Hotels in Ronda

We traveled to Ronda on Saturday afternoon, with plans of overnighting in town, to avoid an early morning drive from Marbella on the race day. Since we booked late, the only hotel we could fine with vacancy was the Hotel Colón. As the hotel sits precisely on the starting line, next to the Alameda, we thought we’d lucked out!

But then we checked in.

First bad omen was when the receptionist said that we had to be out of the hotel by noon the following day (Sunday). This is the first time we’ve ever been to an event like this, and where the local hotel didn’t allow us to return to the room late the following day to take a shower. (It’s not like they had guests arriving on Sunday night.)

So we spent the afternoon exploring Ronda, and ended the evening with a pizza. Returning to the Hotel Colón at about 9:30 PM, we hit the sack early.

Three hours later we realized we’d made a terrible mistake. Not only does the hotel’s location coincide with the race start, it also coincides with the busiest evening-time spot in all of Ronda. Loud cars, loud people, buzzing motorcycles, shouting, bottle breaking, police sirens, you name it. An orchestra of noise.

At midnight, I’d decided to simply go home. Anybody familiar with Spanish nightlife knows that kind of chaos goes on all night long, and I wasn’t about to sit there all night, and then ride 70 km the following day, having done no training at all (more about that later).

We left the hotel shortly after midnight, unsure whether we were simply going home, or to another hotel. Fortunately, we happened to ask the public parking lot attendant if he knew of a hotel outside of Ronda, and he pointed us to the Hotel Don Benito.

Wow. What a difference! Just 4km outside Ronda sits the four star Hotel Don Benito. Beautiful. Friendly staff. And quiet! We were able to have a gloriously peaceful night.

Considering the one-star Hotel Colon was 50 Euros per night, excluding breakfast, and the four-star Hotel Don Benito was 60 Euros per night, including an awesome breakfast, I’m pretty sure I know where we’ll be staying in the future.

Race Day

After a breakfast of fruits, toasted rolls with olive oil, cereals and coffee, we headed off to the Alameda for the start of the event, where we were greeted by 1,000 cyclists and 700 runners.

Not having touched a bicycle in over six months, I was more than slightly concerned about my chances of finishing the thing, and so I moved to the very back of the group. At 9:30 sharp, the gun was fired and we were off.

The race made an initial, insanely muddy loop around Ronda, and then it was off to Montejaque, where we climbed up to the famous Ermita. I’ve done this climb many times, and it’s hard. I was able to stay on the bike for most of it, but had to walk at the very top, where both the inclination and trail erosion from the recent rains made it impossible to stay on the bike.

Back to Ronda, we hit the 30 km point, where I’d planned to do a self-assessment and possibly quit. However, I felt surprisingly good, and decided to continue. The route then left Ronda for a north westerly loop of about 40 km. I started feeling better and better, and ended the race passing many people and feeling strong. I can only attribute that to the Powerbar gels which I’d decided to take religiously each 45 minutes.

My finishing time was 5h:30m, over an hour better than last year’s time. (But still, that’s relative. Spaniards love cycling; over 80% of the people in my category still beat me!)

I arrived just in time to setup the camera to capture Pino finishing the run, in fourth place overall, and second place in her category. AMAZING!

After the race, we downed our recovery drinks, had a warm sandwich and beer offered by the organization, and sat looking at the gorgeous Ronda countryside waiting for the awards ceremony. At 5:30 PM, Pino was awarded her 2nd place trophy — and there was no mention of my finishing in the bottom twenty percent. (Unfair!)

In addition to Pino’s performance, others from Marbella did well too. Our friends Aurora and Juan finished first and second in their categories, respectively (in the 23 km run option).

All in all, an absolutely fantastic day in Ronda. Looking forward to next year.

Photos

Map of the 70km bike route.

Altitude profile of the bike route.

Start of the race.

Pino running through the local towns.

Climbing up to the Montejaque Ermita.

Pino’s finishing second!.

Team Marbella did great!

It was a muddy, muddy day.

Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (BJJ) is a grappling-based martial art, originating (obviously) in Brazil, that became popular in the late 1990s, when it surprised the world, demonstrating its superiority in the early versions of the UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship) — a no-rules fighting event that pitted experts from various arts (karate, kung-fu, boxing, etc.) against each other, in an attempt to settle the eternal question, “Which martial art is the most effective in real combat?” Without punching, kicking or drawing blood, the small Brazilians were able to subdue and control far larger opponents — and ultimately force them to “tap out.”

