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"I boulder with a rope. It's for body recovery."

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Archive for January, 2007

Monday, January 15th, 2007

‘Misty-que’ run

I went trail running alone this afternoon. I ran part of our route that goes from Coatepec to Cofre de Perote, 500 meters of elevation, 16 km roundtrip.

The weather was really perfect for this exhausting uphill trail, a bit cloudy and cool enough for not sweating like a pig. The night caught me when I reached the highest point and the clouds got so low that my headlamp was almost useless during the descent. Even tough the trail was a bit slippery because of mud, I managed to get down the “darkness” in a single piece. I really enjoyed it

Sunday, January 14th, 2007

Out of here (or there?)

After surviving 3 multi-birthday parties during the weekend and a good (but really sweaty) endurance training session at Espacio Escultórico with Ana, this afternoon I drove all the way southeast to Coatepec. I’ll be working remotely (or remotely working?) for some days and will continue looking for a place to rent. Hope to get some news soon…

Friday, January 12th, 2007

Of birthdays and nocturnal climbs

Lots of friends celebrate their birthdays during these days. A big hug and my condolences to all of you, hahaha. No seriously, I wish you a very happy birthday!

Oh yeah, about the climbing… Nothing spectacular, just that Ana and I went yesterday to Ciudad Universitaria for a fully-featured nocturnal climb: we avoided the surveillance personnel, we found a lot of tiny creatures along the wall, we got bitten by mosquitoes, scratched our hands and so on… She liked the place (it was her 1st time there) and I had fun as usual

Wednesday, January 10th, 2007

Caffeine Might Cut Post-Workout Pain

Hahaha, lots of coincidences these days…

Forgo the after-workout massage for a cup o’ Joe? Moderate doses of caffeine—the equivalent of two cups of coffee—can cut post-gym muscle pain, suggests a new but small study.

The findings have particular relevance for people new to exercise, since they tend to experience the most soreness.

“If you can use caffeine to reduce the pain, it may make it easier to transition from that first week into a much longer exercise program,” said lead researcher Victor Maridakis of the University of Georgia…

LiveScience.com: Caffeine Might Cut Post-Workout Pain

Tuesday, January 9th, 2007

Urgent remedy

From a couple of days ago, my legs became super-tight, just as if they were lacking of very basic elasticity; in a few words, I wasn’t even able of bending down for lacing my shoes with my legs straight.

This morning I did my stretching routine and it was really painful, to the point of almost crying while performing very simple movements. Güero told me that this condition could be due to bad hydration; that maybe I was requiring more water in my system than what I usually consume. He suggested me to continue stretching and to drink at least a third more of water than usual; hopefully, that would fix the problem.

By the afternoon, the tightness eased a little bit but I was still in the need of doing some exercise to loosen up the muscles. Ana, Cova and I went to Chiluca for bouldering a bit and by night each of them departed to their own activities; I did my own thing, I returned home running all the way down from Chiluca and adding a pair of kilometers by taking the long route.

Here at home I drank plenty of water, stretched again and everything seems to be coming back to normal. Again, I’m paying the bill for running like Forrest Gump

Monday, January 8th, 2007

The Perfect Human

A recent article that I found this morning while browsing:

Dean Karnazes was slobbering drunk. It was his 30th birthday, and he’d started with beer and moved on to tequila shots at a bar near his home in San Francisco. Now, after midnight, an attractive young woman – not his wife – was hitting on him. This was not the life he’d imagined for himself. He was a corporate hack desperately running the rat race. The company had just bought him a new Lexus. He wanted to vomit. Karnazes resisted the urge and, instead, slipped out the bar’s back door and walked the few blocks to his house. On the back porch, he found an old pair of sneakers. He stripped down to his T-shirt and underwear, laced up the shoes, and started running. It seemed like a good idea at the time…

Wired Magazine: The Perfect Human

Big coincidence, huh?

Sunday, January 7th, 2007

Why you’re doing this?

This was the existential question that a pizza-delivery guy asked ultra-marathoner Dean Karnazes after delivering him a giant pizza and a big cup of coffee at some Californian highway while he was running by midnight. Karnazes couldn’t give an answer in that moment, but he promised to get it back to him someday.

After a very long journey through many different endurance runs, he wrote a book (which is really worth reading, even if you’re not a runner) and finally got enough words to give the pizza guy a good answer. He concludes the book with this:

Here you have the answer: I run to see how far I can go. I run because it’s my way of giving back to the world by doing the one thing it is I do best.

I run because I’ve never been much of a car guy. I run because if I didn’t I’d be sluggish and glum and spend too much time on the couch. I run to breathe the fresh air. I run to explore. I run to escape the ordinary.

I run to honor my sister and unite my family. I run because it keeps me humble. I run for the finish line and to savor the trip along the way. I run to help those who can’t. I run because walking takes too long, and I’d like to get a few things done in this lifetime.

I run because long after my footprints fade away, maybe I will have inspired a few to reject the easy path, hit the trails, put one foot in front of the other, and come to the same conclusion I did: I run because it always takes me where I want to go.

I guess his answer synthesizes most of the usual reasons that come to our minds, when we (as distance runners) are being asked the same question…


Karnazes running some trail in the Mont Blanc region.

Friday, January 5th, 2007

MPI-HMMER

MPI-HMMER is a multiple-level optimization of the original HMMER 2.3.2 code by Sean Eddy of the HHMI Janelia Farms facility. This implementation consists of two distinct optimizations: a portably tuned P7Viterbi function as well as an MPI implementation. The MPI implementation is based on the original PVM HMMER code, with enhancements to improve the scalability and I/O of both hmmpfam and hmmsearch. Both optimizations are independent of one another, allowing future enhancements to be easily added and tested. The MPI implementation exhibits excellent speedups over the base PVM implementation. Further, it provides a verification mode in both hmmpfam and hmmsearch that ensures (at a cost of speed) results are returned in exactly the same order as the serial version.

The code has been tested for stability up to 256 nodes, but should scale to as many nodes as the master node’s memory allows.

MPI-HMMER Project Page:
code.google.com/p/mpihmmer/

Thursday, January 4th, 2007

New year’s purposes…

As irrational as it may seem, 2 days ago, I bought my first cell phone. Why irrational? There are plenty of possible reasons: for some, there’s no logic in someone who’s so deeply attached to computers and technology but lacks of such device; for others, I’ve always been reluctant to depend on them for any given purpose, I simply don’t like the idea of being at anyone’s disposition.

Anyway, the announcement provoked a series of responses from all kinds, some were congratulating, others were frustration-driven and others simply funny. For all of you out there who received the phone number, I want to let you know that I’ll try to do my best to use it from time to time in order to let you know about my existence.

Don’t you read this blog? Don’t you see me at any IM service? For years, I’ve thought I was just a click away from you guys. I guess I was wrong or it just wasn’t close enough…