2009 in brief
This has been a tough but great year for me. Here’s a brief summary of it:
- January: I got back into serious running after a long hiatus due to taking care of young Mokka. I climbed Iztaccíhuatl a couple of times too. The much awaited 1.6.0 version of BioPerl was finally released.
- February: I got 31 years young, bought a beautiful 5-string bass guitar and continued the hard training. Odi and I started hanging out.
- March: Had an epic weekend while climbing Iztaccíhuatl with friends. Introduced Octavio and Sergio to the world of trail running and shaved minutes to my speed solo time for climbing Iztaccíhuatl. Mokka got 1 year old and we celebrated with longer runs in the forest. By the end of the month I ran my first “short” ultra of the year and enjoyed 2 nights of Opeth’s progressive death metal. Oh, and I was also accepted to run the Leadville Trail 100!
- April: Odi and I had our first kiss! Got a serious injury in my lower back which put me into bed for a week. A week later I was “taking it easy” with recovery by trail running, rock climbing and breaking speed climbing records at Nevado de Toluca and Iztaccíhuatl. Odi and I had our first multi-pitch climbing adventure in Bernal. I also had some nice sport climbing with Beto. At the end of the month Yahoo! announced another major reorganization and I was laid-off along with my colleagues from the Canadian Engineering and Product teams.
- May: Had a great weekend camping at Morelia with Odi and my friends. Enjoyed for a 2nd time a night of Amon Amarth’s viking death metal and Anathema’s doom & alternative metal.
- June: Ran a beautiful 3-day stage ultra and attended one of Metallica’s gigs with Odi. I also enjoyed the beginning of summer by climbing Iztaccíhuatl.
- July: Odi and I became a couple after an intense weekend of climbing and attempting a self-supported single-push run of the 3-day stage ultra from the previous month. Ran a trail race and climbed Bernal in a single day. Made another speed solo climb of Iztaccíhuatl and logged my best time to date.
- August: Enjoyed a week-long trip to the Huasteca and the illness I got while at it. Ran, enjoyed and finished the Leadville Trail 100, my 2nd 100 miler to date.
- September: Finished reading my signed copy of Beyond The Mountain by Steve House. Had laughter and suffering at the Mexico City marathon and said goodbye to my job at Yahoo!
- October: Had fun while running Largo y Sinuoso Camino and attended the Banff Mountain Film Festival. Also wished luck to Beto at his new adventure in Morelia.
- November: Burned my quadriceps while running up La Malinche. Odi and I rocked hard at AC/DC’s gig.
- December: Took Odi to her first experience with snow & ice at an unbelievably frozen Iztaccíhuatl. Ran 70 km at the 1st 12-hour Trailsport Ultramarathon. Celebrated the end of the year’s racing circuit with the always-tough skymarathon at Iztaccíhuatl.
Yeah, you could say that I was very busy during 2009. 2010 looks very exciting; with a new job to start, new people to meet, projects to plan, goals to achieve and unexpected things to solve along the way. My best wishes to all of you for the new year! 