Ironically, the world would soon learn that the martial art that dominated those original “ultimate fighting” events turns out the be one of the most attractive martial arts in which “the rest of us,” might want to train.

Since it doesn’t contain striking and kicking, BJJ is quite safe to practice. Its objectives are to take one’s opponent to the ground, gain a superior position, and then to submit them through a choke or joint lock. As such, it’s an art that is rich in terms of strategy and tactics; in fact, many people find a BJJ match to be analogous to a physical version of chess. And, since one can train in BJJ, safely, at the same level and intensity as real competition (or a real fight), it’s both a fantastic physical exercise, and extremely effective in real world situations.

I’ve been practicing BJJ for about nine years now. Beginning with white, and progressing through blue and purple, I’ve worked my up to the brown-belt level. The next step is the dream of all BJJ practitioners — the coveted black belt, or “faixa preta,” in Portuguese. During those years, I’ve tried to compete as often as possible. Although during the nervous buildup to a competition, I usually end up thinking, “Why do I put myself through this?”, I always — win or lose — find the experience gratifying, and find my motivation to continue practicing and learning elevated.

This year represents the third time that I’ve won gold at the European championships — once at the blue-belt level, and twice at the brown-belt level. That’s not really saying as much as it seems, though, since, in my age category, there’s usually not that many competitors. If I happen to get promoted to black this year, though, I am mulling over the possibility of dropping back down to the “adult” category next year (18 to 30 years old), just for the opportunity to experience a fight against some of the famous elite competitors around today.

I’ll close this blog with a link to a video somebody recorded of my fight this year, in the finals of the brown belt, lightweight, Senior 2 division. Enjoy!

This year, my walk-around weight increased to about 81 kg, and prior to the European championships, I decided to forego trying to lose 7 kg, and just fight at middleweight, 82 kg (including gi). That turned out to be a major mistake, as the fighters in that category walk around at 84- and 85 kg, and cut down to 82 kg for the event. It felt like fighting monsters, and I didn’t win a single fight.

So, for 2010, I will, without question, try to return to the lightweight division. Losing weight, permanently, takes time, and so I decided to start the process a couple months ago. My goal is to reach 76 kg. I began at 81 kg, and after 45 days, have gotten down to 77 kg — so I’m almost there.

WEIGHTBOT FOR THE IPHONE

If you have an iPhone, there’s no better tool to track your weight than Weightbot, from the people at Tapbots.

http://tapbots.com/weightbot/ As a product developer myself, I have mad respect for the effort these capable guys have put into make the user interface beautiful, simple and efficient to use.

DIETING & WEIGHT LOSS

The reason I ended up at 81 kg is simple: I love to eat, and I love beer (in particular, Corona with lime, or the Spanish Cruz Campo).

Getting my weight back down to 76 kg was going to require a change of habit (or, the establishment of some habits, depending how you want to look at it.) The things I didn’t want to give up included my yummy daily lunches, and my afternoon post-workout couple of beers. The resulting strategy included:

1. Eliminate all between-meal snacking. This has been the most difficult part. I was so used to grabbing a snack frequently throughout the day.

2. Eliminate all sweets. This hasn’t been as difficult as I expected it to be.

3. Reduce consumption of breads to a minimum. No problem here. I have a piece of toast with breakfast, and maybe a small piece at lunch.

4. Cut back on sauces (ceasar salad dressing, kebab yogurt sauce, things like that). Again, no real problem here.

5. Eat well at breakfast and lunch, and eat very lightly at dinner. (Note, lunch and dinner, here in Spain, happen generally generally around 2:00 PM and 10:00 PM, respectively.)

Following this simple plan, I’ve been losing about 0.5 kg (1.1 pounds) per week, and without feeling deprived of what I really like.

Every May, thousands of people from around the world gather in Ronda, Spain, to subject themselves to the grueling endurance event known as the 101km of Ronda, hosted and organized by the Spanish professional military, La Legión. A bit lesser known, this group also organize a warm-up even in March, known as the Homenaje de los 101km de Ronda. While I’ve done the 101km three times now, this was the first year that I participated in the Homenaje.

This past Sunday, we got up early–especially early, given the switch to Daylight Savings Time–dropped the kids off at the grandparents, and headed off to Ronda. I’d planned to do the 70km mountain bike ride, while my wife planned to do the 43km running option. We got to Ronda about an hour later, parked and headed to the start area.

And we’re off!

At 9:30 am, I and 1499 other MTB’ers took off from the Alameda, in what would turn out to be one of the hardest rides I’ve ever done. A half hour later, Pino set off on what would, for her, be one of her most successful races.

