Wow, it is 65 *F today and really windy.  What a difference from the snow covered city I remember last time. Have to change the picture up there ^^^.

Slowly back to the usual grind with SBR. Battling a strong headache today for a change. Have so much to catch up on, but looks like the bike can happen on the weekend - yey! The swim today felt a bit weird and the movements were not as coordinated as before, but it was a good start.

Hello Everyone!!!

Back home finally! What a trip. The longest I had in years (not counting my whole life, which is a trip in itself). Where do I start, well, thanks to you all, who missed me even a fraction.

OK, the trip. We flew to Colombia and the fun started on the plane from Atlanta with one screaming kid sitting in front of us and crying for 4 hours while his mom was giving him lollies to shut him up. Well, this worked wonders as the little dude was more and more active with all the sugar to the point, that I was seriously planning to open the door and throw that little sucker off the plane. I would have been sucked out with him though, but at that point didn't care. In addition some seriously sick (phisically) people were constantly coughing around us and you could just feel the germs in your system ready to take over.

Sure as hell, as we arrived home in Bogota we were all sneezing and coughing ourselves. That's when my wife's mom all of a sudden felt out of breath and we had to take her to the hospital! Diagnose - pulmonary embolism. She ended up in the hospital for 2 weeks, all the time on oxygen wiith my wife at her bedsite while I was at home with the baby feeding her, changing diapers and watching TV! The only outside activity was early morning in the nearby park running. Later during the day I would do some walking with the baby in a stroller.

So here is a positive part - I managed to get 3 runs a week - 2x10k and one longer than 20k on the weekend. This was a great improvement from last year when I could only run 5k in that oxygen depleated air (8000 feet above the ocean). This time there was nothing else to do so I concentrated on breathing and after a while the longer distances were not a problem. I was so into it that during the last weekend I RAN A MARATHON! Not the official Bogota Marathon that takes place in August, but the Parque de Ciudad Montes Marathon with only a handful of people. I did it in 4:37:00 and other than being tired of all the heavy breathing for so long, it wasn't really that hard. The air temp was 15 deg C all the time (altitude again) - perfect for running. No, I didn't win, but was not DFL either. It was actually hard to tell as people were lapping each other after the first half hour or so (the track around the park is only 1k long...). So it was more like a long training run than a marathon, yet we did 42k. Nutrition: 4 bananas, 2 bottles of Gatorade and 2 bottles of home made lemonade. I will log all this stuff later after I deal with a pile of bills that is waiting on the kitchen table. 

My wife's mom is back from the hospital, but still on oxygen (this oxygen thing is a huge industry there...)

We didn't go absolutely anywhere outside Bogota

The political crisis with Equador and Venezuela is kind of over

The FARC is still controlling half of the country, kidnapping people and protecting drug trafficers

Everything in Colombia is getting expensive, new supermarkets like Carrefour are opening where you can buy everything, but pay as much as in the US

Everybody is driving tiny Suzuki cars with Chevrolet badge on them

Gatorade has totally different and great tropical fruit flavours, but I couldn't find any Powerbars 

It is a beautiful country