Slovenia

Last year, we did a bike trip to Tuscany with Trek Travel before Sidi and Ellie’s wedding in Italy and had a wonderful time. Following that experience, we planned another bike trip for 2024 to Slovenia.

We started our trip departing on a Thursday night redeye to Ljubljana with a 6-hour layover planned in Munich. No issues with the flight, but with the long layover we could not pass up on the chance to head into Munich for lunch.

When in Munich, I always try to swing by HB for a Mass (beer) and pretzel!

We arrived late on Friday in Slovenia’s capital and were struck by the beauty of the city. Much of the terrain was mountainous and filled with pine trees, which is very different than the jagged treeless formations that are typical of the Alps. After checking into the city, we went to a pizza place recommended by our hotel front desk attendant that was apparently the oldest restaurant in the city.

Saturday

We spent the day touring around the city and going to the local market to pick up snacks for lunch. The old town of the city was very large and pretty with a network of rivers running alongside the walkways. During the afternoon, we did a tour of the Plecnik House. Joze Plecnik is the most famous Slovenian architect who designed much of the city. Following an earthquake in the late 1800s that wiped out most of the city, Plecnik was responsible for the redesign that is now much of modern-day Ljubljana.

Plecnik’s office

Our dinner was at Altroce, which was very good. Most notable part was when we were trying to order a local schnapps as a digestif that there was some confusion and we were instead given an overpriced rum from Denmark… 

Sunday

We met the rest of the Trek Travel group at the hotel  at 10am! Before that, we did a quick tour of a very small portion of Tivoli Park before a short bus ride to lunch at Strmol Castle to start the trip.

 

Our tour group was all Americans this year and mostly e-bikers:

• Kay and me
• 2 Iowans in their mid-70s celebrating one of their retirements (Jim and Pat)
• Young Californian couple in their mid-30s that was on a delayed honeymoon (Bryce and Jenna).
• 5 Gonzaga alumni that were biking following their ‘wine camp.’ This group was on e-bikes and many made the uncomfortable choice of not bringing bike shorts (Jacob, Joe, Maryann, Teresa, Daniel)

The first ride was through the countryside and ended in a rainy descent into Bled:

  

Bled Cream Cake

Monday

The second day’s ride was the hardest of the trip; 50 miles with 10 miles that were a continuous incline with a few very memorable sites:

Rest area and coffee stop

Stop at local cheese farm to carbo-load before climbing a mountain Stop at local cheese farm to carbo-load before climbing a mountain

Following the day’s rides, we took a boat to the church on the island in the center of Lake Bled and had a tour, rang the church bell, and had a gelato before dinner that night. The legend says if you pull the rope and get the bell to ring 3 times, you get to make a wish. I got the bell to ring 3 times on my first try.

Stairs to Church of the Assumption of Mary on the island in Lake Bled - much more intimidating in person! Stairs to Church of the Assumption of Mary on the island in Lake Bled - much more intimidating in person!

Tuesday

We left Bled and biked from our hotel to Lago di Fusine. Highlights of the ride was half of the day was on a very nice trail that went by Kranjska Gora ski resort and crossed into Italy and ending the ride with a  short climb to the lake in a downpour. The rain climaxed during the ascent and we then had a freezing ride back down. It felt like we rode through a cold blow dryer - by the time we reached the restaurant we were dry.

Biathlete stadium at top of mountain

Passing by the locals on the way down the mountain Passing by the locals on the way down the mountain

For the rest of the bike trip, we stayed at Gredic Castle. It had only a few rooms. Kay and I were lucky enough to get the single suite and had a full floor to ourselves.

View from Gredic Castle Hotel

Wednesday

The one downfall of the Gredic Castle Hotel was it was at a bottom of a hill, which meant there was a quarter-mile, 15 percent-grade hill to start every ride.

The ride was rolling hills with very pretty weather. The lunch was…interesting. So far on the trip, we had not gone hungry - the meals were really good and usually 3 or more courses. The lunch this day was a traditional Bacalao stew that smelled so awful we couldn’t  eat it. When the water came to pick up our plates, he said “I agree that this fish is not very good - it smells like sh*t!” There was no shortage of other food (salad, soups, sides, dessert) so Kay and I definitely did not starve even though we skipped the entree.

