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.

It is vital to have certain races lined up.

Training needs to make sense, at least for me. It does when you have some new tasks on the way.

So for the next two months i aim for certain shorter road races as I’m travelling to Uruguay. From there i will make my way to the south of Argentina.

The Patagonia Run (84k) in San Martin de los Andes is on the list.

Dependent on logistical reason I will try to race the XTERRA Ilhabela 50K in Brazil a week after the race in Patagonia.

Ponte a trabajar.

Straight out of the hammock.

Swanky little feature on the german Brooks webpage.

Click on the picture to read the full article.

Nearly 2 million visitors a year make the Iguaçu Falls one of the most photographed placed on earth.

I tried to show the impressive falls in a slightly different way.

I hope you enjoy it!

Version Castellan
Version Portugues

It took me relatively long to write this post about the “Cruce de los Andes 2012” last weekend. It is great to see that people do care about this blog and the amount of emails enquiring for the report amazed me – Gracias for the interest. I initially planned to script this chunk on the 19 hour bus trip from San Martin de los Andes back to Buenos Aires but the comatose influence of argentine overland buses combined with cheap wine and the common grogginess after a race like this made it tough for me to stay awake for the major part of the journey.

There would be countless stories and experiences to share looking back at the time in the west of Argentina and the east of Chile so I will try to keep this piece short and sweet.

The annual “Cruce de los Andes” is a 3-day stage competition ran by teams of 2 individuals. Even with a minimal level of castellan it is easy to recognize by the title of the race that the main target of the contest is to cross the renowned Andes peaks. This time the task was to start in Chile and finish in Argentina.

We were a group of six who made the trip from Buenos Aires to the scenic town of San Martin de los Andes. We reached our base 2 days before the race. The enormous logistics behind the event saw us travelling a day prior to reach the first of two campsites that the organization set up. It did not take long to get an impression of the raw beauty of the Patagonian scenery while we travelled on the backroads towards Chile. The transfer to the first camp was planned with buses and finally on a ferry. We left Argentina to Chile and had to wait together with all the other participants to board the ferry from Puerto Pirehueico to Puerto Fuy.

As the photos give away, the passage was something else. The magnificence of the surroundings paired with the thrilling atmosphere on the ship took its prime as the ferry made its way past a narrow part of the lake and all of a sudden applaud occurred as the main target of the first race day came up distinctly visible for every passenger – the Mocho Choshuenco volcano.

The camp for the first two days was located beside the scenic Puerto Fuy beach. Runners from all over the globe prepared for the first stage the next morning. The folks from ESPN caught up with Pepe and me for a swanky pre-race interview for their TV show, we then had Asado and went to bed early.

My single experience with ultra trail competitions goes back to 2009. A couple of weeks after running the NYC marathon I travelled to Lyon to run SainteLyon. And even here in this rural part of South America my running history caught up with me as I met Lyon native Guillaume now living in Sao Paolo. We shared the passion and love for this great night race and it fetched my memory back. As the race in Lyon went good I tried to recall the experience. Going out extremely defensibly (thanks Adrian) was the key for the pure joy I got out of my SainteLyon race. I wanted to do the same again.

My partner Pepe and I never ran together before the “El Cruce”. As a friend of Bernardo could not run the race we were lucky to jump on one of the extremely popular spots. The race typically sells out within days or even hours. As we both did not know the standards of each other we agreed on a defense tactic and simply enjoy the race.

The route for the first day saw us running up the Mocho Choshuenco volcano – pretty impressive and challenging. Being able to run in such a striking nature was just great. The outlooks we got on top of the volcano were just indescribable. A scenery that is so gigantic and pure catches everybody. It absolutely did me as I frequently forgot that I was running and just „flowed“ my way round the snow.

After rotating around the top of the volcano it was show time on an extremely sharp and technical challenging downhill, first on snow and then on rocks. I loved it. Unfortunately Pepe stumbled over on the decent and sprained his ankle. We then had to take it extremely easy back to the camp. 39 kilometers for the first day was in the books. Back to Asado and beer.

On the second day we were routing from Puerto Fuy to the second camp. Pepe was not sure if he could run in the morning so we decided to split and I went on with my solo burden. I opened the race with Bernardo, Marcelo, Vincente and Ruben. We ran together for the first 20 kilometers and then I decided to test the legs. What happened then could be defined as „Trail Porn“. The topography is just made for races like this. I appreciated it and combined with more and more amazing views and a course that saw me running over bridges, through rivers, past gigantic trees and on single trails that want me to come back and ride it again with the mountain bike – Dreamlike. The legs were great and I caught team after team which was highly motivating. As I came around a corner I was glad to see the lake. I knew the finish was beside that lake and I imagined that this it. It wasn’t. The last 2 kilometers was about climbing and swimming along the shore. It was the icing on the 45 kilometer cake!

Once in the camp I grabbed my bag and relaxed the battered legs in the lake. Needless to say I also used some bottles of my desired recovery beverage – supreme Isenbeck beer. I was lucky to get my bag this day. Several runners did not and it turned out to be a bit of a chaos. Well, how good an organization is, is undoubtedly spotted when difficulties occur. Trusting one ferry to transport all essential belongings from camp A to camp B is a risk I would not take arranging a competition which such an entry fee.

I decided to run the last day solid from the gun. Certain special features for the ultimate 22 kilometers were the boarder controls at the Chilean and Argentine stations, a wavy and challenging track, the stone lakeshore, the boat transfer and again that astonishing pleasant and charming atmosphere behind the finish line.

My first stage, team and adventure race had it all and I’m looking forward to return to another “El Cruce”. Next time with a bit more competitive attitude (get organized Shane, Simo, Fabse, Seb, Uli… ) and with the same travel partners and companion runners.

Cheers to each and everybody I have met throughout the race no matter under what name you recall me – Beckenbauer, Klinsmann, Alegman…

Shoes used: Brooks PureGrit (Stage 1 & 2), Brooks PureConnect (Stage 3)
Listened to while writing: Anthony Rother Presents We Are Punks 3

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