Slow Run and Dentist

I went for a very interesting run this morning. I felt like a million bucks yesterday and was considering doing a 17k (I think it is) loop from Ajijic to Chapala.

I leapt out of bed with a Charlie Horse in the middle of the night. Lynne and I had an appointment at 10:00 to look at a bigger house to possibly rent and . . . . I just didn't feel like that long a run this morning.

Truth be known, I didn't feel like a run at all this morning but far be it from me to not finish this damn 30 day running thing I'm doing with a couple of folks back home. The 30 day facebook challenge I think I'm going to call it. The four of us are checking in daily on how we're doing.

Anyway, out I went heading towards Chapala. Chapala is the next large town east of us. I'd run that direction the other day but turned around at the 5k mark. I'd set out that day for a 10k run. Today, I kept going into town. I got just about to the center of town when I hit the 6k mark.

I'd also hit the wall. Bang, there I was, just about ready to sit down and call Lynne for a ride home. Instantly I went from feeling good to "Holy carp - I'm done!"

Unfortunately, I was 6k from home with an appointment in an hour to get too.

I did a bunch of walking on the way back. I played a game for a bit of walking 50 steps then running 50, then walk 40 and run 60, run 35, run 165. It's funny the crap I come up with to take my mind off the fact that I really would like to lay down under a tree and have a little nap!

i played with that "Your slowest run is quicker than your fastest walk" idea for a while and jogged slowly for a while.

2.5k left - 2k - 1.7 - "I can do anything for 1.7". 500 meters and eventually got to the wailing wall. There's a wall at the side of the highway where I start and stop. I hang off it for a bit at the end of every run and try to catch my breath again. I seem to always try to make up for lost time during that last 500 meters.

It practically kills me every time.

We're off to the dentist for Lynne this morning. We're both a bit nervous . . . . she more than I!

"This is It" - (The movie)

Lynne and I did a little hours shopping today. There are almost 500 houses on the market today and they have sold 216 in the last 12 months. December is a big sales month, but, non the less. If we buy something it could easily take 2 years to sell it again later. I think we're better off with our money invested as it is and keep renting!

We went to see the Michael Jackson "This Is It" movies tonight.

I must admit, I've never been much of a Michael Jackson fan. I never bought an album. I read all the hype and crap in the papers and, I expect like a lot of folks, I wrote the guy off as the strangest individual alive. Was he a freak, a child molester a weirdo. Who knows. I am really glad I went to see the movie. For everyone who felt the same about him as I did, but believes there are many sides to everyone, this is a must see movie.

How amazing to watch this musical entertainer genius at work. The rest of the crap doesn't matter. Heck, don't we all have that side of us that we don't want anyone to know about. Regardless of if you set fires to mailboxes in the country as a kid or if you needed to ask someone to get the key to open the door for you, we've all got our own level of shit behind us. If we were famous enough, it could be blown up beyond anything reasonable too.

All my true musician friends have always talked about his musical genius. What a great opportunity this movie is to see him in action. to watch him take an idea and in a breath, take it to a level that gets anyone toe tapping in their seat. Great flick in my opinion!

We left the movie and headed home. I guess this bull fight ring between our house and the movies is the happening concert place in town. It's where they blow up all these fire works celebrating the revolution (Thanks John!). I still think they may be grenades, but I'm not positive yet!

Tonight there is a rock concert along with all the explosions.

Now - you have to remember, we just left the Michael Jackson movie. The movie sure wasn't "Shine the Light", the Rolling Stones movie by Martin Scorsese , but it sure was good music. Coming out to and listening to Mexican Rock, well, Lunch Bag Letdown" doesn't cover it. I did enjoy people watching though.

What a country! What an experience! We're so lucky!!

Sunday - Easy Morning Run

The neighbors warned us that the festival that started with he parade on Friday ends with 11 days of fireworks. The parade was cool. Friday night we heard a few bangs. Saturday a few more. I thought of fireworks sort of like Ontario Place on May 24 or something. I didn't see any big colorful bursts of color in the sky, but we also didn't hear never ending explosions either . . . . until this morning!

6:00 am, there we were, sleeping soundly on this big beautiful bed. A nice cool breeze flowing in through the bedroom window and BANG . . . BANG . . . . bang bang bang. Holy crap! These aren't fireworks, these are just explosions.

I often count step when I run and for some reason I started counting explosions too, guessing ahead at how many times the bed would shake with these war type sounding explosions. Who would have thought they'd end at 200! 200 frickin' bombs going off a block away from my bed! I still don't k now what these folks are celebrating, but they sure don't want anyone to miss it!

I was tempted to get up and go and watch but, I managed to roll back over for another couple of hours sleep instead.