Thursday

We convinced our guides to start the ride 30 minutes early beat the rain. I did not mention yet, but before our trip started the weather showed rain every day; however, we managed to avoid torrential rains on most rides so far on the trip. Leaving early paid off, as the rain started right as we reached the lunch spot.

Ready to start the day!

Last dinner in the wine cellar of the hotel

Friday

We did not bike this day as it was downpouring and thundering in the morning so the bike portion of our trip came to a close, and Kay and I went to Venice.

Lake Bled

With our afternoon we purchased some sandwiches for a quick lunch in St. Mark’s square. While eating lunch, a large seagull (more eagle-sized than the US seagulls) quickly stole the bread from Kay’s sandwich right out of her hand! 

After finishing what was left of the sandwich, we took a boat tour to Murano to see glassmaking and Burano to see the colorful houses. It was nice to see something new and escape the tourists in Venice.

Saturday

We spent the day with Sidi and Ellie sightseeing, eating Italian cicchetti and having drinks, before dinner that evening. We went in the morning to the Peggy Guggenheim museum. As Ellie grew up near Venice, we took advantage of her expertise to see less-touristy parts of the city, including the Jewish Quarter, and to try spots popular with the locals.

Gondola cruise with Sidi and Ellie

Sunday

We departed midday for home from Venice. 

The bike trip portion of our trip was great with two very contrasting areas of Slovenia. The first few days were spent in the capital city and in the mountains whereas the end was on the Italian border in the wine region. The bike riding crew was diverse, with many different perspectives, and fun to travel with during that portion of the trip.

The Venice portion of our trip was also great as it was fun to spend time with old friends!

Japanuary

Since living in Switzerland, we’ve planned a January ski trip to celebrate our friend Lianne’s birthday. Last year was La Clusaz and this year we decided to try Japan for their “Ja-Pow” during “Japanuary.”

Friday

We left Friday morning from the US in the middle of the first snowstorm of the season. We received about 6 inches of snow overnight with another 6 expected and most schools closing the day before in anticipation of the snow. Our taxi arrived about 10 minutes late in a Prius so our drive to the airport was longer than planned with slippery roads with many cars in ditches and a first time snow driver. I was tempted to offer to drive but we did make it to the airport with time to spare. 

When leaving for the airport, there had been a ground halt in place for one hour so our hopes of arriving on time were low. The flight board at O’Hare was full of delays and cancellations but we did manage to leave the airport only 90 minutes behind and one of the first flights to lift off.  

After arriving in Sapporo near 8pm on Saturday, I realized that I had confused the date/time conversion and booked a rental car for the wrong day (8p Sunday) so we called the car rental to arrange to pick up the car in the AM and stayed in a hotel for the night. This turned out to be a great move as we had been travelling for 24 hours by the time that we arrived at the airport and were exhausted. In addition, we would have a 2 hour drive to Niseko and it was very snowy.

Sunday

On Sunday, after losing a day to travel, we awoke and had fish and ramen for breakfast down the street from our hotel before picking up the rental car and driving to Niseko.

Driving on the left side of the road took a little getting used to but was not too difficult. The larger issues we had were due to slippery roads and snowbanks that were generally over 3 feet on the sides of all roads that made it very difficult when entering an intersection. 

Once in Niseko, we picked up our ski gear and the group made a salmon dinner at our hotel and prepped for the following ski day.

Monday

We awoke to about 6 inches of fresh snow and started our first ski day in Niseko Hirafu. There was a lot of snow in the resorts especially when compared to January in the US. The terrain was also very different as elevation of the the mountains was much lower and the mountains were formed from volcanoes unlike the US or European ranges that were formed from tectonic plates. 

The tree skiing had no pines but bamboo and birch trees.

.The ski day was cut short due to white-out conditions so we stopped for the day and had Ramen in town.

Our wait for lunch was approximately 2 hours given many of the restaurants were very small!

Tuesday

There was another 6” of fresh snow in the morning with expected flurries all day so most of the group took a day off to visit the port city Otaru.

I decided to head to Annupuri to ski by myself; however, I had a late start as I discovered that I had both sets of car keys after putting on my ski boots so had to drive back to the hotel to give the group their keys before back to the mountain.  

I met a Quebecois couple to ski with for the day and this was likely the best ski day of the trip. We spent most of the day skiing the “gates,” which are the unpatrolled section of the resorts similar to US back bowls where there was 1-2’ of powder. 

