Yeah, it’s that time of the year again. The Barkley Marathons have finished a couple of hours ago, being one of the most historic editions of the race, by far. 3 finishers this year (and for the first time ever): Brett Maune in 52:03:08 (smashing the course record on his 2nd consecutive finish), Jared Campbell in 56:00:15, and John Fegyveresi in 59:41:21.
There was a lot of activity in Twitter (myself included) during the weekend, with lots of real-time photos and videos being shared by crews and spectators at specific points along the course. Also, a crew was filming a bunch of footage for an upcoming documentary about the race. If you want to support the project, make sure to donate here. Stay tuned to Matt Mahoney’s Barkley page, because he will be gathering all the data and race reports in the upcoming days.
Following the Barkley always psyches me, so I’ve decided that next year I’ll apply for running it. After 4 years of following it closely, I think that it’s about time to give it a go. Hope I can toe the line at the yellow gate on next year’s edition…
Photo: “Danger Dave’s Climbing Wall” as captured at the 2007 Barkley, by Henry Speir.
The first time I met Caballo Blanco was a day before I ran the Leadville Trail 100, in 2009. It was just a few months after Born to Run was published and barely before it became a huge success. Though I knew about the book, I hadn’t read it by then, but already knew about Caballo because of his Copper Canyon Ultramarathon website. There, I had read all of his writings about his adventures with the Tarahumara, in the Sierra as well as abroad.
Micah seemed to be a down-to-earth man, living his life in a simple way and trying to help those who he loved. I confirmed that when a couple of friends and I enjoyed that long chat with him at the Leadville Hostel’s terrace. I told him I wanted to go back to the Copper Canyon, but for running any of the races that take place there, instead of doing rock climbing or hiking as I did before. Micah invited me for his race next year and managed to remind me a couple times during the following months.
I traveled to the Sierra for the 2010 edition of the race, my cousin Beto joined me for the adventure. It was great to see Micah in person once again, but it was even greater to see him working so hard to have everything dialed in for the race. His most important mission was to make sure it would be a lifetime experience for all, and that everyone participated in Korima, “the circle of sharing”. It was then when I realized that he was some sort of “missionary”, but one who used running as an excuse to raise awareness for the Tarahumara culture. An exceptional work.
Yesterday, Micah was found dead in the Gila Wilderness in New Mexico. Even though many people knew he was missing since early in the week and that a huge search effort was taking place, the news struck hard on us. He seems to have passed away a few days ago, while being out for a short run. He died while doing what he loved the most and that is such a blessing. I can only hope to have the same luck when my time comes…
This afternoon, I went out for a really long run along my usual trails. I went alone and only carried two water bottles with me. I enjoyed some bits of rain and sunshine, as well as the early Spring scent of the forest. I watched the clouds while I scrambled up my favorite big hills and thought about my friend, with whom I still exchanged messages until a couple of weeks ago. Then, for brief moments, I was reminded of how simple running should be. I smiled and felt free again.
Farewell to you Micah, rest in peace and always run free, amigo. Thanks for being a “messenger”. You’ll be greatly missed…
When I die…
When my coffin is being taken out, you must never think I am missing this world.
Don’t shed any tears, don’t lament or feel sorry: I am not falling into a monster’s abyss.
When you see my corpse being carried, don’t cry for my leaving. I am not leaving: I am arriving at eternal love.
When you leave me in the grave, don’t say goodbye: Remember a grave is only a curtain for the paradise behind.
You’ll only see me descending into a grave: Now watch me rise. How can there be an end when the sun sets or the moon goes down?
It looks like the end, it looks like a sunset, but in reality it is dawn. When the grave locks you up, that is when your soul is freed.
Have you ever seen a seed fallen to earth, not rise with a new life? Why should you doubt the rise of a seed named human?
Have you ever seen a bucket lowered into a well coming back empty? Why lament for a soul when it can come back like Joseph from the well.
When for the last time you close your mouth, your words and soul will belong to the world of no place no time…
Right, Octavio and I got 2 consecutive nights of Opeth‘s progressive death metal music. The band is touring Latin America while promoting their 10th studio album Heritage, which is a unique kind of masterpiece. As you can imagine, the setlists for both gigs weren’t extensive, but given the longish nature of their songs, we ended up having almost 2 hours of sonic orgasm per night.
The band excelled at every aspect of the show and we came out extremely satisfied with the new kind of sounds they’re creating. Oh, but of course we were delighted with some old classics as well…
Last night Octavio and I attended the Force Fest, a small metal festival that took place at José Cuervo Salón, in Mexico City. We were interested in watching a couple of the announced bands, Destruction and Exciter, due to their names being known in the underground thrash metal scene, but most importantly to watch Soulfly, the band from Sepultura‘s former frontman Max Cavalera.
