Hi Guys. My name is Gabriel Velandia and I am from Caracas, Venezuela. I grew up playing baseball until the age of 12 when I was sent to a boarding school in Wisconsin, USA. It was during my time here when I discovered Ice Hockey and knew right away this was the sport I wanted to excel at. I went back home and started playing roller hockey. Me coach aft the time was the captain of a team playing in the national league, so since an early age I was lucky enough to get exposed to a very superior level than mine. Eventually I made the national team and traveled to international roller hockey tournaments, such as in Colombia, US and Canada. Finally, after finishing high school I decided to risk it all and moved to France to “study” french and play hockey at the Ellite league with the Villeneuve.
After just 3 months Of living the dream in Paris while playing Roller Hockey I got accepted into The College of St. Scholastica in Duluth, MN. My time playing Hockey at college was more than fast…Attended try outs, but wasn’t good enough to make the Ice Hockey team. Honestly I didn’t even try because of one bad experience during pre season practices… I decided to back down and just played for fun in Sunday leagues and open hockey during the weeks.
During my time in Minnesota I got very into skiing. There was a small hill just a couple minutes away from my school, I got the season pass, booked some 5 classes and got some skiing in anytime the weather wasn’t super cold. At the same time I kept in touch with my former team from back home in Venezuela luckily for me they called me a spot in the national team for the Czech Republics Roller Hockey World Cup. It was an amazing experience… came back to Duluth, played at the USPHC (US Pond Hockey Championship) with my friends from back home and we had a blast. Finally after graduating from college I played my last Roller Hockey World Championship in Anaheim, CA.
I started working in Oxnard, California. Here I discovered Crosffit and got super into it, while at the same time I kept active also playing ice hockey and roller hockey in a weekly basis in some open hockey days. I was in California by myself, so during weekends and after work I had more than enough time for myself. It was during this time that I caught up with my mountain mountain biking passion. Also, Here I would ran my first trail – endurance race (21k) in San Diego and also entered my first triathlon ever.
From here on, I got obsessed with triathlons for over a year. Participated in the famous but brutal Alpe D’huez Tristhlon, also in 3 IM 70.3 (PB: 4:56), and several international distance triathlons (achieve podium in tons of local races, but the best one was the Malibu Olympic Triathlon where i got a third place with a 2:15 time running a sub 40:00 for the 10k). This led to running marathons, where I got a sponsorship kinda deal with Tag Heuer. Then I ran my first – and only 60k ultramarathon back home. Got tire of running and made some mountain biking trips and started with weekend adventures, such as bike packing trips.
Lastly I got myself into backcountry skiing and mountaineering. I’ve taken AVY Course I and several guiding trips into the backcountry of places such as Jacksonhole, WY. Wasatch Mountains, UT, San Juan Mountains, CO. and Mt Baker/Rainier.
The purpose of this page is to motivate other people to live life actively and in a healthy way. Stay tune for monthly posts with adventures, races, training and travel recaps.
MiBiCi Adventures 