Training Log: Ari-o

And a beautiful morning, too. I got to the Washington monument and missed a day-of ticket by exactly 1 person, so got to run more.

Part 1 of One Day, Two Runs, Two Continents.

Cold but dry-ish in Zurich, with snow dusting the trees not far above the lake level. So off for a run along the lake and then down the Bahnhofstrasse which is … Newbury St/Sixth Ave/Michigan Ave except in Zurich, so more, and with trams.

Then shower, breakfast, long line for security because the EU machines were down and they had four people doing outbound passport control, so I only had time for one drink at the whisky bar (!) at the Swiss lounge in ZRH.

Way nicer in DC, so took a nice long spin around an island on the Potomac.

This was terrific.

We met Maartje in Lausanne and then went for hike/run along the vineyards along the lake. Up and down, back and forth, through beautiful little towns, views the whole way. At times along these tiny footpaths between vineyards. Meeting and catching up the whole way. One brief hail/graupel shower passed through and we found a garage door to shelter, otherwise no weather and even a bit of sun. The last couple of miles we turned uphill and climbed 500m up to a restaurant for their favorite fondue (Gaetan and their boys joined us) and it was quite good (and dessert was also quite good). Then Elena and I walked down to town to catch the train home. Lots of smiles all around.

Not sure what Maartje had in store for us but knowing she'd had some health issues and not sure I went for a run in the morning in somewhat nicer weather up to the top of a hill and down a nice path along a stream. No phone nav, didn't get too lost.

Great weather for the Zurich marathon … 40˚ and spitting rain.

So why am I in CH?

Well, Elena has a talk at ETH and then a conference at Dagstuhl and far be it from me to not come and tag along (and play travel logistics person).

Well, about a week and a half ago I found out that I won an award at work (tl;dr while I have been doing a good job there's been enough turnover on our team I probably didn't have too much competition for it) and it's in DC on Tuesday … so now it's a 72 hour trip to Switzerland. Crazy? Maybe.

We got in around noon on Friday but with jetlag plus pretty awful weather (40 and raining with some snow mixed in but not really enough to ski) I didn't run on Friday. Saturday we went on a hike and after getting caught in a heavy hailstorm/graupelstorm turned around and took a tram home and then went to the art museum. Eventually the rain let up and I got a late run in the dark up to the zoo and then some traversing to find views of the city.

Quick pre-flight shakeout.