So much has happened since last I blogged! Other than a three day backpacking trip in the Sespe, and several Saturdays I spent at the Mt. Wilson Observatory training to be a docent (which it turns out I am too busy this year to go through with) April was pretty much exclusively a month of mellow mountain trail running, but then travel and racing stepped into high gear.

First of all, it has been awesome not having to report to a job! But it has also been frustrating dealing with traffic while theoretically people should be at work, and not having the company of my friends who have jobs, but I have made friends with some people who have weekdays free like me, and spent some time with my dad who is retired. I don't miss working, and I am gaining some valuable insights into how I want to live when I eventually do return to work.

The docent training I underwent is worthy of mention. The Mt Wilson Observatory is one of the premiere observatory sights in the world, and is the place where Edwin Hubble conducted his work on the expanding universe. I attended 4 all day training sessions to learn all about the history of the observatories and the people who worked there. I met Don Nicholson, who is the 90 something year old son of an astronomer who is famous for co-discovering the Hale Nicholson Law of the sun, and was himself a resident of the mountain throughout much of its history, which makes him perhaps the greatest living historian on the mountain. I met Dave Jurasevich who gave Huell Howser the tour on that episode of California's Gold, and a big group of volunteers who thrilled me with their enthusiasm and knowledge on subjects of astronomy and the machinery therein used. This is one of the best kept secrets of Los Angeles and I recommend you make the long drive up there on a weekend afternoon, eat at the cafe, and go on a tour of this amazing place.

I did an ultra ragnar that left me with a tight IT band on my left leg. This persisted for several weeks and jeopardized my 100 mile training. I did one long run in spite of it, a double ascent of Mt. Wilson with Ashley. That was hard! It was a hot day, 29 miles and 12,000 feet of climbing. My IT band didn't seem to bother me very much on that, but in the aftermath it was as bad as ever, so much so that I would barely be able to run 1 mile in a few days.

The thick of things  began with a trip to Wildflower where I was racing the long course triathlon for the third time, and managing meals for the contingent of California Triathlon folk camping out for the race. On the drive up, I stopped over at UCSB for a short run on my old college stomping grounds. I went out in my running sandals, but barely made it a mile when it pretty much became unbearable to run. I walked back on the sand along the beach. This was disconcerting since I had a half ironman triathlon in 4 days. So I arrived a few days early and secured a camping site, but realized quickly that it would be better to try and camp with San Diego Tri Club, like we did the previous year. I stopped by to confirm that this would be ok, and Julie Moss was there to greet me. She is the woman who crawled across the finish line of the IronMan in Hawaii in the 1980s. At first I didn't recognize her, even though I had seen her the year before, she was so nice and personable, asking all sorts of questions and wanting to hang out.

The next day, I did a practice bike ride. My seat tilted forward and my shift lever came loose. I broke the shift lever trying to re-seat it  by rotating it without remembering that the wire ran underneath the bar tape on the outside of the bar (which is sad because I put it there) and pulled the electric cable loose. I had to take the bike into town to fix the seat, but there was no replacement available for the shifter lever. I would have to race without it. While I was driving out, I saw a sight I took as an omen: a large bald eagle swooped down and grabbed what I think was a dead rabbit, road kill, from the road in front of me. It flew to the side, chased by 2 hawks, and flew alongside my car for about 10 seconds. Low and behold, I left my front wheel in the parking lot of the bike shop and didn't realize it until the next day, the day before race day. I am a lucky one that the store had it and it was ok, and I had to make the 2 hour round trip into town to get it back.

Race day was disappointing for me. I had my usual stomach problems in the water and felt weak on the bike. It was hot, and I didn't have much motivation during the run. I think I walked half of it, and finished with my slowest ever half ironman time. I made friends with a Canadian engineering student at mile 11 and ran the last 2 miles with him. He had crashed on the bike during the race the previous year, which required an airlift to the hospital. It was cool to finish the race running with him. Kind of knocked me into a different perspective on my own situation.

Since I was already farther north, it was high time to visit my friend Brenden, living near Humboldt. I made the drive north, calling home on the way to be reminded of the fact that I had borrowed my mother's cast iron skillet for the camping, and that I had left it at the camp site. This thing was like a hundred years old and belonged to my great grandmother. Ugh. I was 3 hours away when I remembered, and we believed it would have been picked up by then, so I continued the drive, past San Francisco, enjoying a great breakfast along the bay in Sausalito. The terrain turned from dry vineyard to lush green and I entered the Red Woods. Brenden lived in the middle of nowhere town of Petrolia which was very pretty, I thought rather like parts of France. I had a great week of relaxing up there, fishing and surfing, and eating healthy food.

