Sacri Monti

I was dying of exhaustion. Had decided to run the way up to Madonna del Soccorso, but had to stop every half minute to breath. It took twelve all out repetitions to reach the church and now breathless standing at the doorway I could read that it was a Sacri Monti I had reached; particularly worthy of preservation!

This vacation at Lake Como had given me countless of such sprint intervals. All the time there was a new path, a Greenway to investigate and a new peak to defeat. Maybe my fitness also was beginning to peak. My back thigh injury was gone. It seemed that the short stride length the climbs had led to and the many cool baths in the lake were healing for my old legs. And best of all, my coughing had stopped. The "dog" hadn't barked on the entire trip.

Holy Mountain, I felt blessed. Halfway in heaven and on the threshold of fifty, I was looking back on a landscape of ups and downs and was wondering; am I going up or going down?

Wake up! The church bells were ringing and I wanted to shout out over the village; roaring like a lion: "look out now, I am coming back!"

I want to run a marathon again, and this time I will do it with a son, my own blood. A sense of immortality grabbed me. We could win our classes in New York!

It was too wild, but Sacri Monti, you say faith may move mountains and this morning I could believe in everything.

Peder Troldborg, 7/17/13