Day #65 - La Rochelle, France to Geneva, Switzerland

Annecy, France - looking into the Alps

The Alps

The Alps

Bathroom at Gare Lyon - downstaris, through gates

Tuesday, May 18th

I'm currently on a 5-hr train ride to Geneva, Switzerland. Last night in La Rochelle, I stayed at a hotel about 7 miles from town - cheaper. I had taken a taxi to get there. I had a 5:37am train back to Paris. That is early - even in the US that is early. Here in Europe, many people have never seen that hour. When checking in, I asked the lady at the hotel if she would please call a taxi for me for a 5am pickup. The lady spoke little-to-no English. Train in French is treN - the same. I wrote down the time and said it about 5 times. I knew there would be nobody around that early tomorrow - I needed to make positive she could understand me. I purposefully went over this again and again - brinking on complete annoyance. She either would not do it because she didn't like me or she would do it - there would be no forgetting. I would have called myself but I could not have said the hotel name in French - I only write it down for the cab drivers.

I get up at 4:38am - ready by 4:50am. The cab rolled in right at 5am - perfect. There was not a soul around anywhere in the town - nothing open. I had called the front desk - answering machine. Even though I hated playing the game I did with the lady at the front desk - sometimes you have to if something is very important. I've been burned too many times with a simple: "Could you please help me with 'x'".

I arrived in Paris at 9am. I had to transfer from the Gare Montparnasse to Gare Lyon. I took the metro. I ate a little lunch and boarded the train to Geneva.

Let me talk about bathrooms for a second. Bathrooms are like offensive lineman in football - if you're talking about them - it's probably not a good thing. You're buddy has never called and said: "Hey - did you see that block made by the left tackle yesterday". Just the same, you've never called and said: "Dude - I was in the airport the other day and the bathroom they had was awesome" These conversations will never occur.

Not just today, but I've been noticing that the bathrooms in France airports and train stations are few and far between. I had to walk around for 15 minutes looking for the bathroom at Gare Lyon. There were signs pointing up and down the stairs. I wondered around - nothing. Finally - found it in a remote area of the station. The bathroom also cost 50 cents (euro). This is fairly standard procedure in France, as many of the restrooms are pay only. I even took a photo of the sign leading down to the bathroom. This lady was there staring at the sign. She was probably winded from her efforts to find it or just saying "Thank You" that her journey had ended. The lights went out right before I took the picture - really giving it the true ghostly feel of an unknown place - where few people have ever found. I then started looking around. I noticed that nobody was carrying a water bottle or drink of any kind in the airport. I question that the health of an entire country is tied to the fact that the restrooms are scarce in public locations. People are too scared to drink liquids - as they may not be able to make it to the next bathroom. This is why they have 3 ounce coffees and small cups of water. My detective skills from yesterday are paying dividend.

Geneva, Switzerland - base of the Alps. I have exactly 15 days before I fly to the US (intended this time) to join my buddies on a trip to Peru where we'll be running the Machu Picchu Marathon. I have this short time frame to get myself ready. I'm aware of not overtraining and doing too much leading into this run. My real goal is to just get my confidence back. I ran a marathon in January, February, and March. I ran my best time in four years in March. I then had a couple months of major hiking and shorter runs over here. I'm not doing this for speed - I just want to finish. We'll have 12 hours to do a 27.5 mile course up and down a mountain. It's actually considered an ultramarathon because the distance exceeds that of a standard marathon at 26.2 miles. This is my first ultra event. We start at 8,000ft and have 3 major peaks to climb - 2 of which are over 13,000ft in elevation. The course ends at Machu Picchu itself around 7,500ft elevation. We'll be running the Inca Trail - a trail that most take 3 days to hike.

I'm going to spend the next couple weeks travelling around to different areas of the Alps - hiking and running up and down hills. All the while, I'll be seeing the sites and getting my body adjusted to altitude and my mind in a good place. I may take a side trip or 2 to the French Riveria, but predominantly the time will be in the mountains.

This morning my resting pulse rate was in the mid 50's. You know what that means? I'm healthy again. Before coming back to the states, it was high 60's to mid 70's. That may sound OK, but that's too high for my resting pulse rate right now. (I wish I was hovering in the upper 30's like Lance Armstrong) I was reading an article earlier in Runner's Magazine - a higher pulse rate may mean your body is working harder and your immune system may be down. I feel much better about things - not to mention I'm feeling more normal. I hope for the best the next few weeks. I'm going to take it slow - it would be better for me to not train at all versus hurting myself right now. Slow and steady wins the rest.