travels, races, and other musings

I'm so proud of where I am as a runner these days. I really never thought I would be able to run as fast as I did yesterday. It was a tougher course than I was mentally prepared for and there were several times where I really had to put mind over matter and just push through. The end result was that I made my aggressive goal. I really wanted to come in under 1 hour and I did. The time on my GPS when I stopped it read 59:01 and my official chip time was even better at 58:44. (There are always a few seconds of disorientation on my part at the end of a race where I remember to hit the stop button.) Roger also set a personal best in the 5k yesterday, so I'm pleased for him as well. My splits definitely reflect the course, but I'm pleased that even with a HUGE uphill for the entire second mile, I kept pretty well on pace. When I was between mile markers 2 and 3, I seriously thought the hill would never end (heading southbound on South Congress between Riverside and Oltorf ...

I thought it might be nice to put down some of my thoughts and impressions of Costa Rica as well as provide some information regarding some of the things we learned while we were there regarding the language, food, animals and more. Language I already mentioned that the Costa Ricans are often referred to as ticos. Evidently this stems from some language differences in Costa Rican spanish. They are said to frequently use a diminutive ending of ito (as in poquito - the word for small) on some words, as a term of endearment. I only heard this used once (but my spanish isn't very good so it might have happened more often and I wasn't aware of it). One of the guides for our canyoning group called another one seniorito which isn't really a word in spanish (there is of course seniorita which is a young woman). There are evidently other minor differences and sayings unique to Costa Rican spanish but I noticed very little. I noticed two things worth mentioning, first is their...

We woke up fairly early in order to get an early start on our drive back to San José. We were going to spend Monday night in the big city so that we could catch our 7 AM flight back home on Tuesday. We ate breakfast, got ready and finished packing and we were on the road by 8 AM. A little after 11, we arrived in San José and began the task of finding our hotel. Costa Rica is a little strange when it comes to street names and numbers. Some streets in the capital and larger cities have names or numbers, but most don't. Houses and buildings don't generally have numbers. How do they get mail? Generally by description. "The green house 100 meters past the large fig tree near the church."  This is fine in small villages, but it's starting to become a problem in the big city. Evidently, they're working on it. Our hotel was between Calles 30 and 32 on 2nd Ave (or something like that) but we couldn't find street signs so we were circling around for a bit. It wa...

On Sunday we ate breakfast and then hopped in the car to go to Caño Negro Wildlife Refuge. Caño Negro is in northern Costa Rica, almost to the Nicaraguan border. It is a refuge of forests and marshlands along the Rio Frio. The plan was to travel north to Los Chiles and catch a boat tour down the river to view the wildlife.  We had originally intended to visit Monteverde Cloud Forest (which is southwest of Arenal), but Felix, our tour guide for the bike trip said that Caño Negro was better in terms of wildlife. Caño Negro is also closer at about an hour and a half drive as opposed to three to four for Monteverde. The drive seemed to take longer and when we hit one of the towns where we were supposed to turn, we seemed to have come at it from the wrong direction. We clearly didn't make a turn we were supposed to, but we ended up in the right place. It just took us longer. A couple of hours later, we arrived at a dirt road turn off with signs indicating Caño Negro, however, I thou...

Saturday was another beautiful day. The weather was shining and perfect but the volcano had some fog around the top. We were leisurely this morning. We ate breakfast and then headed out to explore some areas we hadn't checked out before. We drove up around the volcano and explored another hiking trail we hadn't tried. We hiked through some forested areas awhile before turning around and going back to the hotel for our afternoon of canyoning (aka canyoneering or rappelling). We were picked up in a tour van and taken to the canyoning company's lodge where we ate lunch. It was a typical tico lunch of rice with vegetables and beans. It was quite good. After lunch, everyone piled into a couple of vans and drove on a paved road, then a dirt road. Then, when the dirt road became impassable by van, we transferred to four-wheel drive vehicles and bumped our way through the hills. Finally, we arrived at the mouth of a trail where we put on our harnesses and helmets. Then we w...

