Goings on about town

Kristen, Jeff, Lindsay, and Puebla at the final waterfall

While the LEC events were fun, they left us exhausted an hoping for a return to normal ‘life’ – where once again the gym is empty, and the property is quiet most of the time.

The following few weeks were perfect.  Our M/W/F Spanish lessons were really starting to pay off, as we were seeing major improvement in speaking and comprehension.  Edgardo was working us pretty hard, and we left several of the lessons nearly brain-dead from the effort.  He also told us about a local bike race, set to take place on March 21 in town.  A friend of his from the gym, Ezekiel, told him about it, and he passed the info along to us.  I hadn’t raced in a couple of years, but was excited at the prospect nonetheless.  Apparently there was a preview ride of the course that Sunday as well.  I attended the preview ride, which turned out to be just me and one other local guy named Nicolas.  The course 60km, pretty flat, and on a mixture of asphalt and dirt roads – what they call a ‘rural bike’ course here.  Not exactly my forte, but I decided to go full on into training.  For the next few weeks, I attempted to train based on an abbreviated cycle – starting with endurance, and building over a couple weeks into tempo and threshold work.  Obviously it wouldn’t be enough, but at least it was something, and it was sure fun to be back training.

Nicolas and I also ended up becoming friends.  We rode a couple times a week up the local trails, and went on several long weekend rides.  It was great for me, because Nicolas doesn’t speak English, so I was forced to talk to him in Spanish the entire time.  It ended up being a great supplement to the lessons.

We also went on a hike up to the local waterfall with Gabi, Lindsay, and Lindsay and John’s dog Puebla.  Lindsay led the hike, since she knew the route (typically first-timers need a guide).  It’s really a fantastic hike – the valley in that part of town is Zion Canyon-esque, with high, sheer walls of red sandstone.  We took a couple detours trying to find a separate trail that would turn the hike into a loop (which we failed to find), but despite that, the hike was great – we wanted to repeat it ASAP.