The cold days of January

It seems like it was just yesterday that we were walking the sunny streets of the tiny village of Sermerio in the mountains above Lago di Garda, enjoying 12 degrees celsius as we gazed upon the panoramic mountain vista, and thinking about which Piedmontese red wine we would uncork once we languorously made our way back to the villa. But those days are over and now we're left with nothing more than memories and the cold grey promise of zero-adjacent temperatures for the weeks to come.

Nevertheless, we do have a potential plan! It's many weeks away yet but during these days of little sunlight and darkness that lasts about 16 hours a day, it's important to have something to look forward to. Last year at Easter, as you might recall, we took a loooong road trip back to our once-French-home of Grenoble. We ate pains au chocolats, trail ran the Chartreuse mountain range, and celebrated l'heure de l'apéro each evening. This year, while the mountains are enticing, we plan (not confirmed yet) to take the TGV from München HbF north west to a place where I recently was: Paris!

Yes, the city of lights. I can see it now. 6 hours on the train with Helga and Heinrich fighting and screaming at each other all the live long way; complaining about tired legs and boredom 7 seconds into the 3-hour-queue to get up the Tour Eiffel; Heinrich coughing his lungs out in a 300 EUR a plate Michelin Starred restaurant; having to clean the dog $%!& out of Helga's shoes daily to stop her screaming about it; kids falling asleep just before midnight so that we have no time to do anything on our own in the evening and then having them wake us up the next morning before 7:00. Sounds like wanderlust paradise.

We will keep you posted!

A Race Report! Winterlaufserie München 15 km

A perennial feature of the GrenobleWMD blog since its inception nearly eleven years ago has been the fan-favourite (probably) "Race Report". From the Roanne-Villerest Aquathlon Longue Distance (rather photo-heavy) to the Short Update (detailing the 2013 Annecy Marathon) to the Waldperlachlauf 20km of 2014 and everything in between (including the first-ever-on-the-blog sort of mention of a race but which consisted of just two photos: the ASPA run), we like to report on our races here at GWMD HQ. While we've been eerily silent on last summer's epic 68 km Zugspitz Super Trail race through the German and Austrian Alps (we will get to it), another race happened around these parts just this past weekend (well, long weekend) and if you'd like to grab your favourite drink, sit back, relax, and let yourself drift away into the ambiance of the Munich Olympic Park where last Friday (yes, you read that correctly: Friday [!!!]) the park filled up with fans, athletes, and people who were just trying to enjoy a Friday in the park and made no effort whatsoever to stay out of the way of what was clearly a race alike for the running of the 15 km edition of the Munich Winter Run Series...

Our first experience with the Winterlaufserie München was way back in 2013 for the Nikolauslauf where Joelle crushed the 10 km race in 42:45. It wasn't until 2015, however, that we both participated in the 20 km edition (the 10 km takes place in early December, the 15 km in early January, and the 20 km in early February). We participated in the 20 km a couple of other times over the years I believe but were either never around for or the stars hadn't aligned for some other reason, but, for the first time ever, just a few short days ago now, I participated in the 15 km edition...

The race rather snuck up on me as you might say. We had the idea that we'd each do one of them (in fact originally I was going to do the 10 km back in December but was sick that day so Joelle took my spot) but then you have a kid and all of a sudden seven years go by and you realize you have a race in a couple of days and you haven't exactly kept up your training the way a childless 30 year old might have. But no matter. I still wanted to see what I've got.

The answer? Not much! You can't see all 15 splits on this screen, but it shows the race map (3 loops of that 5 km course) and my progression towards slowness. I did speed up again for the last 2-3 km and finished with a time of 1:11 for a 4:41 average pace which isn't dead last place, but it is pretty close.

But it was a fun race. I think I put in a good show for my current abilities and it has inspired me to try to get in shape again. Maybe even come up with some other race that I won't forget about until a few days before and I will make a training plan and do some workouts and all that sort of stuff that you say you'll do months ahead but as the weeks go by and your kids are sick and you're busy with work and you're tired for a whole handful of other reasons you don't actually do. But just maybe this time I will!

But anyways. After the race we traveled the short distance to the Münchener Freiheit area in the posh Schwabing district where we spent 2 luxurious months courtesy of Bill Gates (more or less) after we first arrived in Munich nearly 10 years ago and Microsoft put us up in temporary housing in the area basically to tease us at where we could only live if I one day became a vice president at said company. We had a nice lunch at Emmi's the all vegan restaurant (believe it or not -- the "nice lunch" part I mean) and the kids didn't even behave that badly.

The nice part about the race being on a Friday (it was Three Kings Day by the way so it was a holiday explaining why they would put a race on a Friday morning) is that we had the whole weekend ahead still. On Saturday I took Helga to the pool for the first time in years and bonus: it was basically completely empty. Heinrich got to test out his new wheels (his scooter) in the sunshine and on Sunday we laid low, fortifying ourselves for the onslaught that would come the very next day of getting everyone awake by 7:00, then dressed, fed, and out the door, and then having to work the whole day for the first time in three weeks.

Until next time.

That's me: #927

Still running along...

After 1 (or maybe 2?) laps

Finally finished

Christmas in Italy

Welcome to 2023. The blog is coming up on its 11th birthday if you can believe it and while we continue to stumble through life in the Southern Europe of Germany we had a special event this year when we were fortunate enough to spend several days around Christmastime in the mountains around Lago di Garda in Northern Italy.

The adventure started about 10 days before Christmas when Sarah and Linda arrived to the coldest and snowiest Munich that has been seen in more than a decade. We had double digit negative temperatures in the nights but the cold would be short-lived as things started to heat up in the days approaching Weihnachten.

To keep traditions alive, on Sunday we drove to the Monastery at Irsee for a birthday/Christmas lunch with our friends. When we did the same last year at the height of the Omicron Wave we were alone in the restaurant but on this day the place was jumping with Christmas Cheer and we drank delicious monastery beer and (as is standard) average Bavarian cuisine.

After one last day of work on the Monday I began three weeks of holiday while the kids still had 3 more days of school. We used this time to compress all of our preparations and holiday enjoyment into 72 hours and bought presents, visited Christmas markets, ate Ramen, and (finally, after much deliberation) booked our Christmas getaway in the region of Tremosine. We bought bins full of food and drinks and of course a big turkey and prepared everything for a ~6 hour drive south.

On Friday morning(ish) we headed out as efficiently as we could and after a brief scare where Google Maps tried to route us around the entire lake due to a non-existent road closure that would have added 2 hours to the trip we arrived just minutes after darkness set in at our mountainside Italian villa.

The home we stayed in was quite beautiful and the views were amazing. We had mountains all around and a view down to the lake below. The nearby town was decorated with Christmas trees and lights and other decorations and we went for several walks through the town and on the trails in the surrounding mountains.

We were up late on Christmas Eve wrapping all the presents and preparing everything for the next day and on Christmas Day we did a family hike, opened lots of presents, had booze soup for lunch, and then a big turkey for dinner. On Boxing Day we (without the kids) did a trail run up to almost 1500 metres in the mountains and relaxed around the house. Before we went home we stopped right by the lake for a delicious lunch of local Italian products.

All in all I would highly recommend spending any time (even if it's not Christmas) in this location in Italy! And here's the same story told visually through 25 pictures (in opposite chronological oder that I was too lazy to reverse)... Enjoy!