How Italy made me a better athlete

I know this isn’t a travel blog, but how often does a guy get to go to Italy and write about it?  I just spent 9 days in this incredible country and wanted to tell you about my experiences and how they have made me a better triathlete (hopefully).

First of all, if you know me personally or read this blog on a semi-regular basis, I don’t have to tell you that I didn’t do a lick of training and ate like it was going out of style.  Let’s chalk this trip up to a 9-day aggressive tapering phase with some impressive carb loading.  Don’t forget the gallons of wine.  I like to think there were some antioxidants in there or something.  But even if I’m wrong, it was worth it.  That was some well-rehearsed and fully intended gluttony, and I’m more of a man for doing it.  Literally - there is now more of me.

First time I've used a spoon to eat hot chocolate.  Perugia is known for it's chocolate.  Think a melted bar of the best dark chocolate you've ever had, with some hot heavy cream mixed in.  Yeah...like that.

This particular glass of Chianti made me hate American vineyards...

But let me tell you what I saw, what I experienced, how this trip changed me in some way.  I won’t get too heavy on the historical facts and details, frankly because I doubt I remember them accurately.  But seeing as I usually connect with the human-interest story in a tale, that is what I am coming home with to share.

Rome

I saw some pretty impressive things in Rome and to list them here would be an exercise in fact checking and reader boredom.  I did get to see the Pope and stood in the piazza as he blessed the crowd.  Now I’m nowhere near Catholic, but I’ll take a blessing from the Pope any day.  Especially from a Pope as cool as this one.  I’m sure I’ll be winning my next race as a direct result of this blessing.  Boom…Pope style.

What I did see however that slapped me in the face like a drunken sorority girl was the Coliseum.  This place is, and was, somewhat humbling.  Never mind the brilliant feat of engineering and architecture, I was more struck by how incredibly messed up this place was.

In it’s glory, this structure was the site of 3,000 people and 9,000 animals dying in a matter of 100 days, all for the sake of entertainment.  First, the slaves or prisoners would be put into the arena, unarmed and naked, left to fight against animals brought in mostly from Africa.  Picture large cats, elephants, and the like.  After the animals tore these unlucky victims to pieces, they were then slaughtered in kind for the crowd.  The floor of the arena was covered in sand to soak up the blood.

This mention is not to pass judgment.  Who am I to do so?  It is rather an opportunity that showed me what life was like for people in a different time.  The next time I am upset about something trivial in my life, I should remember that I am not being eaten by a bear at Giant’s stadium while naked and unarmed.  I’ll count today as a good day.

In Rome I learned something to make me a better athlete: perspective.

Assisi

So this joint is the burial place of St Francis, the dude San Francisco is named after.  I mention him because his story is pretty noteworthy.  Born into a very wealthy family with privileges galore, he eventually renounced his family and wealth to live the life of a poor priest who catered to those less fortunate.  This stood out to me, much like the story of The Buddha does.

To be of the mindset to give up your life of comforts for something you believe in is an impressive task, and one for which I don’t know that I would have the strength.  We all make sacrifices, but few of us commit at this level.  I give up certain things and make tough choices sometimes, but never have I walked away from my life to do what I thought was right.  It’s impressive.

In Assisi I learned something to make me a better athlete: sacrifice.

Sienna

This place was awesome!  I had never heard of it before arriving, but check this story out.

Sienna is laid out into several districts, 17 to be exact.  Each of these districts is assigned a certain mascot if you will: Shell, Unicorn, Ram, Elephant, and so on.  But this goes far beyond living in a certain neighborhood like SoHo or the East Village.  No, no.  If you are born in the Shell district, you are a Shell for life.  There is even a ceremonial non-religious baptism into the district of your birth. 

Here’s where it gets interesting.  Twice a year, the town has a horse race in the town square where the districts compete with each other.  The winning districts horse brings said district ultimate bragging rights for the next full year.

Now listen how intense this gets.  No matter where you presently live in the town, or in the world for that matter, during the 3 days before the race, you move back to your home district.  You might be an Elephant and be married to a Ram.  During those 3 days before, you leave your own home and move back to your district.  For those few days a year, you are fierce rivals!

Talk about domestic dispute!  To hear the locals talk about this event, you would imagine it is the most intensive athletic competition ever held.  They take it more seriously than we do our Super bowl. 

In Sienna I learned something to make me a better athlete: competition.

Venice

Here is a city that is built on stilts.  That’s right, things were so bad back then with all of the wars going on, the Venetians had no other choice than to go a few miles out into the water, shove some tree trunks into the ocean floor, and then put platforms on top to build a city.

They did that hundreds of years ago, and I can’t get a pedestrian bridge from Hoboken to Manhattan?  I want answers…

There is something about doing things that are impossible that really clicks with me as an athlete, and building a city on top of the water at that time sounds pretty impossible. 

In Venice I learned something to make me a better athlete: setting goals that are hard.

Florence

In Florence I saw the statue of David which made me realize how freakin’ hot I could be if I did all of my training.  I’m totally going to start that now.