Extending the Weekend!! #PacificGroveTri

A day after racing twice (qualifiers and finals) in Vegas, we hit the road again, driving practically the whole day to get to Monterey, central California. With a couple stops, it took us about 11 hours on the road.

The trip wasn't as beautiful as driving through Utah and Colorado like we did two weeks before, but it was really interesting seeing that number of different machines along the way, to explore nature's energy.

Arriving in the hotel, I first did some core workouts, trying to loose the muscles. Specially the core, that can get pretty stiff after long time sitting. After that, we could get some food and tried to relax, as I would be lining up again to race on the next day, Saturday.

This time it was an olympic distance race. The ocean was really cold, so most of us used a wetsuit. The race venue was really beautiful. I was sore but ended up in a good race, finishing the 51.5k in 2:01:41 and placing 7th.

Afterwards we explored a bit of Monterey Bay, we both really wished we had more time to spend in such a beautiful place. But I was really tired from so many races and we had a long drive ahead. In time though, we made some native cute friends before heading back to LA...

That was a long and delightful weekend. There was yet another triathlon happening at Malibu on that Sunday, and we almost did it! Nah, I wouldn't be racing, but I was planning to be by Florencia's side cheering friends on! Unfortunately, we both were so smashed from traveling, that we both got a flu and now I was running against the clock trying to heal before the LA Triathlon, to happen one week from that Sunday. (to come in the next post!)

LA, Las Vegas and the Super Spring Triathlon!

On the next days we hung out in Los Angeles, met dear friends and I could show a little bit of the city to Florencia. We also headed to Malibu Beach and The Getty Museum. (pics below). 

Los Angeles is one of my favorites cities to be, visit, workout, see friends and get a nice tan, as rain is something very unusual there! So we really had a blast, while I kept my workouts up to date and had run most of my favorite courses, getting ready for the next challenges. 10 days later, we were on the road again for another 290 miles in the Isuzu . . . 

Viva Las Vegas!!

Thursday, September 11th, the race was the Super Sprint Triathlon Grand Prix!

In a giant parking lot it was built a huge triathlon arena, with a 10 lanes, 25m swimming pool, and a 1k track circuit for bike and run.  

The qualifiers happened in the morning. It was 3 heats of 10 athletes, selected and divided by the World Triathlon ITU Ranking. My start was in the 3rd one, close to 11am, Vegas was almost 100°F baby!! Lol

The race had the distances of: 200m swim, 3k bike, 1k run, 200m swim, 3k bike and 1k run. Yep! The race had 5 transitions and it was praticaly two triathlons at once!! 

I had a bad first swim, and pushing all out for 23 minutes, my race was all about catching up. Placed 5th and qualified to the finals. So since them I was doing everything I could to recover as fast as possible. I would be lining up for another race at 7pm on that day!!

("final b" pics and with my coach Grant Holicky)

Still very sore, but it was time to warm up for another race! This time with a little extra distance, we did twice 300m swim, 5k bike and 2k run. I did a much better swim and the race was well fought with a big pack of contestants together. I finished 5th place again, feeling like I had raced for four times on that day!!

Entire results link

Link to the video of my race, filmed by Florencia . . . (Gracia amor!!)

Afterwards I was really done, and our night ended up just spending a couple hours in the casino of our hotel. A shame not taking more advantage of being in Las Vegas with Florencia, but on the next day morning we were on the road again heading Pacific Grove, to be told on the next post!!

Final Destination, Arriving in Los Angeles!

I knew it would be a hot day in Kingman, as we were in the middle of the Mojave desert, only about a 100 miles from Las Vegas. 

So I went for a bike ride relatively early in that morning, and the route was nothing less then the Mother Road, or the U.S. Route 66! 

One of the most famous, if not "the most" famous route in the world!

Historically, it was a very important way since it's construction in 1926, served as a major path for those who migrated west. The US 66 Route used to connect Chicago to Los Angeles, as in the following map.

I did a really small section of it and it was pretty cool to see some of the old buildings restored in that old fashion way. Not to forget that over that route was built the first motel and the first McDonald's of the world!

Also known as the Will Rogers Highway, the route 66 had it's apex on the fifties and sixties, where many movies have shown the young people driving their Cadillacs and Harleys towards the California sunny weather! (They didn't know how cool it would be driving an Isuzu!! hahaha)

The route 66 underwent many improvements and realignments over its lifetime, becoming officially removed from the United States Highway System in 1985. Nowadays, as Historic Route 66, a few sections were adopted and maintained by several states, like this stretch at Kingman.

A nice part of my wkout was to ride very close to a huge train, I was getting excited to race against it, but on this time I held myself back! haha

Ciclismo: 37km - 1h22min

The Isuzu was in charge of the long stretch of the day, and we drove 320 miles to get to my friend Bobby's house. Who was really kind of hosting us during our stay in LA.

So with no lazyness we made the trip in about 6 hours, just stopping once to eat, and another time for fuel. We missed the Colorado and Utah's mountains, as this part of trip was very of monotonous, plus it was very hot. We knew we were getting in LA as we approched palm trees and a big jammed traffic!! hahaha

Reaching the end of our 1340 miles journey, passing through rain, deserts, mountains, parks and more parks, all the way with not stopping to workout!! Stated on the posts I did another 4.3 miles swimming, 71 miles biking and 13 miles running, no that bad for a recovering week!

On Monday the training routine went back to it normal volume, and soon I will be posting about the races that followed in the next weeks!

Click here to go to the first post of this trip from Boulder to LA!