Taking it "easy"

I'll try to keep this short...

After visiting the chiropractor on Monday and Wednesday, he told me that my waist was 100% recovered and finally let me start training again. That of course made me more than happy, I was starting to get depressed for not having any physical activity for a week (I'm an endorphin junkie). Also, having Mokka quiet for so many days allowed her to do a couple of bad things in the backyard garden. Despite of knowing the kind of insane person that I am, the doctor simply advised to "please take it easy" when going back to training...

I've been doing stretching exercises and the flexibility in my waist has been progressively coming back to normal. On Tuesday I went out for my morning trail run with Mokka. We only ran 9 km of our usual course, but we greatly enjoyed them. Being on the trails together was something we both really missed. This time I carried my handheld bottles instead of the waistpack so I didn't irritate my nerves again ;)

Mokka came back home exhausted but I felt really good. After doing some work stuff during the day, I decided to go out for a bit of endurance climbing at the University wall. I did a single 400m lap and was really careful of not doing any movements which could hurt my lower back again, it worked pretty well. I came back home, had a shower and went to the movies.

During the night I decided to go to Nevado de Toluca with Mokka on Saturday. We woke up early in the morning, had a light breakfast, grabbed our gear and headed to the mountain. I planned on doing the usual circumnavigation of the volcano along the crater's rim.

It took us 2 hours 30 minutes to go from the car to the summit. I didn't realize we had such a fast pace until we got there, I was feeling really well and Mokka was next to me for most of the trail. We had some quick lunch at the summit and came down directly into the crater, I wanted Mokka to take a well-deserved swim at Laguna del Sol :)

After 3 hours 30 minutes we were back to the car and happy for the nice hike we just had. I drove back home while Mokka slept by my side. Once at home I received a call from Luis Arturo. Two days before we arranged to go to Iztaccíhuatl on Saturday but he was calling me to inform that he was in Cuernavaca with some friends and without any plans to come back to the city that day. I opted to go to Iztaccíhuatl alone, I still felt really good and thought that it would be a good opportunity to attempt another fast climb since I'd have to wear a light backpack.

I sorted my gear and slept early. At 5:15 a.m. I put my stuff in the car and headed to the mountain. By 8 a.m. I started the climb. My pace was really fast, I was feeling well and passed some parties of climbers and hikers. Bringing a very light backpack and no poles allowed me to progress quickly. On the whole climb, I stopped only once to drink a lot of Gatorade and slurp an energy gel. I didn't have to strap my crampons because the glacier was higher than usual due to its melting in these very hot days.

I stopped the chronometer at 3:33:26, I was on the summit. It took me about 5 minutes to catch my breath, the effort was really exhausting but worth it, I cut off a little more than 20 minutes from my previous record. I was happy, really happy and satisfied. I sat on the summit for almost 20 minutes, rehydrating, eating and enjoying the place, feeling myself. 3 hours later I was back at the base of the mountain, eating quesadillas and contemplating the view up the mountain, I definitely have a crush on Iztaccíhuatl :)

Today seems like a day for getting some rest, my lower back is feeling well. Nevertheless, I feel this little crave for some rock climbing... haha. I should better stop now and take things a little bit more "easy"... :-P

Photos from Friday are here and from Saturday are here.