Lima Comida Conquistada

Aimee and I participated in the Lima Marathon, called the Conquista Lima, last weekend.  Well, it is more accurate to say that Aimee did the marathon and I did the half-marathon.  We also completed a full eating tour of Lima which was the best part of the trip.

Aimee finished 4th out of 36 finishers in her category and I was 32nd out of 313 finishers in mine.  Here we are at the finishing area:

Leaving La Paz on Friday morning before the sunrise:

Arnold looks even more tired than me:

We flew to Lima with no problems and took a pleasant four mile tune up run along the ocean.  Running with oxygen is fun!  Then we began our eating tour:

After a big lunch complete with dessert, we went to the marathon expo to get our numbers:

I make friends quite easily with my charm and smooth moves:

Aimee blends in with the locals:

And the elite runners:

According to the signs, this park has the most fountains of any park in the world.  I found no reason to doubt this claim.

The view of the ocean from our hotel room, complete with motorized parapente:

Looking south down the coast:

The eating tour continues at Rafael's but we passed on dessert this time:

Burning a few calories on the way back to the hotel with the PHD (Pizza Hut Delivery) man:

A guiding light:

Next stop in the eating tour, breakfast:

We passed on the casinos:

Heaven on earth:

I neglected to take any photos of our lunch at the Peruvian-Chinese place we tried but it was good and filling.

Fidel, the IDB representative for Peru and an avid runner, invited us to join the IDB Peru Runner's Club for carbo loading at his amazing home:

A good turnout from the IDB Peru Runners:

Aimee has some Italian blood as you can see from her gestures:

Gotta store some energy for the race:

The new gear arrived just in time:

IDB Peru Runner's Club and Aimee:

Michel, Aimee, Ernesto and your humble narrator representing La Paz:

Do I sense some apprehension in the pre-dawn preparations?:

The half is not nearly so daunting:

For once, I left the camera at home during the race so I have no pictures of the actual event.  We each had good races but we both faded a lot at the end.  Training in a hilly, dry, really high elevation location is tricky when your race is in a warm, humid, flat city at sea-level but we managed.  I  might be able to run one mile in La Paz at the average pace I ran 13.1 miles in Lima but I doubt I could run even one mile at the pace I ran the first ten miles.  I got a taste of the suck over the last three miles but finishing in good order was never in doubt which is why I love the half marathon distance.  Because I don't consider myself a real runner, I was very happy to do as well as I did.

Aimee has some sore legs after her race:

It must be time for another meal.  Mariana ran her first marathon and graciously hosted a fine meal for us after the race:

One more meal at the airport and we finally finished our Lima eating marathon:

Good thing we did a little running to burn a few of those calories.