Today is day 6 of this '30 minutes for 30 days' running thing I'm doing. I'm not sure why I'm doing it. I guess any goal is better than no goal at all. I'm having fun reading Ted and Mikes stories on Facebook as we're all doing it together. Mike's sister Lynne is 4 days ahead of us.

I did 10k for the first time in months yesterday so, I thought I'd do a slow recovery run today. I thought I'd just head out the back way along the cobblestones to the town square in San Antonio. I love the sound of "running to San Antonio". It sounds so far! In fact, it's only about 2k. I took my time, ran to, and then around the square, and headed back. When I got tot the gates here at the ranch, I saw I had been running for 24 minutes. I was going to stop at the gates but then I figured - just a bit more and I'll have that 30 minutes in.

I ran down to the end of the block which put me at the shore of the lake. I often see fishermen, just like in those old bible pictures, tossing their nets out into the water and pulling them back in. There was a guy just coming in to shore with an entire 5 gallon plastic pail, full to the brim with fish. I wonder what he does with them. They tell me the lake is polluted and every fish market tells you that their fish aren't from the lake so, . . . . what does this guy do with these fish??

Oh well, back to the gate but that only took a minute or so. Off I went around the block on the cobblestones again. Actually, the block right around the next block has a curb that extends about 16" into the road. I can run along that. Two American women were walking their little dogs along the sidewalk. I was amazed when I got 10 feet from them, one of the women stepped down onto the part of the curb I was running on. i contemplated letting the women know what I thought of her, her dog and her pretty pink cotton jogging suit, but decided to just run carefully around her and keep my comments to myself.

What's happening to me? That's not what I do!!!!!

I finished off the run and weighed in 0.1 lbs lighter than yesterday. This running doesn't seem to be doing anything for my weight. My shorts sit a little looser around the waist though.

We're off "Open House" hoping today.

Friday Nov 20 - Party Time in Ajijic

I got out early this morning for a run on pavement for a change. I have been doing this 5k route along the cobblestone streets and have been somewhat disappointed by my pace. I warmed up by walking quickly the 500 meters to the highway and then did a 2.5 out and back along the paved bike path. i was gasping at the end, but I did manage a 5:35 pace which, at the moment, I'm happy with.

Lynne has wanted to get a crown on a discolored tooth for a long time. Her dentist at home wanted about $850.00 for it and, to brighten a tooth color just never seemed worth the expense. We know a number of people who come to Mexico for dental work so, we had made an appointment with a guy beside the bagel shop that we found the other day.

$20.00 for a consultation including 2 x-rays and the verdict was, he would do it for about $650. That didn't seem like the kind of deal we`d heard about so, we dropped in at another dentist around the corner from our house. No charge for the consultation and x-ray and $250.00 for the crown! He took the impression on the spot. She gets the temp on Tuesday and the finished crown on Friday. What a country!

There is a festival starting today that apparently goes on for the next 11 days. We don`t know what it`s for. Everyone has warned us that there will be fireworks non stop for the next 11 days. We went to the opening day parade this morning. What a hoot. There were groups of kids of all ages parading down the street. The young kids were dressed up. Most kids had on their school uniforms. There were a couple of bands. There were a few pickup trucks, decorated with balloons with kids in the back waving to the folks along the edge of the street. I found those pickups the most fun. For every kid in the truck waving, there was a mother running along behind making sure their kid was OK!

For those of you at home who have ever been to the Aurora Santa Claus parade, this next part will thrill you too. There were no Fire trucks. No Mayor (Sorry tim - YOu were great), No bunch of town council folks, no businesses advertising, just tons sand tons of kids. Soccer teams, dance groups, kids and adults on horseback. I guess the schools don`t have a ton of money to use for musical instruments. Some groups clapped together as they marched. Some tapped out a beat with their feet as they marched. One group had small wooded pieces of wood, maybe 3" X 2" with straps stapled on that they use to clap out a beat with.

It was great to see so many people having so much fun, proud parents along the side lines cheering for their kids and their kids friends, all at almost no financial expense what so ever! The town square was totally packed with young and old after the parade was over.

We really have to find out what the event is! Also, It's almost 10:00 PM now and, so far, no fireworks!

We're going to look at a few open houses over the weekend. we're pretty sure we're not going to find anything nicer than the place we're in now, but we figure we need to look anyway.

We went to the movies tonight to see the Michael Jackson movie. We got the time wrong and God knows we could stay up and go to the 9:30 show, so we saw The Soloist" at 7:00. Great flick if you haven't seen it. We'll see St. Michael tomorrow. Oh, yea - I was wrong about the cost of going to the movies here. I told everyone it was $2.00, but I was wrong. Converted back to Canadian dollars it's . . . $2.96! I'm thinking we'll see a lot of movies here. It's very nice that the theatre is at the top of our street, just past the Bull Fight ring and the soccer fields!

