georgio overlooking the city....

Italian flag seen through the opening...

A quick look inside...

We walked for hours on Tuesday enthusiastically exploring and seeing things from all new perspectives. This city, like much of Italy, I expect is a contract of ancient and modern...

Here we are on the sidewalk enjoying aperitifs

We flew Luftansa from Milan to Munich and then onto Charlotte. Flight was as pleasant as 14 hours+ air travel can be! We got warm hand towels before our meals and free champagne on the flight. I drank only enough mellow me....At this point I'd started to get a cold and was taking some funky German cold medicine to control the symptoms...so I did sleep and stay mellow during the duration of much of that 2nd long 10 hour flight...(though I think I still walked 1/2 mile up and down the aisles!)

After a night of sleep I returned to work and tried to get on  a good schedule but the evil cold symptoms got in the way and I am still dealing with trying to decompress my sinus pressure and drainage...

Yesterday, despite the sinus pressure and snot,  (and maybe because the effort released the pressure, I ran a local 5km...and guess what ? No porta-pottie stops! It was  a PR : 19:59! Yay!

Running buddies and I post 5km...

Several members of our local running club ran...here we are showing off our bright shoes and shoe laces (I wore Montrail's Rogue Flys for this flat, fast course.

I have lots of really cool photos from Italy, yet can't seem to figure out how to configure them to best upload to a blog....So we are stuck with these for now!

I look forward to fully getting my legs back from the gimpy 100km last weekend ...
Next up?
May 11th (pm)-13th(pm), I am psyched to be accompanying Diane Van Duran of North Face from Pisgah Inn to roughly Woodlawn as she makes her way through the Western Mountains during her 1000+ mile Mountains to the Sea Trail Quest... If things keep to schedule, we'll traverse roughly 90 miles of some technical and sweet single track during these days.

After this? FANS 24-Hour in Minnesota, if I can manage a day off of work!