The route left from Ronda, made its way down to Benaoján, up to Montejaque, up to the Ermita de Montejaque, down to the valley, up to Arriate, back up to Ronda, down the famous “Cuesta del Cachondeo”, then back up to the Ermita de Montejaque (on the other side), and then back to Ronda through the same route via Benaoján on which we started the day.

The route planners packed in just about as much climbing within the 70km, as they do within the 101km. Have a peek at the route profile:

While the course would have been hard on a good day, things got terribly complicated by the weather, which is particularly unstable this time of year around Ronda. While most of the day was cold and thickly overcast, it’d occasionally clear up, becoming beautiful, but sweltering hot.

And just by the time you’d get the jacket off, the sun would duck behind a cloud, bringing back the bone chilling cold. Eventually, it began to rain, finally turning into hail.

The wet weather led to some awfully muddy conditions, and since the course was practically all climbing or descending, there were a lot of crashes. (I crashed three times, but at least the soft muddy landing helped!) And with the constant change of cold-hot-cold temperatures, the mud sort of baked into rock-hard clumps on the bike.

The finish.

All in all, a hard, unpleasant ride, much of which was spent walking up and down muddy inclines. I finished the 70km course in seven hours; 15 minutes more than it took me to do the entire 101km course last year!

On the positive side, Pino had a great running race, finishing 30 minutes faster than her time in the Homenaje last year, and ending up fourth overall, and second in her category! Go Pino!

The raced ended just in time, as the weather turned for the worse, covering the area just outside the city in a snowstorm:

The possessed car wash.

The day wouldn’t have been complete, without a hair-raising experience at, of all places, a car wash.

Just outside Ronda, we stopped to wash my mountain bike at a “high-pressure” do-it-yourself car wash. Very tired from the race, feeling mellow from a beer, my mind was in another place when I inserted the Euro, and pressed the “Wash” button. What I heard next sounded like something between a grenade launcher and the space shuttle taking off.

The little faded pictogram on the wall showing a man holding the water pistol as “Step 1″ needs to have some supplemental text like, oh,

“WARNING: This machine is driven by a NUCLEAR pump. YOU WILL DIE! if you’re not holding on to that pistol with ALL THE MIGHT YOU CAN MUSTER when you insert that coin!”

Before I knew what was going on, the rocketfuel-propelled car wash pistol was violently shooting up and down, left and right, thrashing anything in its path. I instinctively and instantly dove in front of the Jeep, covering my head, and hoping I wouldn’t get killed. Meanwhile, I could only imagine what was getting smashed to pieces overhead.

Finally, I reached up on one pass of the enraged pistol, and managed to grab the hose. The darn thing nearly ripped my arm off, but I somehow management to wrestle it to the grown (and getting soaked in the process).

In the end, I avoided getting hit, but the Jeep suffered some major dents. :-( I sure learned my lesson.

For those interested, I’ve got more photos up on a dedicated Flickr set.

Man, I’ve been on some kind of good luck streak lately! First the brown belt a few weeks ago, and now, this past weekend, I competed and won the gold medal in the Brown Belt, Senior 1 division of the European Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Championships. Woo-Hoo!

In the picture below, the guy on the right is my coach, Edson Jorge, who I believe is the best BJJ coach on the planet, in addition to being a world class competitor in BJJ and MMA. On the left is some dude we met who’s interested in signing up for some BJJ lessons with us in Marbella. ;-)

Just kidding, folks! As any self-respecting BJJ aficionado will quickly note, that man on the left happens to be none other than the very best BJJ and grappling practitioner walking on the planet today — current world champion, Roger “The Man” Gracie!

On the same day I got mine, my long-time training buddy Mike Rios also got his brown belt. So all in all, it was a very special day!

We tend to spend a lot of weekends river-walking in the local mountains. My Chaco sandals (which I love!) just weren’t cutting the mustard for this kind of activity — I was too frequently stubbing my toes on rocks, or slipping, or having to take them off to remove the odd pebble that found its way in.

So I did a little research, and ordered a pair of Keen Hood River II sandals from Altrec.com, in the US. They just arrived today, and I was elated to find that I’d ordered the right size (as ordering shoes via the internet is a risky business.) The shoes are very comfortable, as I expected being the owner of some other Keen shoes, and the soles appear to have a nice gripping surface. And the toe cup is definitely going to make boulder hopping a much less painful activity!

I’ll report back in a few weeks, after spending some time in the wild with them.

