Here is a map and elevation profile of my favorite ride. The loop part is my favorite anyway. The rest is kind of crummy with stop lights and traffic.

It’s 8k up and 8k down with 500m elevation. Plus, at some point since I moved away from Honolulu they managed to pave the side of the loop I ride down (I go clockwise). The road is so smooth now that on my Beyond Fabrications Radius Carbon it feels like I’m just gliding through the corners the whole way down.

Yesterday I came back from my day’s workouts around 3:30-ish and was greeted by a worried Uncle Bob. Worried because I was home so late, and I he thought there was no way I could make it so long without a good meal. He made me a smoothie while I stretched and then started in on veggies, potatoes and chicken breast. I felt like royalty. Bob, however, suggested that if it weren’t for the swimming biking and running, I would be just like a baby, “eating sleeping and shitting the days away.”

What Bob says may be mostly true, but I’d like to point out that I’m also trying desperately to catch up on my schoolwork in Biochemistry, and hoping that when I do get back on schedule I can put some energy back into learning Spanish, which I was much better about before I left Seattle. It’s just so hard to focus  on academics when you’re in a new place with new people and a new routine.

So I got to do my favorite bike ride, Tantalus, a ten mile loop that climbs 2000 feet in the first five miles, then descends the second 5 miles. I only rode one lap, but hopefully I’ll have a chance to do a bunch more while I’m here. Tomorrow I’m doing a track workout at the University of Hawaii in Manoa. It’s a nice all-weather track, and the best part is that it’s rainbow colored! There’s even a sign that reads, “run on a rainbow.” Though the sign is old because UH has moved on from their original mascot, the rainbows. They became the rainbow warriors, and now they’re just the warriors. I guess warriors seem tougher than rainbows if you haven’t played Mario Kart.

Yesterday I celebrated the life of my friend Adam Havrilak, along with his Hawaii ohana. The service was done at a beach park in Hawaii Kai. It was sunny with strong trade winds blowing as we gathered around  Adam’s ashes and a photograph of Adam, taken on the water just in front of where we stood. We gathered around close, forming a tight circle around Adam’s father while he read his son’s eulogy. The eulogy was well written, and just as everyone began to cry the sky started crying with us. It was still sunny and warm, but, as it happens in Hawaii, the rain seemed to come from nowhere and be sent from above just to wash away our tears.

[Above: Adam and I got up and drove to Sandy’s Beach for the sunrise on New Years Day 2008. On 2 hours of sleep, I never would have gotten out of bed, but Adam had this drive to have fun that you just couldn’t say no to, and we ended up running all over the beach taking pictures with the bus loads of Japanese tourists who paid to be taken out there to watch the sunrise with us.]

The service ended and we took Adam out to the ocean. His father jumped in the water and let Adam’s remains drift away while we decorated the water with lais and flower pedals. It was perfect.

Afterwards we headed to Kona Brewing Company for pupus and to talk story. Adam had a lot of stories.

That was pretty much all of Sunday. It was sandwiched right between Valentines day (my least favorite “holiday” which I hate) and Presidents’ Day (I’m still laying in bed thinking about all the hummus I ate yesterday and how my sweat probably smells like garlic). Not that the long weekend really has a lot of meaning when you “work” every day (I put the quotes on ‘work’ because the word has a negative connotation associated with it, and I really enjoy what I do.)

I overslept this morning and missed going on a ride with Paulo and Fabio. I’m a little bummed because we were going to take the ferry over to Guaruja on the other side of the river from Santos. The riding over there is much nicer because there are fewer cars and more rainforest. So, I went for a run on the beach, ate breakfast, then went to the appointment Fabio had made for me to get a massage!!

[Before I start this story, let me ruin the ending for the readers with dirty minds (Loren and Chris Tremonte, I’m looking at you 🙂 ) – it was not that kind of massage.]

I was running late, but I needed to stop at a bank to change money. Fabio said that there were a bunch of banks in front of Patricia’s (the massage therapist) building, so I went in with my bike and asked, but was escorted out by a security guard. Then a woman came out to ask what I needed. she said the nearest place to change money was in the mall, which was 2 blocks down. I was already 5 minutes late, so I went into the building and valet parked my bike. Sort of. The Valet guy handed me a lock and let my lock the bike in the corner. Then I hopped in the elevator.