Unfortunately, due to some organizational fuck-ups, the festival begun 1 hour earlier and with the bands in different order than originally announced, so we arrived with enough time to only watch Soulfly before the whole event ended. To our good fortune, almost half of their setlist consisted of covers from classic Sepultura stuff, so we didn’t leave the venue with much disappointment after all…
After two weeks off from any physical activity due to my rib injuries (intercostal nerve irritation) from the last 12-hour night race, this week I jumped in serious way into my running shoes and did my best to catch up with some horizontal and vertical mileage over my legs.
Yesterday I finished the week with a casual mountain run around Nevado de Toluca with my good Argentinean friend Marcos. We arrived to the volcano not so early in the morning but managed to complete one loop of my favorite 28 km mountain running course. It was cloudy for most of the day but we were lucky enough to escape the hail and rain that started to fall in the afternoon.
We had a great time scrambling up and down 4th/5th class alpine terrain around the ridges since many sections of the high course were covered with snow and there were many sketchy ice patches all over (Yaktrax didn’t work well). Took a little bit more than usual but it was definitely worth it, great chat, photos and technical terrain fun
Rest of the photos are here or in the slideshow below:
The last two weekends have been all about running 12-hour night races…
The first one, which some years ago I promised to never do again, was at the Sope course in Chapultepec, Mexico City. This time, it wasn’t Luis who organized the run, but Alex and another friend from the trail running gang. Fortunately this occasion, a bunch of friends also came for the “race” and it happened to be a lot more entertaining than the first edition.
Once I completed the marathon distance, I started to feel the boredom of running 2 km laps around the same course, so I opted to jump into Octavio’s sleeping bag for taking a nap. After a little more than 2 hours, I woke up to the first rays of sunlight, put on my running clothes again and continued the journey, letting the hours and kilometers pass by. At the end I logged 71 km in about 9 hours of actual running, the exact same distance as the previous time I attempted such silly pursuit. Seems like there’s a predefined limit to my ability for that kind of athletic missions…
The second weekend race was organized by Pedro, from the Solo para Salvajes trail running circuit, and took place along the last half of the Travesia en las Sierras 100 course. I ran with Joan for most of the time, going at a somewhat-fast pace for most of the distance we ended up doing.
I took 2 very nasty falls while coming back from Cerro San Miguel towards El Zarco in the first loop. I was running fast on the flat long section under the forest when I hit a couple of roots barely coming out of the ground and I tripped in a not-so-elegant form, smashing my face and right arm against the ground and crushing my rib cage in the process. I was able to continue running despite staying in the ground for about two minutes while trying to grasp some air.
Around halfway during the second loop, Joan and agreed that repeating such boring process for the rest of the night wasn’t appealing anymore. We called it a day and dropped out after 40 km and 5 hours 22 minutes of night trail running. Serch joined us shortly thereafter and we all headed off to enjoy a well-deserved recovery dinner.
Today I had yet another frustrated attempt to climb Iztaccíhuatl via Arista de la Luz.
Despite the supposedly great weather forecast, I opted to turn back down when I reached Láminas hut this morning after encountering falling hail, strong winds and null visibility. On the bright side, I logged a nice workout after muling up 12 kg of mountaineering gear for ~2,000 meters from San Rafael. Also managed to not switch into mountaineering boots during the whole 18.75 km hike, which made it a lot more comfortable.
This little doggie joined me for most of the way and even protected me from strangers we encountered along the route. He definitely earned a tasty snack while we briefly stopped at our highest point!
Rest of the photos are here or in the slideshow below:
Yesterday was just another great birthday spent in the mountain. This year I went with Fabiola, Aaron (who was also celebrating his birthday) and Armando to Pico de Orizaba. For Fabiola and Aaron, it was their first climb of the volcano but, since they’re very good multi-sport athletes (Fabiola is an elite actually), their way of doing it was not going to be an average mountaineering trip…
The plan was really simple: arrive to Tlalchichuca on Friday afternoon, spend the night at Joaquin’s place and wake up very early the next morning to ascend the volcano, starting from there. If everything went well and we shall made the summit, we should repeat the morning feat but all the way down in the afternoon.
At 3:15 a.m. our cozy sleep was interrupted by my phone’s alarm. While Armando and the others put their mountain biking clothes on, I jumped into my running outfit. We had some quesadillas and coffee for breakfast, then at around 4 a.m. they rode their bikes and started pedaling their way towards the mountain.
