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I went with Octavio to the first gig. As usual, we found our way into the crowd and managed to get in the middle-front of the stage, our favorite place for the mosh pit. The sound quality was superb and the band’s performance even better. We enjoyed every chord and drum beat to their fullest, as well as Mikael Åkerfeldt’s death grunts and clean vocals. The show lasted 2 hours, but every minute of it was a total delight. This was the setlist for the 1st night:

Images are copyrighted by Germán García and the full set can be seen here.

I arrived to Monumento al Caminero at around 5:20 a.m. and went to the start line to pick up my race number, there I met a lot of the usual suspects from the Solo Para Salvajes running circuit. We did the morning greeting and continued our preparation for the race.

Before the race started I saw my good friends Chalita and Toño Cortés, we cheered each other while talking about our estimates for finishing the race. We only really hoped that the day didn’t get too hot or it’ll become a nightmare. Around 6:15 a.m. the gun was fired and we started our run, 150 runners according to Pedro Fletes, the race director.

The very first kilometers are tough since they’re uphill paved roads, you have to be careful when choosing between trotting or power-walking that section or you might suffer the consequences later in the day. I opted to trot at a constant pace, allowing me to pass runners without burning a lot of my energy, I felt pretty good.

We entered the first forest section after passing Arco Natural, it was mostly single track with lots of uphills. Then came another long esplanade before getting into the forest around the base of Cerro Pelado. I power-walked that last uphill section until getting to the other side of the volcano.

A little change in the course for this year was to climb to the top of the volcano in a direct line along one of its flanks, without trail, by simply jumping over the grass in its steep slopes. I’m good in that kind of terrain due to my frequent mountain climbs, so it was easy for me to start passing people once again. I arrived to the top, picked up a colored rubber band, sipped some water and started the descent in my traditional fashion: by running like a madman.

I got to the base of the volcano and intersected the main trail that goes to Fierro del Toro. Its very first kilometers are a bit uncomfortable since it has several sections of rocks, but then it becomes a soft dirt road that allows you to increase the pace. There are also a couple of single track shortcuts that go into the woods and which add some adventurous feeling to the whole thing. Then comes another section of semi-flat esplanades before joining a federal road and reaching Fierro del Toro. The 2nd aid station was placed there, around the 25th kilometer of the course.

Tres Marías was the halfway point of the course this year at 31.5 km. I spent very little time at the aid station there, I simply grabbed a couple of bananas and drank plenty of water. I opted to not refill my bottles till getting back to Fierro del Toro, I didn’t want to carry any extra weight for the short 6.5 km stretch. I said thanks to the crew there and started my way back to Mexico City, leaving that couple of runners who were in front of me before

Getting back to Fierro del Toro was a bit difficult because of the amount of dust in the extremely dry trail. Most of the runners were still on their way to Tres Marías so the few of us on the way back had to bite their dust in the air. I got to Fierro del Toro starting to feel a lot of thirst so, before entering the aid station, I stopped by a little store to buy a Coke and refilled one of my bottles with it. At the aid station I drank lots of Gatorade and water, refilled the other bottle, ate more bananas and grabbed an energy bar. My friend Toño Cortés was arriving there from Cerro Pelado, he was taking things slowly as he simply wanted to finish the race in time before the cutoffs. We shook hands and wished luck, we were both going on different ways and some runners already started to pass me.

I tried to run as much as possible on my way up to Cerro Pelado, however, what was a fast trail on the descent became a power-walk path for all of us during the climb back. Fortunately, this time we didn’t have to climb to the very top but just go around the volcano along the normal race course. After 1 1/2 hours I passed the checkpoint before starting my run down to Mexico City’s Valley, I was on the 21st place and a bit ahead of the next runners. But still 19 km to go…

I ran out of drinks while entering the large esplanades before Arco Natural. I started to feel very thirsty again but not dehydrated, I slowed my pace to a power-walk so I didn’t overheat but continued moving. After some time, a couple of runners reached me so I had to increase my pace, before getting to Arco Natural they passed me as I was starting to go slow again. I only hoped to arrive soon at the aid station before entering the city.

After 2 p.m. I got where the 1st aid station was. It was supposed to be there, but instead it was only Pedro (the race director) who, in an emergency, had to buy extra water bottles and soft drinks and drove all the way up there with his car to give the minimal basic support to runners since the aid station ran out of supplies earlier in the day. He could only offer me one cup of water since his supplies were very few and a bunch of runners would arrive after me in the afternoon. I told him that not having an intermediate aid station in the last 16 km (the hardest part of the course) was something bad with such temperatures. He apologized and explained that there were no volunteers for setting up such aid station so he and his team were doing their best effort, I agreed and totally understood.

