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"Gravity would be softer were its acceleration not as fast."

- Eugene Miya

Archive for June, 2009

Monday, June 29th, 2009

Mountain Summer

Summer is here, as well as the rain, so everything is getting pretty again after a long (Winter & Spring) dry season. Yesterday I did another speed solo ascent of Iztaccíhuatl via the Ayoloco route. I didn’t break my personal record from April but logged a great time of 3:40:17, from car to summit, and 5:58:50 roundtrip!

Originally, my idea was to do a double ascent of the mountain as a hills/endurance training for the upcoming Leadville Trail 100-miler in August, but weather didn’t look promising while I was coming down from the 1st lap, so I opted to leave it for another day. Hopefully in a couple of weeks…

Rest of the pictures are here.

Thursday, June 18th, 2009

2 days of aweinspiring trails

As you may remember, last week I wrote a post about the 1st stage of Prueba de los 3 Días, a 3-day 116 km stage ultramarathon organized by the Solo para Salvajes running circuit.

This weekend we ran its 2nd & 3rd stages to complete the race. It was totally awesome! The full 3-day (116 km) course is shown in the image below (click on it to see a detailed report w/ charts):

The 2nd stage was run on Saturday and it consisted of a 38 km course from El Zarco to Presa Iturbide. A strenuous run but not as much as the 45 km from the 1st stage. I completed it in 5:22:51 and had lots of fun with folks along the course. The scenery started to get more inspiring, as we entered less populated rural areas in the Western Mexico City Sierra.

In the afternoon I came back to the city. Gerardo was in town and invited us to his parents’ place to celebrate his success on Mt. Everest. Lots of fun with the good old mountaineering friends

The 3rd and final stage started at 9 a.m. on Sunday. It was the most beautiful course from the 3-day race, a 33 km (mostly single track) route from Presa Iturbide to Villa del Carbón. Most of the course was downhill so it was easy for everyone to do a speedy run. I logged a time of 4:19:56 and enjoyed every bit of the trail. It had an amazing scenery!

I arrived to Villa del Carbón totally exhausted but with a giant grin on my face. The mission was accomplished, the 3-day race came to its end. I couldn’t help but think in the next edition of it for 2010, which will take place in the Sierra Tarahumara!

After a big lunch with fellow runners, I took a car back to Mexico City. I had a shower at home, did a little maintenance on my feet and drove my way to Odina’s place for a big dinner with her family. Another amazing weekend to talk about

Photos from Saturday are here and from Sunday are here.

Tuesday, June 9th, 2009

Another busy Sunday

Sunday morning was about running, but running long. I ran the 1st stage of Prueba de los 3 Días, a 3-day 116 km stage ultramarathon organized by the Solo para Salvajes running circuit.

This is the 2nd edition of the race and its 1st stage consisted of a 45 km trail run from Fierro del Toro to El Zarco. I felt good during the run, taking it easy for most of the course and logging a total time of 6:10:58 for the strenuous mountain trails that are above 3,000 meters.

Stages 2 & 3 (38 & 33 km respectively) will take place the next weekend and I’m looking forward to run them as well. They will be something really fun, just like this one

Race photos can be seen here.

In the evening after the race, Odi and I went to Metallica’s concert at Foro Sol. Despite of being a short gig (2 hours), we greatly enjoyed it. We sang, yelled, banged our heads and jumped like teenagers full of energy. It was a memorable time for us together. The setlist for the gig was the following:

Metallica Setlist Foro Sol, Mexico City, Mexico 2009, World Magnetic