Meanwhile, Joaquin and I rode his truck and headed to the small village of Hidalgo, where he dropped me so I could run uphill towards Piedra Grande hut. It was a short but strenuous 9-km steep dirt road, which took me about 1 hour and 30 minutes to cover at a moderate pace. I arrived to Piedra Grande about 15 minutes before Joaquin and the rest of the team with their bikes.
Around 7:30 a.m., we quickly changed clothes and grabbed our gear to start the climb. The volcano has a lot of snow nowadays due to the recent winter storms, so it was really easy to walk up the first steep hills and reach the infamous section known as El Laberinto. Once there, we stepped onto our crampons and the real fun began, taking the most direct way through those couloirs to reach the base of Jamapa glacier.
We arrived to the glacier just to find that the two existing paths diverged greatly sideways instead of following the most direct/natural line in the middle of it. Armando and I agreed to climb our own path to avoid covering unnecessary distance, besides snow conditions were mostly safe despite having to break steps into it. Fabiola and Aaron were roped to Armando, while I climbed solo as I usually do. Armando and I switched leads while zigzagging across the steep ice field.
We got to the summit at 2 p.m, barely 6 hours after leaving the hut. We exchanged hugs, sipped water, ate some bars, took some pictures and immediately started the descent, which we managed in exactly 2 hours, having lots of fun along the way.
At 4 p.m we were back at the hut and changing clothes, then left our climbing gear with Joaquin and continued the descent. Fabiola, Aaron and Armando quickly vanished once they rode their bikes, while I comfortably flew downhill along the steep dirt road in my Hoka’s. After 50 minutes of somewhat fast running, I stopped at Hidalgo and waited for Joaquin to pick me up with his truck.
The total time for me was 12:08:27 (including transitions), for 30.5 km of running/climbing and 2,300 of positive altitude change. Definitely a memorable way of celebrating my 34th birthday! Oh, but that wasn’t all, because Maribel (Joaquin’s daughter) received us with a birthday cake to continue celebrating by end of the day!
Rest of the photos are here or in the slideshow below:
Yesterday I returned from another fun week in Brazil. After a few things learned from last year, Joan wanted to give another try at the Brazil 135 ultramarathon, this time with the aim of finishing it under 40 hours.
But first, I traveled in advance to São Paulo, to spend a few days touring the city, where I tasted the amazing food (sushi & temakis included!), the good beer, a couple of runs around downtown, the art cinema at Reserva Cultural and the great vibe of Avenida Paulista all day round.
Joan arrived to town on Wednesday morning, then in the afternoon we met with Allisson and a few friends and drove all the way to São João da Boa Vista, where the race starts. On Thursday morning we attended the lengthy pre-race briefing and met a bunch of friends, then went to the supermarket to buy supplies and headed back to the hotel to prepare everything for Friday.
Race started at 8 a.m. on Friday, the ambiance was great and the weather was a bit cloudy, which almost guaranteed some rain during the day. Joan made steady progress from the start to the top of Pico do Gaviao (km 45), the highest point along the course. Meanwhile, Edinho (our hired driver) and I followed the Caminho da Fé on board of his 4×4 truck, providing Joan with food and fluids along the way. Our main goal was to keep him moving as much as possible to avoid losing time in unnecessary stops, the plan went really smooth.
Like last year, I started pacing Joan at Serra dos Limas (km 77), where he had a quick lunch of pasta, we were 1.5 hours ahead of last year’s time. Night caught us a little before arriving to Barra (km 84), where we didn’t stop at all and continued towards Crisólia (km 99). Another fast meal and a switch to Hoka’s took us about 10 minutes to leave Crisólia. We did great progress and trotted much of the course, which felt a lot better with the cushy shoes on. By then, it had not rained at all and the sky was now crystal clear and full of stars.
We entered Ouro Fino (km 106) exactly at midnight. While Joan continued moving, I refilled our water bottles and grabbed a bit of snacks and a Coke. We were out of town in no time and steadily approached to Inconfidentes (km 115), where we arrived at 1:45 a.m. of Saturday, exactly 3 hours ahead from last year’s time. We made a 10-minute stop to grab more water and eat some sandwiches. Since it was still very early in the night, I continued pacing Joan towards Borda da Mata (km 137).
At 5:25 a.m. we arrived at the checkpoint in Borda da Mata, Edinho was already there with the all the supplies in place. Joan was getting an upset stomach but he still got some food and fluids while Edinho gave him some massage in his legs. I continued pacing for another 5 km until sunrise caught us, then jumped into the truck and wished Joan luck for the rest of the day, my duties for the night were done. We drove towards Tocos do Moji (km 153), where we waited for Joan for about an hour.
