Dutch Masters and Seven Hills

Well, I had a wonderful time in San Francisco. Had a great run to the Golden Gate bridge, which brought back memories from the marathon. And had my virgin Irish Coffee while talking to an Irish cop from New Jersey. How appropriate.

But that was then and now I´m in Lisbon with SD. We left California on Sunday night and arrived in Portugal on Tuesday morning, just after midnight. It took so long because we had a 9 hour layover in Amsterdam. We made use of the time by taking a bus into the city center and visiting the Ryjks museum. We were pretty tired by the time we got to Portugal, and had no trouble sleeping through the night!

Although SD has been to Lisbon one other time, he was here on business so didn´t sightsee as much as he would have liked. He has a business meeting next week, so we took vacation time and came early. This is my first time to Portugal, but it feels so comfortable. I told SD that I´m a European at heart. :-)

Of course, I brought my running shoes. When we went to San Francisco two weeks ago, we drove north on Highway 1, right through Big Sur and the course of the marathon. It makes the Nike Marathon look as flat as Calysta Flockhart. There are some serious hills and it freaked me out. I´ve been training since then on the highway near my house, in order to be better prepared.

Lisbon is built on seven hills, which makes for some good hill training. I ventured out for a 5-6 mile run, but didn´t get too far. It took me 1.25 hours to run only 4.75 miles. Sheesh. I´ll blame it on the hills. And the stop lights.

We´re leaving for Porto on Saturday, so I´ve scheduled my long run for Friday. I´m planning to run 16 miles, then 18 the following week. The best course I found is along the river, which hopefully won´t have too many hills. I´ll let you know how it goes. Adeus for now.