Monthly Archives: July 2009

Trip to San Fran

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Hi all, I’m back in Caracas now and will be posting my marathon race report soon(ish), but I couldn’t do that without writing about my trip to San Fran first. It was a short trip but I enjoyed it soooo much, SF has got to be the most beautiful city in the world.

Everything on my trip there was awesome, starting with the pilot of my flight from Miami to SF. He and the copilot had this cool Californian surfer accent, when we landed they said on the speaker something like:

“Welcome to San Fran, if you happen to live here… dude, you’re awesome! If you come here to visit and have been before, welcome back, you know you’ll enjoy your stay. And if this is your first time coming to San Fran, welcome to the best city in the planet”

…they were right.

I stayed at a friends house. Her grandma happens to live right next to my house here in Caracas and we’ve been friends for a long long time. When I planned my trip I was thinking about staying at a hotel, but when I told her that I was going to visit, she offered me stay at her house.

I spent most of my days before the marathon doing something I can’t do in Venezuela: Walking. I would wake up early in the morning, walk 2 blocks to the Muni station and just walk around the city. I walked so much during my first days there, the first day I must have walked at least 10 miles! I was loving it, enjoying every inch of the city.

Then later in the afternoon I would call my friend and we would meet somewhere and eat together. She took me to her favorite sushi place, her favorite pasta place, her favorite burger place… So I was eating everyday something delicious somewhere I had never been before.

When race day was getting closer I started to take it easy, getting to bed early and walking less around town. My friend was a great host and offered to take me on her car on a ‘bike store tour’. We went to all the bike stores that I found in google maps in San Fran, test riding and looking for the perfect bike for me (that I could afford). Until I found a gorgeous and speedy Orbea Fleche (I’m installing the aerobas and fitting it, I’ll post pics once it’s ready to ride).

The day before the marathon I woke up early but stayed at home in bed until the afternoon, when I went to the marathon expo. There I had a small pre-marathon-panic-attack. San Fran is about 30 degrees colder than Caracas and I only had a sleeveless tech shirt for the marathon. So I got really nervous about the colder temps. Luckily I had Terri’s email address on my blackberry, so I sent her an email asking for advice. She was the best friend ever, gave me some great advice that pumped up my confidence (basically she told me: ‘don’t worry, use what you have, you’ll be fine’ but I really needed to hear that from a cold weather experienced runner).

That day I went to bed really early and woke up at 4 to get ready for the marathon. My friend was really nice and also woke up to take me to the race. But that belongs to another post…

I spent most of the day after the marathon sleeping, woke up to have dinner and watch a movie that my friend had rented, and the next day I came back to Caracas. All in all, SF is the most beautiful city I’ve been to, I loved everything there, the food, the people, the streets. Can’t wait until I can go back. Here are some pics from the trip, I’ll get to writing the marathon race report now.

I finished my first marathon!!!

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Quick post here (I seem to be making a lot of these lately). I finished the SF marathon, it was the most awesome race ever! My finish time was 4:34:49.

I’m still in San Fran, going back to Caracas this evening (I’m so sad about that, wish I could stay here). I’ll write a race report once I’m home. Thanks for all the comments from the cyberstalkers on race day, you all rock!

Marathon tomorrow

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Quick post before the marathon, that probaly few will see because of the time, but in case anyone wakes up really early tomorrow morning (or today, depending on your time zone). I’m shceduled to start tomorrow at 6:06am PST. You can cyberstalk me here with the bib # 5182. I will also take my BB with me and will try to do updates to twitter (triAlien). twittpic hasnt been working for me, so the pics will be uploaded later… when I get back to Venezuela because I forgot the blackberry’s usb cable back there…

Thanks everyone for your msg’s here, on twitter or facebook, I really appreciate it. And I want to specially thank Terri for her last minute advices today and Renie for being the coolest host in SF and waking up early to take me to the start line.

Follow me on Twitter

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I’m leaving for the airport in 5 hours and my plane leaves 3 hours after that. It’s going to be a long trip, 14 hours between flights and waiting on the Miami airport, but tomorrow at 6pm I should be arriving at San Francisco. Finally! I am sooooo exited about this, I doubt I will get any sleep tonight.

I’ll try to blog on the evenings while I’m there, as I don’t really have much plans to go out late, after all, I’m tapering. But I will surely be updating my twitter account often (if my BB works there, which it should). So add me on Twitter (triAlien) to follow me while I’m at SF.

Would you run with these shoes???

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I found this article today about the coolest geekiest shoes ever invented. Just looking at the picture makes me giggle, I can’t imagine running on them for other reason that to call people’s attention. Here’s a picture of the Vibram Five Fingers:

However, if you read and watch the video review on wired they will tell you that the shoes are great to avoid injuries, but what do the people on wired know about running anyways?? Still, would you wear them?