Elissa's Fall Break

Elissa just came back from her fall break abroad:

I spent most of my time in Switzerland in the mountains, and I am happy to say that I have now been on snow twice! I mean, running through snow is not as exciting as skiing on it but at least snow is involved. I went running on back roads and into small villages and even got stuck in a few cow herds! I went running in the evenings, so generally I would find myself on the same roads as the dairy cows being brought in to the barn at night. Pretty cool, especially because Swiss cows have really, really, big cowbells on them and you can hear a group approaching at a distance. I also got to go hiking near a glacier, but sadly I could not see the glacier because it was super foggy and rainy that day.

As far as training goes back here in Italy, I'm up to about 6.5 to 7 miles a day running and I exergenie most nights and do core when I can. Although I am taking five courses, I don't have a ton of homework (excluding studio time, there is always lots of studio work to do) so I am free in the evenings to do core work (even if my roommate laughs at me from time to time). Niko visited me two weeks ago, and we got to go running all the days he was here. It was really nice to see a familiar face and to have a training partner. He seems to be doing really well and is weight lifting a lot back in Copenhagen. I'm sure he is going to be fast this year. Anyway, I took him on my usual morning route, running through the city and up to Piazza Michelangelo and around the Arno (about 5 miles) and suddenly, because I was showing it to Niko, I remembered how beautiful it all really is...running across the bridges over the Arno as the sun is rising and then standing in Piazza Michelangelo under the copy of the David certainly doesn't suck.

I can't wait to hear about Thanksgiving Camp, and I hope that everything goes well!