50 miles bike ride…yes, fifty

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Sunday I finished the San Jose Sharks face-off 50 mile bike ride, official time 4 hours 23 minutes and 24 seconds. I’ve never competed in a bike race before, I’ve never rode my bike that far or for that long and yet I decided to go for it. Why? That is the question that popped up in my head during the race, every uphill, every time no one was on sight, every time I thought about the most important thing Mexicans should be doing at that time – watching the FIFA World Cup game between Mexico and Netherlands.

It was a thoughtless moment when I signed up for this race, I don’t even remember where I learned about the event, I just know I told my friends about it, they encouraged me to do it and next thing I’m doing is reading a “San Jose Sharks Event Confirmation for 2014 Sharks Fitness Faceoff” email, all this on June 16th, yup, thirteen days before the race with no training at all.

Long story short, I set my mind on a 50 miles goal, “trained” the weekend before on the official race course, three days before the race I ate less heavy ( I didn’t say healthy) than normal, drank a lot of water, made sure my bike tires were in good condition, bought power bars and drinks for the ride and lastly got a nicer cycling jacket for the big day. As crazy as it looks that was my training, thin, short, unprofessional but with one very important ingredient, I was 100% convinced that I was able to complete this challenge, that thought never left my mind – plus, by Friday everybody in the office knew about my crazy endeavor, so I had no choice but finish.

Each of the 50 miles was a mental more than a physical battle, one that I fought by thinking I could ride for 5 extra miles.

I’m proud of what I did accomplish, four long hours to think about anything I wanted, four hours to enjoy the Bay Area weather, roads and landmarks, four hours to forget about work, four ours to enjoy myself. This race has been one of my best decisions ever, it was a huge challenge for me with a great outcome.

I’m ready for the next adventure, the next challenge, the next time I need to tell myself that something is possible and make it happen.

Until the next time, bye bye

If you live in the USA find your cycling challenge here http://www.usacycling.org/events/

My first childbirth class…

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Not sure how Adam and Eve did it, alone in the Garden of Eden, without any type of training or guidance on how to deal with this. They were not the only ones, Richard and Lilli in the “Return to the Blue Lagoon” movie managed to do it by themselves in the middle of nowhere. On the other hand, I need books, experienced friends advice, clueless opinionated acquaintances and a formal childbirth class.

I got there ten minutes before the session started, I sat on the floor in a room full of pregnant women. The instructor, a blond tattooed woman wearing dreadlocks, barefooted and with a low voice welcomed us to the 6 weeks long childbirth class.

After a brief introductory speech, where she highlighted her motherhood experience, technical knowledge and how scary this will going to get, she asked us for our expectations of the course. For me it was very simple, I wanted our baby childbirth to be a smooth experience for the three of us!!! Yeah right, that’s what I thought at the end of day one.

Two hours and a half talking about the stages of labor and delivery, each of them with an instructor performance worth of an Oscar Academy award. – While the performance was a little bit awkward at first, I think it was helpful to understand what to expect when the time arrives. – We also discussed ways to cope with each of the various stages, or at least how we can handle them better. It was very helpful to listen other couples too, how they feel, how they are preparing for this great event and where we all struggle.

We exercised our breathing to handle ice cubes on our hands, we talked about pooping during labor, puking, orgasmic childbirth, people eating placenta and other topics I hadn’t heard in my entire life. Overall, it was a very good first session, I would recommend it to any clueless dads to be like me.

I just need to keep this in mind: as gross, time consuming or painful this might sound, at the end of all this I will see my baby daughter and will be able to hold her in my arms!!

Cheers.

Why blogging, why now…?

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The idea of sharing ideas, deep thoughts, feelings, etc. is not new in my bucket list, I just finally decided to take that huge step of getting out of my comfort zone and make it happen. In today’s world, I’m finding very easy to accomplish this goal of mine through blogging, tons of tools available for free, entire communities to provide help and people always available to cheer you up.

While I don’t do this to obtain an economic benefit, so far, I will need to learn new skills , techniques and tactics used by the big publishers to promote my blog. Typing like a maniac, posting my latest vacation trip or favorite restaurants pictures expecting some magic to happen is not part of my plan, shouldn’t be anyone’s plan for that matter.

Now that you know why blogging, the most important question is why now. Simple, my daughter, she is becoming huge in my life. We are 9 weeks away from meeting face to face, smile at each other, hold hands and the most incredible and scary thing of all, guide her first few steps into this amazing world.

It’s too early to talk about the content of this blog, I just know that it’ll have English and Spanish posts, everything from books I read, sports, opinions, to daily life events and anything I feel like. If you have any ideas just leave me a comment, for sure I’ll read it, not sure I’ll do anything with it.

This is it for today, short and sweet.