Bar Gyu - Enter through the refrigerator door

Wednesday

There was no significant new snow today but we went to Niseko Village to ski. The resort was OK as the terrain of each resort is small and it can be difficult to transfer between all when the top of the mountain is closed, which was for the duration of our trip. 

After the ski day, we found an onsen in the mountains about 40 minutes out of town to enjoy the hot springs and it was very HOT! Many of the people in the onsen were backcountry skiers that had stayed in the area and used it as a home base.

That's the onsen behind the snow!

Thursday

There was no new snow this day and we decided to take a trip to a new resort to find new terrain and drove to Rusutsu. This was the group’s favorite day of skiing as the resort had many red runs, less people, and lots of terrain.

That evening we did some shopping at the local grocery stores for food and coincidentally, we ran into the Quebecois couple that I skied with and they also were fans of the cloud shoes.

Friday

Our final morning was quick as everyone left very early for noon flights. Part of the group was heading to sightsee in Tokyo and Kyoto while Kay and I headed to Bangkok to see some of Kay’s friends. Bangkok was quite the contrast from the snowy, cold conditions to sunny, hot weather.

We all enjoyed the ski trip and I did find that the off-piste was more accessible and deeper than what I’m used to elsewhere. I would definitely seek smaller resorts in the future and do more backcountry skiing than in resort. The on mountain experience was great with different scenery and great Asian food!

 

Saturday

We walked around the city during the morning, getting coffee and bubble teas, trying different foods and sightseeing some of the Wats (Buddhist Temple). I was very impressed and surprised with the size and extent of the Bangkok skyline as the city was very large and modern. We also got Thai massages; I do not normally get massages but it was nice although a little painful.

The restaurant with Kay’s friends was delicious and we went to a neighboring bar with a live band that played covers of US 80s music.

Sunday

We went to the local market to buy a few things before joining a bike tour. The bike tour weaved through the city, by Wats, smaller pathways through the markets, and part was even in a boat through the live market. The roads and alleys were very narrow on the tour where it was difficult to avoid collisions and easy to fall off the raised pathways. Most of our tour grip was from biking locations (Dutch and German) and were the only Americans.

The following day the trip drew to a close and we flew home with no issues. This was a great trip that I would do again but adjusting to the time change was tough since everyone wakes up early and then cannot stay up late so definitely need to make this a longer trip!

Tokyo Marathon

Finally! I'm writing of the long awaited trip to Japan to run Tokyo marathon to complete my final race of the six star marathons. On top of the difficulty of training for a spring marathon during the Chicago winter, it has been a long, frustrating experience to get here (first few sections will be some venting)…

2020

I registered in the summer of 2019 to run the 2020 Tokyo Marathon in March 2020. After completing the majority of my training plan, the world went into a tail spin due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, the race was cancelled 3 weeks prior to the race for most runners and limited to elite runners only. I was able to leverage the training that I had completed and found another marathon to run that same weekend:

Snickers Marathon in Albany, Georgia

 
2021

As a result of the 2020 cancellation, all runners were stuck in limbo waiting for the world to return to normal. Other marathons in the world started to allow runners to return but Japan kept its borders restricted. As a result, the 2020 marathon runners were pushed to March 2021 and the 2021 marathon was planned for October 2021.

Given the uncertainty due to COVID, I elected to run the 2021 fall marathon as I expected that COVID restrictions would remain in the spring...

As the 2021 March marathon neared, borders remained closed and rather than only defer those runners they pushed all runners from March to October, and then the October runners to 2022 thus wrecking two sets of runners' travelling plans…

2022

With borders now open for most of the globe but still not for American trying to travel to Japan, I trained in anticipation running the Tokyo Marathon in March 2022 but also was had the 2022 Boston Marathon (in April) that I qualified for at the Albany marathon for which I was looking forward to running.

Random ROAR runner on the marathon

Worst marathon finish ever but can't tell here

Borders remained closed in March 2022 to Americans and all runners unable to run due to COVID restrictions were deferred to the 2023 Tokyo marathon.

2023

And now we’re up to date to today where the race appears to be on track. For most of 2022, Japanese borders remained closed until late fall they re-opened but only with an organized tour so I booked a marathon tour, and then in December the borders fully re-opened so I cancelled this tour to travel with friends and family for marathon.