Each year in May, for the past 11 years, the Spanish Legionnaires (“La Legión”, a Spanish military wing) organizes the famous, “101 km of Ronda” event, in which the 5,000+ participants endure a 101 kilometer (66 miles) tour through the mountains and sierras surrounding the beautiful namesake city of Ronda.

My wife and I participated for the first time last year, 2006. Of the three participation modalities — running/walking, mountain bike, and duathlon — I did the mountain bike option, and finished in a leisurely nine hours. She did the walk, and ended up having to quit at 70 km, due to an oversight. Not anticipating the extreme overnight temperature drops in the Ronda sierras, she hadn’t thought to bring cold weather clothes, and ended up having to quit before hypothermia set in around 1:00 am.

So this year, 2007, she wanted to give another go, and I decided to accompany her in the walk, as far as possible. In short, I ended up quitting at 1:00 am at the 65 km point, and my wife ended up completing the walk, in 23 hours and 30 minutes — a mere half hour from the official cut-off! Let me tell you — walking 65 km, much less 100 (!) is one of the most challenging things I’ve ever done!

Preparations.

Unfortunately, there were very little preparations. We spent a lot of time thinking about what to pack, but precious little actually training. I think the only thing we did, was a 14 km walk one morning.

How it unfolded.

After a hard friday night of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu training, we got up Saturday morning early, and headed off to Ronda, arriving about 9:30 am, one and a half hours before the scheduled start of 11:00. We got our Ronda 101km “Passport” signed, and joined the other several hundred walkers in the middle of the football field, waiting for the start.

At 10:30, the big artillery guns fired, and the mountain bikers took off in a big bowl of dust. Us walkers then grouped up at the start, where 30 minutes later at 11:00, the guns fired again, and we were off.

To walk 100 km in 24 hours, taking into account breaks (and the Legionnaires have a water/food stop setup roughly every 5km), you actually have to walk at a pace that’s a bit faster than feels comfortable (to me), so our strategy was to jog the flats (at a roughly 6:30 min/km pace, and then walk the uphills (at a roughly 10:00 pace).

This worked out for the first 35 km or so, until we came to the massive climb after the city of Arriate. Good grief — four kilometers of near vertical climbing, and I was ready to quit. I’d already started forming some blisters on my feet, and my hip had started hurting. After a rest at the top, though, I decided to continue on.

The daylight hours were marked by very high temperatures, and a beating sun. I was glad to be wearing my venting hat, draped with a connected bandana, protecting ears and neck from the harsh sun. I was also glad to be wearing my hydration system, and tried to drink approximately one liter per hour. The organized rest stops, every 5 km, had isotonic drinks, fresh fruit, and in one stop, sandwiches.

As I expected, my wife (and it’s true, women are tougher than men) looked fresh as a rose all day.

As the sun went down, around 9:00 PM in the evening, we arrived in Setenil, a major rest point. (Many people starting the race actually plan to quit here.) A lot goes on at the Setenil stop — there are doctors to treat physical problems, physiotherapists to provide massage and ice treatments, and foot doctors (“podologos”) to treat foot problems. It’s also the first stop where you can have, in advance, a bag waiting for you, in which most people include their evening/cold-weather clothing. Due to the long lines one usually finds retrieving the bags, we took advantage of a gracious offer from a friend, Luis Pérez, to meet us there with our stuff.

After a sandwich and a stretch, I visited the medical tent, to have the podologos take a look at my blisters. I had two — one on each side of my outer heels. After draining, and bandaging/taping them up, I was release to head off.

By this time, it was about 10:15 PM, and darkness had set in. I was wearing my Petzl headlamp, and marching off through the darkness. (The Legionnaires mark the path with glowing small lights, but one still definitely has to carry a headlamp, if there’s no full moon. And even still, I was tripping and stumbling through the potholes.

Pino and I arrived at the first rest point after Setenil, where under a lightbulb the Legionnaires were serving water and orange slices, and listening to a soccer game on the radio. At this point, people started to look in really bad shape. One girl waiting to be picked up appeared to be suffering hypothermia, and another man could hardly stand up.

I had planned to quit here, as my feet and hip were killing me, and more blisters had formed on my feet. My wife convinced me to carry on, and see if I could make it to the next stop. In fact, since Arriate, at 30 km, that had been my modus operandi the whole day — “let’s see if I can make it to the next stop.”

So we carried on into the night. At this point, it’s very desolate. We didn’t see anyone behind us, and so only a few small headlamps way off in the distance ahead of us. I told Pino that, definitely, the next stop was the end of the line for me.