After explaining to Patricia that I would have to exchange money after and come back she told me to take off my clothing…

This is when I realized I was not wearing underwear beneath my K-Swiss board shorts. I mean – it’s so hot, why would I put on an extra layer? Normally in the US this isn’t an issue because there’s a sheet and they just wrap it around you so that you can maintain some kind of modesty. Here, however, there was no sheet. My options were to get a massage through my shorts or lay bare naked on the table.

I laid down in my shorts, and immediately regretted my decision. My legs are sore, but she ended up spending most of her time working on my back and shoulders. Those were tight too, but my legs were begging for a rub down. Besides, modesty is so not me, and the nudity would have made for a much better story (Loren and Chris would have enjoyed it more anyway).

After she finished (45 minutes for 40 reais, which is a little less than $20 – would have been 55 if I’d been on time) I walked down the street a few blocks to find the mall. After five blocks I didn’t see anything that looked like a shopping center, so I went into another bank and asked for an exchange. “It is at Canal 3 near the beach.” Now, I was at Canal 5 and they are each about 800 meters apart. They were actually directing me back to my hotel, about 5km away. I turned around, walked back another block, then went into another bank to ask again. “Yes, go to the next street, turn… ah… [points left, i say “left” he confirms] then walk about four blocks, it is on the … ah… left… side and there is another bank like this one at the entrance, and it will say ‘exchange’ in front”

Those are directions I can work with!! After that it was easy, I changed some money and went back to Patricia’s office where Francisco was getting a massage. I just can’t believe how hard it was to find a money exchange!

While I was walking around I saw the garbage collectors. These guys put the New York City trash collectors to shame. They were running down the street – three at a time running, one driving – and grabbing bags from the sidewalk, then throwing them into the still moving truck. While they ran they yelled for people to move, and those that didn’t understand (read: “Ben”) were simply run over. The whole scene was awesome!

I really like it here in Santos. The people are all friendly, and even though I have no idea how to communicate with anyone, I feel really welcome. This morning Paco (did you know that Paco is short for Francisco? I was wondering why everyone was calling him Paco….) and I called Fabio Carvalho, and it turned out he was already on his way over to find us at our hotel. He helped us schedule massage (45 reais for an hour! That’s like 20 dollars!) for tomorrow, and then told us when we could meet Paulo Miyashiro and his triathlon group for a noon swim. 

The swim was fun, but it was near the entrance to the river where all the freighters come in and out. I guess they periodically dredge the bottom of the river, and that periodically happened yesterday. So there was all kinds of silt and dirt floating in the water and the visibility was terrible. The tri group was about 10 or 15 swimmers. The plan was to go straight out around a series of five yellow buoys, then turn right 90 degrees and swim down to a giant channel buoy, then another 90 degrees and into the shore. As soon as we started swimming I found myself way to the right of everyone else. I hadn’t realized there was a current that was sweeping me away! I caught back on to the group right as we started passing the yellow buoys, but I was on the inside and swimming at about a 45 degree angle to get past the buoys without being swept into them. The first one was fine, the second one was fine, the third one was fine, then we come to the fourth buoy – I spot, it looks like I’m about 4 feet to the left of the buoy, three more stokes… BAM!!!! My head and hand hit the metal buoy at the same time.  I stopped, felt my throbbing face, adjusted my Swedish goggles (not the best goggle style for collisions), blinked a few times to bring the world back into focus, then skipped the fifth buoy in order to catch back on to the group. We flew past the next buoy, then swam at an angle again toward shore. When we stopped I found my forehead and nose were both bleeding a little, but what can you do? We turned around and swam back the way we came, only this time we were against the current from the big channel buoy up to the yellow buoys and it took over twice as long. My forehead is bruised right on my eyebrow, but I don’t think it’s all that visible.

Then tonight Fabio came back and went running with me the length of the Santos beach (10km round trip) – with a few stops to say hello to the people he recognized and to get some Gatorade from the tri club’s refreshment cart on the beach.

