Mexico Part 1

Its been a while since I updated the blog, so its time to get to it. 3 days after my birthday (last post) I was off to Mexico for 16 days returning to Vancouver this Monday at 2am. The time in Mexico was great, the weather was not what I was expecting (or for that matter anyone in Mexico), but still had a great time with dad and mom when she came back. Training was also good despite rainy and windy days not so different from what we are used to…

I flew to Mexico overnight on Christmas eve and got to Tampico by 11am on Christmas Day. The flight was good, but what I thought to be a good choice (overnight flight) turned out to be a torture as I barely slept. Needless to say I needed a massive nap when I got home. I spent the next 5 days until the 30th in Tampico, training, eating, sleeping, and hanging out with that as he worked from home most of the time.

Training involved swimming in the only decent pool in the city which is heated with solar panels. As the weather was cloudy and rainy there was not much heat available and the water temperature was at a constant 22-23C. This temperature was not so bad without a wetsuit (it was not pleasant either) and I still managed to swim 6k most days. Besides the pool there was a gym where I could do strength training anytime. Cycling in the city is a big risk, streets are not nearly as smooth with huge potholes in many places, drivers and specially taxis are in a mad rush always, not everyone obeys all traffic lights, etc. Therefore for the first 5 days cycling was done inside the university campus in a 2.1km loop with lots of turns (not a boring square). The circuit was pretty fun, there was no traffic or people as classes were finished, and there was plenty of shortcuts to allow dad to “cheat” and make me work hard -really hard sometimes- to catch him. It was good times and after I got used to the handling of dads road bike (he was using moms) I practiced lots of high speed cornering, accelerations, etc.

During this time I gave “moms freezer” a good run for the money and cleared lots of home made raviolis, pies, roasts, bread. Basically anything that she makes and I love was on jeopardy. Dad was also happy to have someone to take care of the defrosting and cooking/warming up process, but to him moms home made goodies are the usual, lucky him…

On the 30th we headed up to an Adventure Resort about 3 hours away from Tampico. The resort is on a town called Gomez Farias, which is as small as mmmm… imagine something small, like a 10-12 block strip, one pharmacy, a couple of pantries, 2 or 3 bars, no gas station for 30km, one big plaza in the middle, one police truck… get the picture? Well, kind of like that... (I forgot to mention that there was cellphone reception only within 100m of the town entrance rock arch.) The town is located about 700m above sea level and its in the middle of a forest, I will post some pictures as its kind of hard to describe it.

Anyways, so the resort was all inclusive as there were not many places to go and eat other than the other 2 hotel restaurants in town. Included in the package was zip lining (700m of lines), basic mountain bikes to ride on trails, kayak, rock climbing, and rappel. You could also rent ATVs to go around the forest, or 1hr horseback rides.
Out of the 5 days in the resort, 2 were glorious, 3 were cold, windy, overcast, foggy. I guess you can expect that 700m up in the forest with a bunch of mountains around. As far as training was concerned I was a little more relaxed and there was less structure. I would do what I could when I could. I manage to get in a couple of good runs around town and in the trails, 3 bike rides around the area including some huge rollers and a 6km 6% climb (roughly), no swims, lots of dryland strengthening with therabands, ankle weights, core exercises, etc. Aside from that we rock climbed a couple of times, played ping pong every night, went on an off road adventure in the truck (its ok mom, no damage) to a village up the mountain, ate lots and lots of food in the buffet (at least I did, dad was more “normal”). We wanted to go kayaking one day but it was not available, the following day was way too cold and then we had to leave. Despite that it was very good times, something different, spending new years between ping pong matches (not kidding).

Pictures and Part 2 to come.