When I entered the city a bee stung me in the shoulder (I accidentally hit her when running below a tree) but also bought a bottle of Gatorade at the first store I found. I quickly refilled one of my bottles and, while taking big gulps from it, I started to run as fast as possible along the streets. Still 7 km to go but I began to feel alive and strong again. I ran and ran more until passing some of the runners ahead of me. I was running really fast, feeling the rush of the last hundreds of meters of the race.

I crossed the finish line after 9:10:43, the judges told me I finished in the 23rd place! I was ecstatic, I couldn’t believe it. Folks congratulated me as I crossed the street to lay myself over the grass. I took of my shoes, drank a lot of water
and called my dearest ones. I was thrashed but extremely happy, a pending business had just ended

Rest of the pictures are here.

We woke up early in the morning and filled our water bottles, then headed out of the neighborhood towards the start of the forest trails. We ran along our usual course, but this time we continued as if going all the way up to Villa Alpina.

We ran 10.5 km uphill till reaching the last viewpoint before Xonacatlán, there we turned back and ran downhill along the same trail. It wasn’t the first time that Mokka went there, but certainly it was by running.

She seemed to enjoy every part of the run. It was a chilly morning so we found a couple of frosted sections along the trail. The skies were clear and the air felt really pure.

After almost 3 hours and 21 km in the mountains, we were back at home, exhausted but really happy of the amazing run we just had.

We had breakfast with Gina and Güero, then I spent some time finishing a couple of pending things from work. In the afternoon I took Mokka to my parents’ place to have lunch and spend the rest of the day together

There were about 400 applying organizations, of which only 150 got accepted. Seems like it’s a pretty tough year to apply, Google is reducing the number of accepted organizations compared to last year by more than 20, and in addition they wanted to accept a few new ones, so a significant number of organizations who participated last year would have had to be rejected already.

Well, we can try again and harder next year and maybe we end up having better luck. Who knows?

I went with Luis Arturo but we had different plans; while I wanted to do 2 summit attacks in a single day, he simply wanted to reach the summit once for all. However, the weather wasn’t very good thus making our progress a bit confusing on some sections of the mountain.

I descended via the glacier instead of the usual normal route so I could meet Luis Arturo who was climbing a couple of hours behind me. He also opted to bail when he reached the base of the glacier, the null visibility made him take the wrong entrance to the upper ice funnels, a precarious place to be with that kind of weather. From that point we went down together since the weather continued to be unpromising for the rest of the day…

Rest of the pictures are here.

We have created a wiki page to collect ideas, possible projects, prerequisites, possible solution approaches, mentors, other people or channels to contact for more information or to bounce ideas off of, etc. If you are interested in participating, please take a look at it.

As usual, the race took place in Nevado de Toluca and consisted of a 26 km out and back run to nearly the top of the mountain. For Sergio and Octavio this was their first experience at a trail race, which made them kind of nervous about the outcome. I was very confident that they’d perform well, since both are making good progress with their training for the Mexico City marathon in August.

At the starting line we met Chalita, Nahila and the usual friends from the Solo Para Salvajes running circuit. The race began around 10 a.m. and each of us applied a different strategy, Luis went ahead with the leading group as usual, the rest of us stayed with the middle of the pack. The first 10 km went really well, with Sergio a little bit ahead of Octavio and myself, we both wanted to save energies for the 2nd half of the route.

As soon as the dirt road was left behind and the mountain trail began I switched into attack mode. I have very good practice at fast walking up the mountain so I used this ability to start passing people, including Sergio. I got to the highest point in the route as fast as possible and immediately started my way down, running downhill like a madman and passing lots of people who didn’t felt really confident of the sandy slopes.

I got my way out of the mountain crater and retook the dirt road down to the forest and the finish line, there were another 9 km to go. It was just a matter of pacing myself all the way down, no more hills were ahead of me so it wasn’t going to be anything complicated.

I crossed the finish line with a time of 3:05:20, a very good time for a mountain race. I met with Luis and Chalita who finished about 30 and 20 minutes ahead of me (respectively), and we waited for Octavio and Sergio to arrive. The first one was Octavio, about 20 minutes after me, then it was Sergio at around 40 minutes.

Octavio felt really well but opted to maintain a conservative pace rather to burn out his energies and get bonked in the last kilometers. Sergio on the other hand went out really well but he started to have knee problems on the downhills, so badly that he had to walk a good amount of the course on his way back.

Each of us was happy about the experience so we opted to not wait for the awards ceremony and headed back to Mexico City, not without the obligated stop in La Marquesa to enjoy the excellent food. Once again we met Chalita, Nahila and other friends who happened to stop at the same food cabin where we did. We had lunch together and shared stories about past races and future plans, it was a great time with friends