Given all of the runners waiting to run, the 2023 marathon was expected to have the most six star finishers ever (approximated 3,000 runners planned to complete their last six star marathon in Tokyo with less than 10,000 six star finishers-to-date). 

I flew out the Wednesday prior to the marathon on 13 hour and 15 minute flight and many of the passengers were runners:

Random runners on the Tokyo flight

I arrived in Tokyo on time and went to the expo once Melissa and Terry’s flight arrived. This was a bit of a time crunch of taking a taxi to arrive at the expo with about 10 minutes before the registration cut-off but I was able to pick up my packet (which included the 2020 medal!?) and then we went to the Airbnb to rest after limited rest from the prior day’s travels.

Friday

With the jet lag, most of the group woke up near 2am ready for the day but we went to breakfast closer to 8am. The jet lag gradually improved over the remainder of the trip but all of us had similar experiences. We found a close restaurant for breakfast and we’re impressed by the waitress

Robot waitress that brought food to each table

After breakfast, we spent some time wandering Akihabara before our go-kart tour of the city:

1st of many noodles on the trip

Go-kart gang

Following the morning go-kart tour we went to the Tokyo Sky Tree for an aerial view of the city (the tower is 450m) and had dinner and Andy Shin's Hinomoto:

View from the Sky Tower

Sushi!

Saturday

I awoke near 4:30am still trying to adjust to the jet lag and waited for the sun rise near 6a before able to go for a run to loosen up before the race the following day:

Ueno Park Pond (with 1st Cherry Blossoms of the trip)

For our last day before the race, we planned a tour of the Mt. Fuji area by car. In retrospect, I would highly recommend the train as this the 4 of us rode the 50 miles in a fairly cramped Mercedes Benz sedan for approximately 2 hours each way in the typical Tokyo traffic.

The Tokyo pre-race day meals were a little different than the usual of marinara sauce with noodles:

Pizza near Mt. Fuji

Pre-race noodles

Sunday

Race day morning was smooth as the race started at 9:10a leaving ample time to get to the start even with a few hiccups. For the first time on the trip, I experienced that Tokyo had multiple train operators, which resulted in a few minute scramble when trying to board a train with the wrong pass.

 

The race was finally starting to feel attainable once I showed health record on my phone to the organizers to allow entry to the start area:

• Positive confirmation of normal bodily temperature and no COVID symptoms for the week prior to the race. This was logged each day manually by me
• Negative COVID test results for 2 back-to-back days once arriving in Japan

The last curveball of the pre-race routine was I managed to find the block of porto johns with short lines (8 people rather than 50). However, when getting to the toilet, I quickly learned I was in line for the non-western toilet, which is a pit style hole.

The actual race was great and surreal to finally be able to run. I was able to find Melissa and Terry a few times during the run by coordinating with our phones:

Feeling great near mile 7

Beyond just the spectators, the entire race was very packed with runners and more so than I recall from the other majors:

My run went much better than planned after thinking that my training plan was OK in the winter. I was able to keep a faster pace and expected to hit a wall with 3 miles remaining, which was much later than expected, so I was very happy with my finish time (3:01:40)!

I was quite sore and slowly made my way through the finish area between the stations with rotations on the ground as needed with sore legs. The journey from the finish area to the packet pick-up was very far (felt over 1 mile) and the worst part was the blockaded roads where people continued to follow crosswalk signs to not walk even with no cars!? After resting along the way, the group met up at home to rest, shower, and get ready to head out to celebrate

Monday

With our last day, we spent then morning at the Tsukiji fish market sampling fresh seafood (both raw and cooked) before heading to the airport:

First market entrance

Scallop with sea urchin

Monster oyster!

The flight home was filled with runners returning to the US and many slow walks up-and-down stairs! The trip was far too short, approx. 4 days, but memorable:

• Japan was easy to get around with the use of google maps.
• Trains were extremely clean and timely. When landing at O'Hare airport and boarding the blue line to get home it felt as if I was going back in time.
• 7-elevens and vending machines everywhere with decent food and hot coffee.

It was special to complete the six star marathons, after so many delays due to the pandemic, with friends and family! It feels somewhat odd to have no races on the calendar but I expect this will be short-lived...