While I got a brief nap, Edinho noticed that one of the suspension bars under the truck got broke during the drive. He immediately started looking for some mechanic to help him fix the problem as we wouldn’t be able to continue driving along the dirt road in such state. Meanwhile, Joan arrived at 9:10 a.m. and I had to tell him the news, which troubled him a little since we were making such great progress. I told him to not worry at all and to focus on keeping himself moving, then assured we would catch him along the course in no time.
After I dispatched Joan, Edinho arrived with the mechanic and quickly assessed the problem, we moved truck to his shop so he could start fixing it. While I had another nap, both men did an outstanding job in repairing the bar, soldering the piece and adding a few reinforcements which would allow us to continue without troubles until finishing the race.
We found Joan in the middle of a very hilly section, the day was kind of hot and he was struggling with the idea of failure due to the truck’s issue. The look in his face quickly morphed into happiness when he saw us arrive with the fixed truck. We waited for him at the top of the last hill in that section, where Edinho excelled at preparing some soup and sandwiches for brunch. We continued towards Estiva (km 175), where Joan arrived at 2:10 p.m., 7.5 hours ahead from his previous time, in a much better mood and ready to tackle the last two sections of the course.
Edinho and I made the next stop at the top of the highest hill on the way to Consolação, a bunch of clouds now covered the sky and lots of rainfall could be seen in different places in the horizon, it was evident that it would catch us at some point soon. Joan passed by while we slotted a Nutella sandwich in his mouth, then I prepared myself for pacing duties again. Though it was still early in the afternoon, Edinho and I thought it was a good idea to resume pacing since we were basically 30 km away from the finish line and some company would be nice through the upcoming rainstorm.
Rain caught us while entering Consolação (km 195), which Joan quickly passed through while I briefly stopped to pick up our rain jackets and headlamps. With gear in hands, I had to fly about 1 km of downhill to catch Joan, who was about to enter a short section of paved road. Edihno escorted us along this section and through the rain, which got worse with every few meters we gained.
Once again at the dirt road, the storm was in full blast, we were soaking wet and starting to get cold due to our wet clothes. Another brief stop at the start of that section allowed us change into dry and warmer clothes. Joan picked up his Goretex jacket and swapped the Hoka’s for the Salomon’s since the road was really muddy and kind of slippery. Edinho moved forward, stopping after one of the big hills in that stretch, about 5 km ahead. Joan continued moving while I quickly went ahead to refill the water bottles, then Edinho passed us again and promised to meet us at the top of the mountain. The rain stopped and we enjoyed the early hours of the night accompanied by the hordes of frogs who chanted all around.
We tackled the last long downhill towards Paraisopolis (km 217) in almost no time and met Edinho at the rocky street that leads to the main plaza and the finish line. We crossed the line at 10:49 p.m. or 38 hours 49 minutes and 49 seconds after departure from São João the day before. Joan was ecstatic, that was a little more than 8 hours off from his last year’s time. The mission was accomplished and everyone did its part in nearly perfect way, but of course the weather and course conditions helped a lot.
We had our own private awards ceremony as usual, then stayed there for some time to phone home and wait for a few more fellow runners to arrive as well. After a well-deserved shower and a some slices of tasty pizza, we hit the sack and slept like rocks until 9 a.m. of Sunday.
On Sunday morning, after a good breakfast and packing our gear, we said goodbye to Edinho and many good friends around Paraisopolis plaza, then jumped into Allisson’s truck for the long drive back to São Paulo. Once in São Paulo, Joan and I spent the evening having drinks, good food and doing a last walk around the Jardim Paulista neighborhood. It’s always fun times while being in Brazil… Tudo bom!
Rest of the photos are here or in the slideshow below:
This time I won’t write a brief recap of the year, however, during the last couple of days I’ve been reflecting on the bunch of things that happened.
Just like every other year, 2011 was packed with a lot of good things: travel, races, mountains, family, new and old friends, work, concerts, training… the list could be long. But it also had some very rough moments: losses, angst, illness, depression…
All of this forced me to practice and try to learn a lot of things, among others: detachment, meditation, tolerance, compassion, forgiveness, humility. This definitely wasn’t planned but the way some events happened didn’t left room for standing still, actions had to be taken.
There’s still plenty to work on for the next year and onwards, but some of the resolutions I’ve made include: put less or none expectations on people, let go of people who I no longer feel identified with, make peace with different pending subjects, reconnect with my inner self, worry less and enjoy more…
It wouldn’t be fair to say that this year was bad because, in fact, it wasn’t. It was just really tough, in every possible way, good and bad. I’m grateful with it because it left me with a lot of things to work on and improve, but also because it’s gone now. I’m pretty sure this was just the beginning of a better and much saner way of life.
