First the bad news...a very dear friend lost her son in a car crash on the highway yesterday afternoon. He was in a car with a single sailor on the way home from the paintball field. The father was on deployment and is on his way home now. The Mom and daughter are very close friends...please pray for them. This community is amazing...everyone has really come together to support them.


Ok...enough of that. Heather and I did the Base to Base run yesterday - about 7.75 miles. I'm pretty sure I PR'd - only 1:16 - slow, I know, but still fast for me. My knee was very sore yesterday afternoon and today my calves are tight. But other than that I feel fine. Heather did spectacular, as usual. She was only a few minutes behind me. She thinks she beat last years time by a few minutes.

About a week ago we went for an awesome bike ride - about 30 miles with a good sized climb. There was 9 of us. We started from the Mineo housing (bout 30 minutes west of were we live) and climbed the hill to the town of Gramichele (grah-meh-kel-eh).


The ride started out pretty flat with just a few rolling hills. The crux was a about a 1,200 foot climb to the town of Caltigerone (cal-ti-jerome-eh).




The view from the top of the hill was inspiring - inspiring enough to take a water break and snap some pictures, anyway. The valley way in the back ground in the top left of the photo is where we started. You can barely make out the road behind the power line tower.

In the town of Gramichele, we stopped for a cappuccino and a raviola, which is the whole reason for the bike ride in the first place.

The town square, or piazza, is newly refinished and is just gorgeous. We stopped for a group photo after our snack.

















The E-ticket ride was the descent...1,200 feet of switchbacks, 6 miles in about 15 minutes. I was up to 37 mph at one point. Not since high school (La Jolla Shores Blvd from Torrey Pines) have I been that fast on a bike. I little sketchy but still fun.

The ride back home was short. We came down the hill fairly close to where we started. Looking forward to summer...

Ciao,

Bud