We began this morning with a mountain bike tour. They picked us up in a van with the bikes on top and we drove to a location near Arenal National Park. There was one other couple on our tour, the van driver and our guide, Felix. The ride was on dirt roads, all passable by vehicle so we weren't really seeing anything we couldn't see by car but it was rough enough that a mountain bike was required in terms of using a bike. It wasn't super hilly - mostly rolling hills and the steeper hills were fairly short. It wasn't overly technical (since it was on roads for cars). The entire trip was an out and back course with several stops on the way out to look at scenery and a top at the turnaround with pineapples, watermelon, cookies, water and juice. We enjoyed the ride, but we were tired when we got back and I decided that I'm definitely a roadie! Even on an easy course, I'm not very good at mountain biking. It was also strange riding without clipless pedals. I kept ...

We got up early to try to get to Bike Arenal (who offer mountain bike tours) when they opened at 8 AM, so we could make a reservation for a half day mountain bike tour for that afternoon (with the plan of going to the 9 AM Sky Tram tour). Unfortunately, when we arrived, they didn't have any space left and could only make us a reservation for the following day. We chose their morning departure at 8 AM. Then we headed down the street to check out some possibilities for other tours. We made a reservation to go canyoning (rappelling) on Saturday afternoon. Then we set out for the Sky Tram tour. We made it there in time for a 9 AM tour, however, there were enough people for two groups so we waited until 9:15 or so and went up with a fairly large group. There was a group of 6 (a family and their friends) and two other couples besides ourselves. We chatted a bit with a couple on their honeymoon from Boston. The tram ride up was nice. It was peaceful and the guide told us some facts abou...

We awoke to sun streaming in the window and birds chirping outside our windows. We got showered, dressed and headed up to breakfast. The free breakfast provided by the hotel is really quite extensive. They have some Costa Rican food (such as black beans and rice, which is traditionally eaten at nearly every meal, and fried plantains which are like bananas) as well as more traditional western breakfast items (eggs, french roast, cereal, etc). I enjoyed some fresh fruits (papaya, pineapple, and watermelon) as well as the fried plantains and rice with black beans. After breakfast we started our day at the Arenal Hanging Bridges. This hike through the Arenal forest is about 2 miles of trails interspersed with small bridges as well as large pedestrian suspension bridges. We didn't see many animals - mostly some birds, a praying mantis, leaf cutter ants, and lizards. Near the end, we did get to enjoy watching several spider monkeys in the trees above. We saw some beautiful scenery (wit...

Our flight departed early in the morning so we were on the road to the airport before dawn. The flights were uneventful. We went to Houston, changed planes in Houston, then boarded a flight for San José, Costa Rica. The flight to Costa Rica was about 3.5 hours (we were shown a heavily edited version of "Casino Royale" in flight). We landed, went through passport control, obtained our luggage, went through customs and headed for the car rental counter. We then boarded a shuttle to the main rental facility and went through the (slow) process of renting a mini-SUV for our excursions. Our hotel had good directions from San José so we used those in conjunction with a couple of maps we had. The roads were actually in fairly good condition (and paved). After about an hour, the roads became narrower, with one lane bridges interspersed here and there and it was very very curvy and often very steep. Luckily, I'm no flatlander and I learned to drive in the Rockies. We arrive...

I felt very good about my race this morning at the Lone Star Triathlon. The weather on Saturday was horrible and poured rain on the racers competing in the sprint distance triathlon. We handed out gatorade at the Texas Iron aid station (and cheered and rang our cow bells) on Saturday and it was truly miserable weather for a triathlon. We had some concerns about the weather today, but it turned out to be okay (except for some unbelievable wind which I'll get into more details about later). Pre-Race I was actually feeling pretty nervous yesterday about the race. I talked a bit to Jamie and Andrea late in the afternoon and they were both so reassuring I felt better after talking to them. By this morning my nervousness was gone for the most part and I felt ready to race. I woke up around 6:30, ate a bit of breakfast I knew would sit well (banana bread, a few bites of apple and some pomegranate juice). I took a shower (pointless, I know since I was about to go get gross and sweaty...