Carmen and I went to Mexico last week, we left early Thursday morning and got back late Monday afternoon. This was our first trip without the boys since Zach was born. Travel was easy, no delays, not one single issue in immigration, not one single issue. We really enjoyed ourselves, the sun, water, food, and time relaxing was great. We were joined in Puerto Vallarta by my brother and sister-in-law, as well as another couple. We had a great time! We even played a little water polo-damn hard to get those horses in the water. :)

I had several beach runs-man I love running near the ocean. One day I ran with my sister-in-law, that was a blast as we ran along the ocean then found a hill in downtown PV that we ran repeats on.

Saturday I did a 5+ hour bike ride into the Sierra Madre mountains that took us from sea-level to several thousand meters. I had a guide, we rode on a gravel mountain road that was narrow and fairly well traveled. We both ran out of water and food and struggled in the 93 degree heat and 94% humidity. What took us nearly 5 hours to climb we descended in just over an hour. This was nerve racking as my rented bike's brakes were less then new. As we drove down the cobbled rodes of PV returning to the shop my guide who is exhausted, looks at me and says in a heavy accent "today...today we were warriors". That to me is an awesome feeling to have worked so hard, been so exhausted...but feel so alive! As I got back to the hotel Carmen had a couples' massage scheduled so we got "rubbed" in a cabana less than 20 feet from the ocean. It was simply amazing to lay there and listen to the ocean-this was an awesome day of exercise and recovery. I later learned that the average grade was 11-12% and the max grade was something like 19%.

Both boys were glad to have mom and dad back home...I was glad to be home and hold them. Being a parent is pretty darn cool.


I have added a new event to my race calendar-I am going to do an adventure race this year, will tell more why later.


Train hard!

Jeff