Day of cross training and reviewing the kit

Rest day today, or so I thought!

After another night of coughing  (waking up the baby in the floor below) Dr Sarah decided that the only cure was to hike up the nearest mountain.

Fortunately we both like walking and there are wonderful views here.

We also had to kill time before the Alta Badia maratona registration.


Luckily it was another sunny morning; time to "climb every mountain"

Trekking up the hill, far behind Sarah!











We even had a few verses of "the hills are alive" (just for Gilly) Sarah still does not know all the words to "Doe a deer" so obviously her Cheltenham education was not complete!

The mountains reminded us of the sandstone cliffs in Katoomba (maybe we are getting homesick)!

We spent most of the morning trying to spot Edelweiss although Sarah kept darting off into the long grass and flowers to see if she could take yet another photo of wild orchids, although most of the flowers were buttercups and daisies.

At the top of the hill we found a refuge and decided to carb up early.

of course..I could not resist the Weiss beer (i may not be as fit and healthy as i would like,but I am going to enjoy it anyway :)

The registration and information sheets gave us an opportunity to consider strategy for the ride. Sadly we realised that we will not have time to stop for coffee and cake otherwise we may miss the cut off time for the medium and long courses. :(

Worse still, with my current average km per hour (on this route with a bad chest and heavy breathing) means that the best I will probably be able to do is the 106km course.  Sarah will just have to leave me and cycle on ahead. Sarah will then have a very good chance to ride all 138km.

Not only have we carbed up today, we have been shopping too. We now have matching official Maratona lycra kit; Modelling front and

Sarah "I am getting so trendy" modelling the back with the Maratona top and matching shorts (complete with label) ...

Sarah has been so excited about all the food she is amassing for the ride. Here is her current selection (maybe she should open a sweet shop)

Of course, I am more focused on what to eat afterwards..

Here is my selection (including cough mixture minus pasta)

We are also very excited about the Tour de France starting in the Dales tomorrow and have enjoyed all the media attention - the pork "piecycle", the sheep in yellow jerseys and a report of some civic bigwig from Cambridge (responding to a question about why so little had been done in Cambridge in preparation for the TdF) who said there was obviously little else to do in the Dales!