Last Thursday the parents came into town for a long weekend visit which was great fun and good to see them.  Dad came out on the bike with me a couple of times to help with my training and we did some great hikes to take in some of the beautiful scenery.  As those who read these blogs will know the weather has been incredible these past few weeks and Friday was no exception, so we did a little tour of Bern and the surrounding area, before a walk up the Gurten which is a big hill that overlooks the city.  Finished off with a jump off a local bridge into the Aare river and float along with the current for a mile or so before a nice meal.  

Saturday the plan was to drive about 70 mins away to the Trift Glacier.  You can get a cablecar up to a certain point before a relatively hard hike for an hour and half to the Trift Bridge which is the longest (170m) and Highest (100m) suspension bridge in Europe.  I don't know what happened to the weather as it was cloudy and overcast when we got up, but as stubborn as I am I still wanted to go. As we got closer it started to rain, and as we went higher it was shrouded in mist and cloud, you couldn't really see much.  Still I love running and walking in the rain as long as it is not cold, which it wasn't so we jumped on the cablecar and up we went.  Obviously the view was not very good, but actually the mist gives it more of a sense of mystery and I thought it was great.  The bridge was something else, amazing engineering and my Dad pointed out that it was only held together in the rocks with an adhesive.  Drill in and then glue!!

The picture above you can see my Mum and Kati walking across just above my head.

When we got there originally you couldn't see the other side due to the mist which was fun, quite a few people struggling to get over as it certainly sways a bit when you walk on it.  Fortunately the clouds started to part for a while whilst we were there and we got a great view of the bridge and the glacier, although quite depressingly there are photos of the glacier over the years, and it is astonishing to see how fast it has receded.  As little as 2001 it completely covered the lake in which it comes up to and you can see in the picture, not the best one but I'm afraid as the cloud was coming back down, but another few years and it might be gone completely!

Training has started to pick up another level this week and I even jumped onto the track for a session last week and again this Tuesday.  Nice and light and I will not be getting in spikes now probably until next year, but it was nice to be running on that surface again.  I'm starting to feel fitter and getting a little quicker in my steady runs although last night I did a session and the achilles started to hurt again on the last rep, so shall see if there is any reaction today when I go running.  

Sp8y