Running at Patzcuaro

Since we were just passing through, we decided to stay on the outskirts of Patzcuaro, at the Itzhi Eco Hotel. (We’re suckers for “eco”) It was hard to tell what eco translated to, but there was a nice garden where I took photos of the flowers and snails.









And it looked like with the right wind you could launch a paraglider from the front lawn :-)



I was intrigued by the island in the lake, next time we'll have to visit it.



The hotel had a restaurant so we had thought we'd be able to enjoy the hotel and not have to go out again. The restaurant looked great, with wonderful views, but it was closed. Which wasn’t surprising since we were the only guests as far as I could tell. No problem, there was a fancier hotel just down the street and it also had a restaurant. We went to check it out and got a brief tour of the hotel (very nice). I asked about the restaurant in my infinitesimal Spanish, “restaurante?”. I got a positive response, “Si, 4:30”. Ok, open later for supper, great.

I had seen several people go running up the road so I decided to go for a run. It was cobblestones, but relatively smooth. I checked Google maps and found the road went two kilometres uphill to a lookout (mirador). A short way up the hill there were dirt trails separate from the cobblestone road that I was happy to take. (Strangely, the other runners stuck to the cobblestones.). Coming from the flatlands, I’m not used to running uphill for two kilometres. But I watched my heart rate and set a pace based on that. It seemed painfully slow, but I was working hard.

I reached the end of the road to find hundreds of steps leading up to the top of the hill. I have to admit I resorted to walking, and even that kept my heart rate up. And they were steep uneven stairs which limited my speed going down.

I paused back at the lookout to check out a possible paraglider launch. It was a bit small and committing but looked doable. Lots of fields below to land in.

The dirt trails on the way down were a bit tricky - muddy from the day's rain, and with rocks and roots. I wished I had my trail runners rather than my road ones. Overall it felt pretty good, although it seemed harder and slower than it should have been. Afterwards I realized I ran to about 2500m, which is probably high enough to slow you down, although we’d been around 2000m for the last three weeks and should be somewhat acclimatized. My watch told me I’m losing fitness, which makes sense since I haven’t been running much. But I’m not sure how well it takes altitude into account. My knee didn’t bother me during the run, but it was a bit sore afterwards. (From my paragliding mishap.)

I got back and showered and we wandered down the street ready for a nice supper at the hotel next door. It was all closed up. We realized they must have been saying they closed at 4:30, not that they opened at 4:30. Crap.

That meant driving, which we'd hoped to avoid by staying at a hotel with a restaurant. We didn't want to get caught up in downtown traffic so we picked a neighborhood pizza place. It wasn't anything to write home about, but it sufficed. No vino but we got cervezas :-)

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