I noticed a couple things that I will have to try to get pictures of in the next couple days. Like the fact that the buildings here don’t all stand straight up and down. One condo building overlooking the beach was leaning so far to the right that the top looked as though it would soon touch the neighboring building. Also, there’s a trolley outside out hotel that doesn’t move. Finally, I saw a redhead today. She was Brazilian, but she was whiter than me (maybe I won’t take a picture of that – it might make me a creep.)

Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, Courtenay Brown – my girlfriend who gets less attention from bencollins.org than Klepto the Crow – is living with my parents in Seattle. She’s gone from a household with three triathletes (Aaron, Me and herself) to being an only child to my mom and dad. Now, I always tell people that living at home isn’t so bad because my parents are “easy to get along with”, and I really think that’s true. The thing is, I’ve had 25 years to learn how to ignore them and get out of long conversations when I have something else to do (e.g. “I need to go stretch and get homework done, what’s for dinner… ew, can we have something better? …maybe I’ll just cook for myself”), but as their son I have the right to be abrupt and unappreciative on occasion (I certainly push the limits on “occasional”, but a few “Thanks Dad, you’re the best!”s and I keep my stuff from being thrown into the street.). And don’t get me wrong, most of the time I really enjoy hanging out with my parents. Courtenay is in that weird place where she’s still a guest and hasn’t really established her role, which makes it pretty hard. Moreover, she has no job (anyone in Seattle want a really smart part-time employee? She’s good at admin work and better at copy editing – thought she only sometimes applies the latter skill to my blog.), is training full time to prepare for her first year as a professional triathlete (she was on a pro women’s cycling team beforehand), and it turns out that beautiful fall weather Seattle had was a total fluke and the “Emerald City” is mostly just gray and wet (I still love it, but I can see why it’s tough for the non-native transplant who’s primary job involves being outside in spandex for 30 hours a week). Anyway, I’m trying not to micromanage my Seattle household from Brazil, but I feel really bad that I can’t help out and that I decided to disappear from home only a month after she moved there. I’m sure all will turn out well. It usually does.

 

This is how two international triathletes fit two giant duffle bags, two bike cases, two bikes, plus backpacks and themselves into a small hotel room. It feels just like home!!

 

We don’t have great internet access in the hotel (they say that it is being repaired “right now” but that was 5 hours ago and it is still being repaired “right now”), so Francisco Serrano and I are down the street at the other host hotel for the race, the Hotel Atlantico, where they generously let us have the network key.

I was trying to get the pictures above to post all side by side, but my site doesn’t have enough width. Maybe I can get my dad to download the pictures and Photoshop them into one image. (I don’t know how to do it myself).

We got an email this morning that there would be a van to take us into Santos. The email said, “The van will be paid for yours ok. the driver is already knowing.” I took this to mean that the van was paid for, but then this afternoon the race organizers changed their mind and asked for us to pay them back for the van. I don’t think I quite understand, but I’m sure we will figure it out. At least the ferry ride to Santos was kind of cool.

[look ma, no hands!!]

Today the ocean went from glassy and flat to substantial surf. I’m not sure how long the swell is supposed to last, but it made today’s ocean swim a lot more fun than the last few days in Guaruja. There were hundreds of surfers, and after swimming for about an hour Francisco and I body surfed for a while before heading to dinner.

This was the first night I’ve eaten anything different from the Hotel Breakfast and the Chicken Filet, Rice and Beans from the restaurant the Fast Triathlon set us up with (it was called Sony, and was really weird, one waiter was awesome, and the others seemed to hate us.) We went to an Italian place in the mall by where we’re staying.

Santos is completely different from Guaruja. It’s actually a big city. There are shops and malls and traffic and bunches of people. Guaruja was silent. Like a get-away town with only a few resaurants and a handful of hotels. The rest of the Guaruja beach was just houses, condos and some beach bars. I never even found a place to buy clothes with the $250 that American Airlines offered to give me. My loss I guess – at least the front desk boy at our hotel was nice enough to lend me some clothing. I will certainly miss the Hotel Miramare, it was run by a really nice family.

That’s about it for now. Maybe tomorrow I can write something with more connectivity.

P.S. Read Courtenay’s blog.