I wasn't about to miss the bachelor trip to Nicaragua he had coming up the following week, even if it might mean getting too few training miles in before the San Diego 100. We all met up the following week at the airport in LA. Brenden, his dad, mutual friend Pat and the bride to be's father were all in on the trip. I met Phil, the bride's father, who was himself a Hawaii resident and former crew member for various Badwater ultramarathoners including his wife Kari, as well as the famous Marshal Ulrich.

Arriving in Managua, I was delighted to be in a warm, humid tropical climate. We were greeted and brought to our hotel. We rented a Toyota Helix the next morning and made the 3 hour or so drive to Playa Santana, a secure, modern resort destination, where we were staying in some mansion of a house. The best thing about the trip? Climbing palm trees for coconuts and hacking them up with a machete to drink and eat. All the coconuts you could ask for, free!

We took a surfing safari to Astillero beach, which the local surf shop recommended for the surf, but cautioned us was a little unsafe. It sounded like as long as we paid to park in this secured lot we would be ok. The plan was to do surf photography and always have at least one guy on the shore to man the fort. The whole day of surfing went down without a hitch, other than one man who Patrick saw carrying a machete. Down there, machetes are very common so he didn't think much of it. We were walking back to the truck, Brenden 30 feet ahead of me and Patrick 30 feet behind me. We were all carrying our boards and probably looking tired. I had my camera bag in my left arm. I saw two teenage local kids walking the opposite direction. They looked friendly, so I smiled a hello. The one in front eyes my bag and yanks it. I was stunned for a couple of seconds then gave chase, but he pointed back with a gun so I gave up. Patrick and Brenden were chasing in spite of the gun so I decided to resume the chase too. The kid took a hard slip and fall on the rocks and I thought Patrick had him, but he got up and made it onto the sand. At this point I was chasing him in my huaraches but Pat and Brended were barefoot and the sand was hot. I was closing in on the kid but he looked back, saw me and made a retreat into the thick of cacti and brush along the beach. I reluctantly followed but they had already disappeared. I really didn't know which way they had gone, and I still didn't know that the gun had been a fake, and I suspected they might have other weapons so I quickly gave up looking. We were understandably upset that we had failed, and I realized I lost a $3,500 camera.

It is ironic, but being the one who lost his camera, I was the least interested in this group of 5 in continuing to look for those kids. I had already given up, but these guys wanted to drive around and look for the kids. We started driving around in parts of the sticks that it really did not look like we wanted to be, and we even happened upon the house of the guy Patrick had seen carrying the machete on the beach, and we had our suspicions. Now, the kid who robbed me of my camera had dropped his plastic gun and his backpack which we kept as evidence. So we showed it to the machete guy at his house and tried to explain what had happened, but this went nowhere. The next idea was to find the police station and try to get a police report.

We found the police station with the help of some townsfolk and I made may case against the kids as best I could with the help of the guys. It wasn't easy, as the police knew no English and we sucked at our Spanish. We got most of the main points across and understood that the police wanted us (me) to go with them in their truck to the sight of the crime. So we waited about an hour for their truck to get there, then I got in and our truck followed. Brenden rode in the back seat of the truck with me, and two of the officers got in the bed with their AK47s. We broke speed records on the dirt roads back to the beach while the police truck utilized its sirens and blared techno music.

We arrived near the crime site and I was walking ahead of the police, another group of surfers saw and guessed correctly that I had been the victim of theft and had brought the police back. One of their guys knew English and Spanish fluently and explained to me that he had his car keys stolen a few days earlier. Evidently, he had bought them back for $40 at one of the restaurants nearby. This gave me hope and I asked if he thought I could buy my camera back and he thought I could. I never got the specific information from him which restaurant he went to. We tried several of them two days later, but I don't know if it was because of my poor Spanish, not finding the right person(s) or because I was a gringo, but it never went anywhere. We only found blank faces and suggestions we talk to the police.

I want to bring home the point the our experience in Nicaragua was very positive on the whole. This incident, and a little traffic violation we had to pay, were the only remotely negative things that happened on the trip, and I want to point out that it could have been much worse. The people were friendly on the whole. The food was cheap and delicious. The country was beautiful. I saw how a third world country is for the first time, and I am glad to know that there are still places in the world like this where we can safely travel. It's both refreshing and a little bit depressing, but eye opening.

Now I am anxiously awaiting and preparing for my big event, the San Diego 100 mile endurance run. This is the culmination of everything I have learned about running and human spirit. I anticipate being rattled to the core, and pushing myself to the brink of exhaustion, the point of wanting to give up, farther than I have ever been, and I hope to find some reason to endure beyond those moments of despair and finish 100 miles with a smile on my face and tears of joy in my eyes.