Chile 2009

Well I am back from my business trip in Chile, and I have to say it was interesting. My training sufferred immensely since I was not able to get in the training necessary for the Toughman Half IM due to long days at work.

The weekends however were different. Myself and Co-worker did quit a bit of exploring in the one full weekend we had and let me tell you exploring in Chile where some towns are not truly Tourist driven can be exciting.

The best of these was our visit to Valparaiso. This is a quirky town that has some real character. It sits on a bay and is dominated by hills that each have beautiful views of the Bay. At the turn of the century (ie 1900) they had built a number of trams (or Furniculares) that they call "ascensores" ie ascenders, to help the local population get up the hills. These same "Ascensores" are still around and it was our mission on this trip to see them. This was a far bigger task than we could have expected. You see each ascensor is known by its name ( yes they each have a name much like my old bike is known as "Dusty") and it is almost expected that you know what you are looking for.

Anyhow more to come on this later on.....I have to go back to working on fixing my damned Kitchen sink. But come back soon... you will learn of the secrets to quality wine making in Chile by playing music to the grapes! and that a GPS device can in fact tell you one thing and point you in another direction! So exciting!

Sunday in Chile

Well I am sitting in the Lobby of the Hotel, in a little section that has a small bar ( serving only non-alchoholic drinks thanks to elections) typing away at the keyboard. I started my day with work that has to get done being that I will not have time tommorow. I spent about 2-3 hours on that. Then I decided to do a nice workout: 40 minutes on the stationary bike (ave HR 129, Max HR 144); After I went for a 3 mile run (3.16 miles to be exact, ave HR 156, max HR 173) The run was seemingly a very slow pace, but the fact wass I stopped alot since part of the run was through a sculpture park that was previously closed.

Now I am back online trying to catch up on work that seems to just creep up on me. Right now I am short one staff person at work so while I am in Chile manageing the work being done here I am also trying to finish up work that the previous occupant of the now empty position.

I read somewhere that you can tell the quality of life a population has by the amount of parks and the number of people using them. I am looking out the hotel window as I sit here working; looking at the locals playing in the park along the River. What does that say about me I wonder?

Cerro San Cristobal

Well today I discoverred the Cerro San Cristobal, which is a park nearby to my Hotel. I was told that I could run there so since I wanted to get in a nice run, I ran there. First I on my way I had to pass the River Mapochio which is near my Hotel.


Its a brown muddy looking river that Moves FAST. I was told it originates from the mountains and during the winter it swells up to reach the top of the river banks. The river also has a park that runs along the river. Its pretty nice except that there is so much construction that it gets broken up with work areas and such.

One thing tho I have to say I have never seen so many couples in one place. I mean Santiago must be on the world register of places of Romance or something. Couples both young and old seemed to be everywhere!

Anyhow to get to the park I had to cross over the river using the "Puente de los Leones" The Lions Bridge. Named after the Lions guarding the bridge.

About a mile further on I finally got to the park entrance and what should I see yonder but a place that advertises BIKE RENTAL! there is gold in yonder hills!!

So I mosey on over to see how much they are and what the options are. Road? Mountain? Maybe have to settle for a comfort bike?

Wrong.

They had as we will call functional and not functional. They were old Mt Bikes that had seen better days. I paid up for about an hour since I was suspicious of the bike quality. The guy selected a bike for me saying it was the one in best shape. So I took that one. The tires were low on air and I asked if they could fill them up. He did not have the pump with him, the guy who puts the bikes out has it.

OK, the tires were still full enough I could ride, tho a bit "swishy". So I take a few minutes, to give it a spin. I have to get used to rideing with Push pedals again. I have become so accustomed to my clipless pedals.

After a few minutes I head up the road to the crest of Serro San Cristobel, which is nasically a small mountain. It was a great 30 minute ride up...up..and up some more. The bike sucked, but the ride itself was awesome. What spectacular views!

Santiago is a beautiful city that is surrounded by mountains. Those are the Andes in the background. On the ride up I encountered dozens of cyclists and riders. Obviously this is a popular riding spot I have come across. The ride was a little hard but not just because of the incline but due to not having my normal pedals, I just kept slipping off teh pedals.

When I finally got to the top I just had to stop and enjoy the views. The top has some little shops up there offering empanadas along with Power gels and gatoraide, clearly my assumtion was correct.

Riders were sitting around chatting all over the place as well as dozens of tourists. It was great.

I then rode back down and added a little detour around a different road. I dropped the bike off determined to ride again tommorow and then started my run up the same hill I just came down. It was a great run and a great day.

Tommorow more of the same. Not too bad.

Chile

Ok so here I am in Santiago de Chile. Nice town. I will actually have the time this coming weekend to get to see it. It has a very european feel to it, and it is in fact growing.

I am staying at the Radisson Plaza Santiago, which is a great Hotel. Good service, amicable and very helpful staff.

I arrived in Chile this morning and pretty much today was spend dealing with stuff from the office back home and getting settled in. The hotel has a nice state of the art gym. Its small but it has some very neat treadmills that I have not seen before. No stationary bikes but some neat weight and strength equiptment. It also has a pool. Small but large enough to tie up using my swim chord and do some time workouts there. Though I keep those limited because I have not done it enough to figure out if its affecting my swim mechanics.

Anyhow this week it is my intent to run 50 miles. So it will be a great opportunity to explore the city by foot. More to come.

More Running

Todays run was uneventful, now that I am familiar with the Business park that I call home in Santiago for a week, I am starting to notice more of the detail. For example today in the office I learned that the business park itself is only about 5 years old, and that many of the buildings were award winners here in Chile. Architectural wonders all of them. I am not joking. There is one buildingthat looks like it would be a figure 8 one one side but when you go to the other it is a waterfall and some structure that looks like a metalic tree and vines running up the side. I was told by my local coworkers that the building was built to run completly from solar power. Cool!

I hope to be able to download the pictures from my blackberry. But though I am a technology guy at work I am a bit slow in the personal gadgets department.

Anyhow back to my run. here are the stats

5.72 Miles
48.35 minutes
Max HR 175 (90%)
Ave 162 ( 83%)
Ave Pace 8:29 Min/Mile
593 Calories
Polar Running Index 54

Chile

Well this week I am in Chile on business. It was a very long flight, 14 hours, so I am a bit sore from sitting in a slightly smallish seat ( for business class). I did manage to sleep a good portion of the time.

I got in at around 8:30 Am and got to the hotel around 10 AM. Having that much time I decided to go and take advantage of the free shuttle the hotel has to "providencia" which is suppossed to be a tourist friendly area. On the way there the shuttle operatore pointed out the Hyatt Hotel which is apparantly the most significant hotel in Santiago. According to him "Michael Jackson!" even stayed there. Nice to know that Michael still has some influence somewhere.

Anyhow they dropped us off in what was basically a large mall.

I had lunch and got a few things I forgot like toothpaste, and headed back after around 3 hours.

Later I did a run around the area of the hotel, the area is called "Ciudad Empressa" which is basically a business park. There is a loop a little less than 1.5 miles long. So I did 4 loops of it. On the run I ran into a number of what I think were strays though I could not tell because although they were running around in the street they had collars on. So I could not tell.

My run went as follows:

Distance 5.74 Miles
Time 48:38
Max HR 184
Ave HR 166

Ave Pace 8:28
Calories 620

According to my Polar R400 I have a running index of 52 ( good)