Okay, two months since the last post. Lots of stuff going on...
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I've been lucky go get a shot at some sunshine every month this year. After the sunny Carlsbad Marathon, we had a few weeks back in Washington, then took a trip down to Cabo San Lucas in February. My dad has a time share down in Cabo, and Deb and I went down there in 2005, and then again this year.
It was a great trip, perfect weather, made even better by the fact my buddy Kevin and his fiancee Melisa joined us. They were staying a bit out of town at another resort, but we all got together pretty much every day for snorkling, dinner, or drinks. Sometimes all three.
One of the really neat things about going to Cabo in February is that it's at peak time for the whale migrations. The unit that we stayed in is on the third floor looking out at the Pacific Ocean. This year, the amount of whale traffic we saw was just incredible. You could stand and look out at the water and see spouts, fins, and an occasional jumper (breach). On the day we left, I decided to see how high I could count to without seeing a whale. My record was 12. That's a lotta whales?
We also managed to do some snorkeling down there. The water was pretty chilly - my limit was about 10 minutes - but filled with fish that would follow you around, expecting food. If you're looking at snorkeling down there, we hit two places. First, we hired a driver, which is absolutely the way to go. He picked us up from the airport when we got in and took us to our respective hotels. On snorkling day, it was a flat hourly rate to take us all over the place. Worked out to be a really good deal.
For snorkeling, we had all bought the US Divers snorkel kits at Costco so we didn't have to worry about that (they work awesome, btw).
Beaches:
First we went to Santa Maria Beach. Very nice, quiet beach, with very coarse sand. Snorkeling here was OK - and it's not far from Cabo. We tried Chileno Beach next, which is just a few more miles down the road. This was a better beach all around - better sand and more rocks to explore for wildlife. If you're going to pick one, Chileno is the way to go.
After this, our driver took us past Wal-Mart (Cabo now has Wal-Mart, Home Depot, etc.) and we picked up dinner to BBQ at our resort; this turned out to be a highlight for me. We spent a lot of time wrestling with getting the BBQ started (charcoal? wha?) but ended up working it out.
I also managed to get a couple of runs in. Running in foreign countries is always interesting. There's enough gringos in Cabo that there are a few people out doing this so it's not too odd. But the tourist area of Cabo isn't that big, so I did a bigger loop that was kind of a lap around the main part of the town. It doesn't take too many blocks off the main drag until hey, whaddya know, it's Mexico back there! I generally went early in the morning when there was little traffic, but I still got some puzzled looks from the locals. Not as bad as in Moscow, but close.
It was a good trip - lots of sun, lots of sleep, no email, and a margarita. Or two.
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In March, I was down in Las Vegas for the Microsoft MIX08 show. It's the third year of MIX and it's my favorite show to be at. This year I didn't have to present a full session - rather was just on a panel - so it was low stress. I stayed at the Wynn, which has the benefit of an almost 100y pool. So it's fun to get up early and swim in the pool there before it gets too warm or crowded with loungers - even though in this case, it wasn't warm enough outside to attract many pool-goers.
I did a fair amount of running down there as well. Running around the Strip isn't great. Most of the roads aren't pedestrian friendly, it's a little sketchy, and things are all a lot farther apart than you think. So I ran a few routes that were basically perpendicular to the Strip and it worked out OK. If you're going to do this, I recommend earlier than 9am so it's mellow out there.
This was definitely my mellowest Vegas trip ever. I didn't gamble a single time...
Deb came down later in the week and we flew to Phoenix to train for a weekend with some friends that are living there while preparing for Ironman Arizona. The riding around there is fantastic, and we did a long day that included a lap of the IMAZ course. After doing IMC, which is such a beautiful bike course, I'm not sad to be missing IMAZ. But swimming in an outdoor pool and riding with short sleeves and shorts is easy to get used to. Our hosts are both doing IMAZ and keep on bragging how nice it is to train full time and then be able to still sleep in and lounge around. Maybe someday...
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As April approaches, I'm hitting my training stride for Ironman Coeur d'Alene in June. Been getting back into 15-20 hour training weeks and more time on the bike. Running has been a little sparse since the marathon, but now that that's ramping again I'm pleased about where my fitness is. On Wednesday morning, I comfortably ran just shy of 15 miles in 2:06. It still amazes me to finish a run like that, and by a few hours later "forget" that you did it. At the same effort level, I'm significantly faster than I was last year. For anyone reading this - running takes an incredible amount of patience. Go easy, go often, and you'll make progress. Looking back, it took about 12-14 months before I really started feeling durable and comfortable doing speed workouts. That's a long time. And in that time, my fitness kind of plateaued as well. Stick with it and you'll be amazed at what happens. I guess a lot of things work that way.
I didn't spend much time on the bike over the winter and was nervous about that. That's been a big focus over the last 6 weeks or so and those numbers are coming around too. I'm looking forward to seeing how things progress over the next three months. My sense is that I'm fitter now than I was on race day for IMAZ last year - with the exception of long bike endurance, possibly. Over the past month or so, I've been doing some bike racing. It's been a fun change of pace and a chance to dabble back into a sport that I really love - I've been reminded of that. But it's easy to forget how brutally hard it is.
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My Audi is going on 9 years old and I've been considering getting a new car. It's working fine, and only has 62K on it, but at some point age is age. On one hand, it's awful nice to not have a car payment, on the other hand I'd like to get something that gets a bit better mileage. Unfortunately, the Audi has spoiled me in some ways, but it's really surprising how poor the choices are out there. I want a nice car that gets decent mileage (no, not a Tesla). I don't want a econo-box and I want it to have a little bit of style. Unfortunately, it's hard to separate. If you get nicer cars, they have bigger engines and/or are just bigger. The selection in Europe is much, much better, and hopefully that improves here as some more technologies make their way across the pond. Even the smaller cars, though (Audi A3, Volvo C30, BMW 3-series, etc) don't get substantially better mileage than my current car does. It's befuddling, I'm still working out what my priorities are. My desire for mileage is more about consumption (and visiting the pump less) than it is about cost. Even at $4/gallon, the economics can be tough. So that's not as big of a factor for me other than feeling like I'm trying to cut down on what I use.