A exceptionally imposing landscape, sound people, good weather, great coffee, boundless trails, a vast set-up of sand-roads, a synthetic 400-meter track, a gym and a olympic size swimming pool. Picture all this up at 2.280 meter above sea level and you’ll find yourself in the laid back Andes village called Cachi.

I’m in Cachi since a couple of days and to say I’m stunned would not hit the note!

Running on the foot of gigantic snow covered Andes peaks in the middle of nowhere is something else. Combined with the great company and openness of all the other runners’ here makes it a special place to be.

PICTURES

Throughout my recent excursion I had the opportunity to shot stacks of photos.

And as I do not want to overload this blog I decided to set up a photograph only spot.

So if you click HERE or on the image underneath you’ll get spoiled with visual slices I create.

Hope you like them. Feel free to check regularly & share!

Montevideo has the vibe!

I had a great time Uruguay’s capital and came across a pretty solid artist.

Check out Santi’s page and his LP debut “Hay Pasto en la Grieta”.

Free Download HERE

via Mountain Made, Molehill paid

signed up for the marathon in Santiago, April 1st. 

the date is especially fitting when you consider that only a fool would choose to run a marathon in city where the air is so bad it will make you hack up phlegm like you’ve been smoking cigarettes all day.

Guess i will be smoking some packs on the 1st as well…

A proper sundowner certainly does not get tedious.

I went out this Sunday evening to capture the ultimate transcriptions of sunlight covering the peaceful Uruguayan Rio Plata beaches.

Remarkably Lindo!

My second road race in Uruguay was another special one. Another time my form wasn’t in the one i would have liked to have. I was resting nearly two weeks after the Cruce de los Andes. After spending a couple of days in Iguazu and getting a couple of light jogs in, i arrived in Uruguay last week to stay again with Jorge and his family in the beautiful seaside town of Solis.

Solis is located just 90 kilometer east of Montevideo. It is a great and quite place right beside the sea. Lovely sand backroads and a main road with kilometer markers make it a great training location. Jorge and i put in some decent jogs in during the week prior to the race in La Paloma. The legs felt okay and fully recovered.

I’m a big fan of point-to-point races and like San Felipe – Santiago last December 7th Travesía La Pedrera – La Paloma was another exceptional course along the seaside. The direction of the route changes every year. This Saturday we ran “with the wind” alongside the splendid Atlantic coast from the unique surfer village of La Pedrera to the coastal town of La Paloma.

As the start time was at 6:30 in the evening we took it fairly easy and had no rush to made our way from Solis to sign up in La Paloma. I had to take it easy anyway as I still was under the influence of approximately 2 kg of finest Uruguayan Asado. I passed my Asador assessment the night before and my stomach is still not used to that amount of meat. Unbelievable but truly great!

Almost 300 runners lined up in luminous La Pedrera and after the first 600 meters uphill section we tracked back towards La Paloma. A modest organization and unconventional road closure methods by the local police make a race like this even more friendly and easy going.

It was hard for me to judge my form. All runs during the week felt good but I tried to start with a relaxed pace which, as usual didn’t really work out. After a couple of minutes I was running on my own between the groups and I decided to takes it easy and wait for Jorge who was just a couples of meters behind me. Together we tackled the the beautiful road along the coast. Nice crowd support and some crispy waves in the road made the race interesting. I suffered pretty early on and had to fight. It helped to run with Jorge but at around the kilometer 9 mark beside the beach i had to let him go.

I ran the rest of the race with the women leader and finished in a disappointing time of 44:08 in La Paloma. I need to plan my next Uruguay trip ahead as I would like to run one of the matchless courses in full fitness. Nevertheless this was a great race and again a good experience to run in a country that’s really growing on me.