23-07 Hamburg-Germany 4

Hamburg-Germany 4,

July 13, 2023,

Hi Everyone,

Here is a good rule of thumb for finding restaurants in a foreign country. No matter where you are in the world, look for an Italian restaurant. You can’t possibly go wrong. Italian restaurants always know how to prepare a good spaghetti, cannelloni or rigatoni. I found an Italian restaurant and I was right. I had a rigatoni prepared ‘just the way mama makes it in the old country’.

Over the last 3 months I have been training like a fiend. I played hockey twice a week or once a week and raced my sailboat on the make up day. 3 days a week I would do 2 or 3 parts of the triathlon. For example, I would run 5k in the morning, swim 30 laps (750m) in the afternoon and ride my bike on the bike path for 50 minutes (20k) in the evening. I put it all together last week in the Gatineau Triathlon where I won a silver. This should be good enough to be invited to the World Championships in Malaga next year. I will skip into the 75-79 age group.

I also modified my diet. Breakfast: 1.5 cappuccinos with a bagel, butter, no jam. Lunch: small salad, fruit and a cappuccino. I snacked minimally between meals: Supper: a good meal but no seconds. No scotch on Friday night. I also decreased my wine intake from half a bottle to 2 glasses. Last night I drank my usual 2 glasses and surprise, surprise, I was flying. Were the Italian glasses bigger than my usual or I am I no longer able to consume 2 glasses of wine with a meal and remain sober? What will happen to me when I return home and go back to my usual habit? The former is a disaster and the later even worse!

Today I woke up early and went to the bike shop to pick up the bike that I had rented. Some athletes brought their own bikes and unfortunately some of the bikes have not arrived yet. At noon, Team Canada met up at a Bavarian restaurant so our team leader could give us instructions. We are about 150 Canadians, one of the biggest teams. There are about 4000 athletes from 36 countries competing in 10 different races. We all then walked 1k to the main area for the ‘gathering of nations’. It started pouring and everyone took shelter under the tents. Finally we were able to unite for a photo shoot and the parade.

The parade was really exciting. The athletes lined up with their respective teams in alphabetical order. Pictures and movies were taken. Then a band started playing and we marched through the streets of Hamburg for half an hour. There were thousands of people lining the streets cheering us on “Ca-na-da, Ca-na-da”. It was very stirring and I was very proud. I didn’t know that so many people liked us. Then there were some speeches by the international triathlon president and the mayor or Hamburg. I listened to the oom-papa music by a German band for a while and then met up with the French Team. I introduced myself as a Francais-Anglophone from Quebec-Canada. That required a certain explanation. The French team is very small and they asked me why I don’t compete for France next year. Obviously they have never seen me run.