Long time no talk, eh? I've been extremely busy the last two weeks, the first with vacation and the second with work.

Italy was amazing, gorgeous doesn't even begin to describe it. I was so surprised how different Tuscany and Umbria were from the more northern areas around Verona and Venice. More details will follow as I think that there are at least a couple of you that read this, that didn't go to Italy with me.

Last week was PRMRP hell, long days (except for friday) and crazy doctors all over the place. They stranded me on Cinco de Mayo which I was very bitter about. But I believe I recovered admirably after a Margarita at the Hotel Bar. It was a very weird couple hours to say the least, with word vomit everywhere and one reviewer talking excessively about he prospects of taking his big breasted Portuguese wife to a topless bar. There was also some spanking but I won't go too far into that.

After I got home early on Friday I planned on taking a nap, but ran 5 miles instead. Marathon training begins. I guess the 5 miles was good for me since I probably needed a destresser from the week, and running always helps me with that.

Saturday was supposed to be a hill workout, or some form of distance run but instead I got talked into (well actually it probably wasn't that hard, since I seem to be a glutton for punishment) a bike ride to the end of the W&OD and back, starting in Vienna, with Brian and his two friends, Andrew and Everitt. At the end of the day I ended up riding 72 miles. I think the longest I've biked in a day prior to this was the 24 miles to work and back. But that prep seems to have been sufficient as I didn't really start to hurt until about mile 50, and the bike shorts helped a lot. Poor Everitt had no such luck, we started missing him at about 3 o'clock when he still hadn't shown up for some lunch. I got back on the bike and rode back about 3 miles before I found him face up lying in a ditch by the side of the trail. His legs were completely shot and he was not going to make it the 27 miles we still had to go to get back to Vienna. So I left him my phone and we decided on a place where Brian and Andrew could pick him up with the car after we made it back to Vienna. The rest of the way back was uneventful except for a psychotic rabbit that we scared so much it ran straight into a chainlink fence about 4 times. Meanwhile, it turns out that Everitt, having made it to the pulled-pork place not far from his trailside ditch, had a bad allergic reaction to the "special sauce". His throat swelled so much that he couldn't swallow any food and barely any water. And he still had to wait another 3 hours or so for Brian and Andrew to get there with the car. It just wasn't Everitt's day.

After a relaxing dinner with my parents, in which I tried desparately not to collapse in my A1 sauce, I met the guys over at Andrew's house for a very much needed hot tub and homemade creme brulee, yum.