And so about 5 km later, around 1:00 AM, we arrived at what for me would be the end of the road. To my happy surprise, they were serving some hot coffee with milk. After a short break, Pino and I hugged, and I agreed to wait for her at the Military Cuartel, where I would be taken by truck soon, and where she would arrive on foot some three hours later.

I climbed into the big military vehicle, in the dark, and could see about six or seven bodies — others for whom this rest stop would represent the end of their journey. There wasn’t any talking; just people wrapped up in blankets, ready to be driven back.

About 30 minutes later, I arrived at the Cuartel, and enjoyed a hot meal prepared by the military kitchen staff. There was a huge line for foot doctors, so I decided to have a leg massage. After waiting in line for about half an hour, it was finally my turn. (During the wait, I had the opportunity to stare at some of the most horribly blistered feet I’d ever imagined. My feet, by comparison, were pristine!)

The physiotherapist noted that one of my legs was much more strained than the other. Upon hearing that my hip had been hurting badly, he indicated that was the explanation; my walk had tried to compensate.

While waiting for Pino to arrived, I watched people slowly arrive at the Cuartel. A couple of them would get their hot meal, sit down, and then just fall over into the floor, holding their heads with dizzyness and nausea. I was tired and sore, but considered myself very very fortunate to be feeling, overall, pretty darn good compared to those folks.

At 4:00 AM, Pino came bouncing in. I’d kinda hoped she’s be in worse shape, and would want to quit and go back to Ronda with me, but no, she was ready eat and head off on the final 25 km stretch (which happens to be the worst of the day!). At that point, a sergeant opened the door and shouted, “Next bus to Ronda leaves in three minutes!”

So we hugged again, and I left, to climb into yet another big clanky military vehicle which would take us on back to Ronda. Pino finished her dinner, stretched, and headed out walking again into the darkness, towards the day’s second big climb up to the “Ermita de Montejaque”.

I arrived in Ronda at 5:30 AM, and walked ANOTHER THREE KILOMETERS to my car, where I climbed in, folded the back seats forward, and tried to rest on the hard platform, using my jacket for a pillow.

Someone walking by the car at 8:30 AM woke me up, and I called Pino, who said she was about one and a half hours from the finish. I drove as close as possible to the “Meta”, parked, and looked around for a bar to have a quick breakfast.

At 10:30 AM, I saw Pino coming with a small group of people, and had such a great sensation of relief and excitement. She’s done it. She’d walked 101 kilometers. ONE HUNDRED AND ONE KILOMETERS. It’s truly an amazing accomplishment for her. Congratulations sweetheart!

Tonight, back at home, neither of us can move very well, and neither have any intention of trying that again. I may go back and do the mountain bike ride, but definitely no more ulta-distance walks (unless I change my mind! ;)

Equipment.

We both wore standard long-distance running shoes. I carried my dearly loved Salewa Cumbra 38 backpack, and my wife wore a Lowe Alpine fanny pack.

Photos.

All the photos we too have been uploaded to Flickr. Have a look, and enjoy!

Elevation Profile.

This, however, is both good, and bad.

A lot of responsibility goes with the purple belt. It’s the first belt in BJJ that generally qualifies you to teach. And it’s the half-way point to black. That’s the good.

The bad, for me, is that the student are really gunning for you when rolling in class. I’d kind of decided to modify my training, to try to reduce the number of little niggling injuries that seem to have accumulated, by rolling hard only once a week. But now it seems like I’m going to be fighting for my life every time we train.

Technorati Tags: bjj

This past weekend was very special to me, as, after several years of training in the martial art of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ), I traveled with our team Gracie-Barra BH Marbella to Lisbon, Portugal, to compete in European BJJ Championships.

All the training paid off, as I won the gold medal in my category (Blue belt, 76 kg, Seniors 1) and nearly won a medal in the Open Class (all weights) category.

In all, I had five fights. Three were won by submission (foot lock, choke from the mount, and arm-bar) and one by judges decision. In the third round of the Open Class, I was disqualified as I went for a foot lock and rolled. The judge said that turned the move into a leg-bar, which is illegal.

I met a lot of interesting people at the event, including US grappler Mike Fowler, PrideFC fighter Fabricio Werdum, Carlos Gracie Jr., and Gracie-Barra north american representative, “Papa John”.

I plan to write up a team report on the GB Marbella website, with videos and photos.

Technorati Tags: bjj, portugal, lisbon