Paris

As suggested by Martin, I ran on the quays along the Seine. It's a nice place to run and last thursday at 07:00 a.m. I saw a lot of people who were running next to that beautiful river.
We stayed five days in Paris and while we were walking on the night through the square of Notre-Dame we met a nice pair from San Francisco (California). They were very kind and took a photo which you can see here below.
The weather was beautiful and sunny. Visiting the Louvre Museum takes on overage 1 day! I suggest you should buy tickets the day before. After we had visited Notre-Dame, which is the symbol of medieval Paris, we walked up 400 steps to the top of the South tower of the Cathedral. 46 metres above the ground and from there we saw the whole of Paris and a lovely view over the river Seine and its bridges.

During the last two days we went to the left bank of the river Seine where we visited the oldest houses in the latin distict and Saint Germain de pres. There is a very useful river boat shuttle service along the Seine.
Unfortunately, after we had come back from Paris I and my wife didn't find a part of the luggage. The biggest of our three suitcases wasn't in the Rome airport. We were really disappointed with this and "Air France customers assistance" here in Rome said that they will send us the luggage as soon as it arrives from Paris.

Tomorrow we are going to Gaeta, in South Italy.
Have a nice summer!

On holiday

I'm on holiday now. So I'm going to France with my family and tomorrow the flight to Paris starts at 08:55 a.m. My daughters are so excited because they would like to visit the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre Museum, and Notre-Dame. But first of all they would want to go to the Galerie La Fayette. Of course, I'm taking my running shoes :)
Nice Sunday to all blogger friends!

Motivation

In this half of the world that is North of equator it's summer time now. This means biking, riding, beach and swimming. Of course , swimming on the sea. Although I'm not running a race in July and August I wouldn't want to lose my speed. So I'll do only one quality workout per week and in the same week two days of easy work. Moreover I'll sometimes run a long run.
Now I feel that I have to maintain my desire to run. In this perspective I go swimming once or twice a week. I think that if our running isn't fun, we have to make same changes. For example, run fewer days (during this summer I'll do it), try trail running or join a running group. We always need to find motivation which is a powerful force that can help us enjoy our running more. Motivation is more than a feeling. It's important that we'll feel better after a run than before it.

I hope you'll enjoy the rest of this weekend.

Hilly training

Last week we planned a long run along the coast (path flat). So yesterday I met the running group at Oliveto's Park at 06:30 p.m. and began the training. But after we had done the warm up we suddenly decided to run our long run through the hills behind the town. Although it was hot there were a lot of trees along the wonderful hilly paths. We ran 1 hour and 25 minutes and I didn't run fast down hill. I decided to be careful.

An old fountain, which we found on the top of the higher hill, helped us. It was built in the natural reserve about 40 years ago because wild cows and donkeys live there. You can see the fountain in the photo below posted. The landscape was beautiful and the paths of that natural reserve weren't dangerous. Once again, running gave me a nice picture of the environment.

This week began with the hilly and hard training above mentioned and, as a consequence, today I didn't swim and didn't go to the beach. I was tired. During this week If I have time I'll go to the ancient roman thermal baths where there's the hot sulphur water. Stefano showed on his blog a photo of this interesting place http://cavnero.blogspot.com/

I hope everyone will have a nice training.

Swimming on the sea

This week I ran three times and I swam once. Yesterday I swam on the sea 20 minutes at 06:00 p.m. after working. The water wasn't polluted and the beach was wonderful. Perfect! Next Sunday I'll swim again on the sea and next week I'll do a long run training. Of course, I always choose a different route on long run. If our training is stimulating we'll enjoy it. What I'm trying to say is that we don't need to run the same 16 km on the same course at the same time of day as always. In other words, we could refresh our enthusiasm and we would have to change the distance, the speed, the route, the landscape and the hills. Moreover, new hilly paths make us stronger :)
In the pictures I show the beach which is situated in the Southern part of the town. In the photo below I'm on the right and the skin of my friend is more tanned because he is on holiday :)

I hope that all you blogger friends will have a nice running and swimming weekend!

Change of scenery

I'd need to give my body and mind a break! Last week I ran less than other weeks. I went swimming twice, 25 minutes on Wednesday and 30 minutes on Saturday. But I swam in the sea and as a consequence I didn't try to work harder than in a regular pool. During this summer I'm going to run three times a week and swimming (or biking) twice a week.
I'm not running a race in July and August, so I'm doing something other than running to give my body and mind a break. Since the 25th of June I've started cycling and swimming once or twice a week. Of course I'm not training for triathlons. If these activities gave me a stronger aerobic engine my running would improve. I should usually see some gains.
I've read a debate focused on the relation between running and routine: the psychological effects of following the same routine can be just as limiting. After about only three or four weeks of the same low or high intensity training program, the benefit of running tend to decrease. Most experts say that "runners are creatures of habit, but this can be often lead to stagnating performance".

I hope that all you blogger friends of that running community will have a nice training!