Tuesday November 19 - Mid Week Update

There's not much to write. The pictures below tell the story other than I did start running everyday, 30 minutes for 30 days.

We've been to the Wednesday outdoor market and bought fresh fish and fruits and veggies. We've been eating very well.

Lynne has started a Yoga class. We discovered the local cinema and went to see Inglorious Bastards which was in English with Spanish subtitles but unfortunately about half of that movie was in French or German and the subtitles remained in Spanish.....so we did get the main idea but missed the little inuendoes. Lynne hated the blood and gore.

Speaking of blood and gore, a couple of days ago they brought a cow to the ranch....there was this big black cow lying around on the sidewalk or grazing on our beautifully manicured lawns. When we asked Lucia about the cow she said it was sick. Forget Swine Flu....now we are worrying about Mad Cow. Last night on the way to the cinema we walked by the Mexican haciendas on our ranch and lying there with bound legs and a slit throat was the old black cow. We are missing Loblaws and those white styrofoam trays with meat in them. Tonight we can see the barbeques up at the Mexican's and the smell of cooking beef isn't quite as tantalizing as it usually is.

Tomorrow begins the 11 day celebration of Ajijic's Saint. Apparently they celebrate by lighting fireworks for all 11 days. Should be interesting or perhaps aggravating. We'll let you know.

Oh and last but not least, we discovered "Coffee and Bagel" actually the name of the little cafe. Lynne had a bagel and cream cheese and lox and I thought she would die from joy. We went there this morning again for breakfast. I had an egg McBagel and it was delicious.

Getting Used to Life In Ajijic

It's been a few days since I've written. I guess we're getting used to life here on the ranch in Ajjic. We seem to be getting up at around 8:00 or 9:00 in the morning. I'm starting to get a bit of exercise in first thing. I managed to get my ass into a gym bike yesterday for a half hour and went out for a half hour run this morning. Running is really tough here. They call the roads "cobblestone". I think it's more like 1700th century earthquake! Huge stones, smoothed off on the top, with massive spaces between them. It's going to be really easy to twist an ankle!

I managed to find pieces of reasonable level sidewalks along with bits of road where the cement curb turned back into the road for a foot or so in width. When I got out to the town square, there we're paving stones laid along the tire tracks in the road. They were fairly safe to run on. I ran at a 6:30 pace this morning. It was a far cry from the 5:45 - 5:50 that I was running at back at home, but, I guess it's OK for somewhat starting over again!

I got on the scale today and found that my weight was only up about 8 pounds from since I left home. After 5 weeks in the car eating . . . . whatever, I think that's OK. I'm starting to run 30 minutes for 30 days starting on Monday. I'm guessing that will get me going again and knock a few of those extra pounds off.

We went to a "Bull Fight" yesterday. Apparently, "Bull Fight" translates to from Spanish to English to mean "Rodeo". I've never been to a rodeo before. I guess you have to be into that for it to appear interesting!

Today we managed to get cell phones. It took about 6 hours, but, luckily for us, the store is right at the top of our street, less than 5 minutes away. I've put the phone number on the contact page.

Here's some pictures of our place and the grounds.

Day 36 - Rental House

We found a house to rent for two months today! What an experience!

We met Gonzalo the Remax agent at 9:15 - by 10:00 am he'd shown us two places and we'd decided on the first. 45 minutes to decide where we'd live. That's the way I love to do stuff, so that worked out great in my books.

We asked how we'd pay. They would have taken a US cheque, but we don't have a US account. They wouldn't take a Canadian cheque. Apparently, it takes 3 weeks to clear. We needed to go to the local bank and open an account. No bit deal - right? WRONG!!!

6 hours later. 4 trips back to our hotel for but yet more information or documents. 1 trip back to the Remax office and a trip over to the ranch where our house is. Holy crap!

After all that, we have a bank account in Mexico, but now we have to wire transfer money to it. We got online to move money, but we couldn't do it. We had to talk to our branch. The girl we usually talk to wasn't there. The girl we did talk to said we had to come in! This isn't getting any easier!

We've now emailed the bank with the info and, hopefully, they will look after it in the morning.

Meanwhile, Gonzalo has told us it doesn't matter. We can move in tomorrow around noon, and pay him later in the week.

Pay him later in the week? WOW - That's sure as heck doesn't happen at home! Cool!

So that's our day. no pictures, just miles of walking aback and forth over these rough, and i mean ROUGH, cobblestone roads. I've been thinking I need to get my lazy ass out the door and start running, but I think I got enough exercise today.

We'll take pictures tomorrow.