Day 7 - Rome Italy

I woke up this morning feeling hungry and ready for the day. I had to keep the day as relaxed and low key as possible as the big day was in 24 hours. We started out by hitting a little continental breakfast in our hotel. It was a pretty decent spread with a lot of yummy pastries. I did learn that despite their yumminess, the pastries didn't sit perfectly on my recently sick stomach. But some fruit and yogurt did the trick.

Our first stop was the Vatican Museum. Dan was clever enough to buy tickets with a set time so we didn't have to wait in line. You can spend an entire day in the museum, so we picked and chose what we wanted to see. It still took a few hours of meandering to see everything, including the famous Sistine Chapel. They don't allow pictures, and are pretty vigilant about watching for people sneaking pictures, as well as very adamant to keep the volume to a minimum. It's always something worth seeing.

From there we jumped over to St. Peter's Cathedral. We paid the fee to take the elevator up to the top, then climbed the remaining 300+ steps to the very top. It was windy and a bit cold up there but the view was incredible. Worth doing if you can manage all those steps.
Most of our time in Italy so far had been beautiful and sunny. I'd forgotten to pack a hat for my marathon to help keep the sun off my face. I was afraid the sun may get to me so at the last minute I bought a hat from the Vatican Museum. I figured it would be some good coverage from the sun and a usable souvenir post race.

By the time we finished sightseeing it was time to eat. We went through a few side streets to find an off the beaten path restaurant that had been featured on Trip Advisor. We knew it must be good with a line out the door of locals waiting for a table. 45 minutes later we were seated and eating bread, lots of water, and some fantastic spinach gnocchi. So great!

 I couldn't quite finish my meal, my stomach having shrunk slightly from being sick, but I ate as much as I could fit in. By the time lunch was over I was feeling pretty spent. Our mileage count for the day was around 7 miles and I needed to call it quits. It was a tough moment. It was only 2pm, so there was lots of time for more sightseeing. Plus I'd missed a day being sick. Yet I needed the rest if I was going to survive the race.

Dan and I parted - him off to do more great sightseeing, and I headed back to the hotel. By the time I'd loaded up on my pre-marathon necessities (water and Gatorade) it was about 3:30pm when I got back to the hotel. I chugged the afternoon away while doing stretches and trying to calm my excitement for the next day. This was it. My year long wait had come down to now. How was the race going to go?