Happy new year!!

Welcome back to the fourth edition of my blog!!

I hope everyone enjoyed the festive season and had time to celebrate with family and friends. We had a very busy festive period with lots of travel and a lot of social events after being a bit of a hermit crab for the last quarter of 2023. While it was nice to keep my head down for those last months at the end of last year, it was really nice to get out and be social again. 

We started our travels and festivities on the 20th of december which also was my rehydration day. That morning myself, Olav and Vlad headed down to Cascais for a swim, Olav and myself are pretty shit at swimming. Olav being Norwegian has all the gear and no idea, myself minimal gear and no idea, and Vlad is a 17 time Ironman…. Enough said about his swimming capabilities!! Anyway after half an hour of Olav and myself thrashing around and Vlad cruising effortlessly it was time for that elusive beer.

116 days ago was the last time I had one, I was ready for this one and it didn’t disappoint. We had our first beers at the Beach Club Bar in Cascais. I picked this particular place as it serves one of my favorite beers, Mahou from Spain.

After consuming half the Atlantic while swimming it made these beers even more refreshing! I must say I could definitely feel the effects after going so long without, luckily we had a lunch planned right after and I could get some solid food in. Later that afternoon Linda and I got an Uber into Lisbon to the hotel where we were staying, both of us were so excited as this was our first night out in nearly four months. One of the reasons I like to sacrifice things is for the excitement and appreciation that builds up during the process. It really can’t be replicated.

The point of sacrifices is to help build mental resilience which can benefit in so many areas of life, whether that’s work, training or relationships. Along the way there were many opportunities where people would say “oh go on just have one”, fuck that!  I would find it very hard to look at myself in the mirror the next day as you would have let yourself down, that’s the worst person to let down! So to be going out in Lisbon for the first time in four months was all the more satisfying.

We started off  the evening by going for some cocktails in the Tivoli hotel’s lobby bar followed by going to Cervejaria Ramiro seafood restaurant, which was made famous to non locals by the late great Anthony Bourdain. The food was great and we both had a really fun night. 

Luckily the next day our flight to Riga wasn’t until 16:20, we had a lovely relaxing morning and hotel breakfast before heading to the airport. 

The flight time up to Riga is on the longer side for a European flight, four hours 30 mins. Had a nice flight and arrived in a cold snowy Riga.  I had forgotten how cold it gets up north in the winter. If I’m honest I can’t say I really miss it! I did 9 years in Norway so I’ve seen my fair share of cold snowy winters.  I must say though it was nice to get out to do some training in the snowy conditions for a change, training in southern European summer heat can be quite taxing I find. It’s always good to mix it up when possible. Five days was enough for me this time though!

The trip passed by very quickly as spent four nights in four different places, Lisbon Riga and Sigulda then Valmiera Linda’s hometown for a further four days. As I said earlier I got out and did a bit of training but nothing too strenuous. This festive period is the time to enjoy and relax, there’s plenty of other days in the calendar to worry about training and diet. With Linda’s family we did a secret santa this year and I was a very lucky boy, I got an old school Italian stovetop espresso pot which I absolutely love. I later found out it was from my mother-in law, how good! 

On the 26th we flew back home, my wife was understandably sad to be leaving her family but that’s just one of those things. Coming home to Cascais makes it slightly easier in my opinion. This time of the year is so beautiful here, there’s much less tourists and the temperature is really nice. You can be outside and enjoy everything that the local area has to offer without the hordes of tourists you have in the summer. Definitely one of my favorite seasons for sure. 

After enjoying  Christmas my body was ready for a bit of a workout, the period of Christmas/New years has this somewhat holiday mode feel but not quite. The day after we got back I thought I had better have a bit of a festive throw down. I did a 20 mile/32 km workout with 1000m elevation in the Sintra national park at the back of where we live. I thought I was going to feel pretty sluggish after the Christmas trip but it was actually the best I had felt in a long time. It just goes to show the importance of having some down time from training and letting the body catch up and recover. It’s impossible to be at the top of your game all year round. 

For New Years my parents were coming over from the UK which was nice as I hadn’t seen them for at least 7 or 8 months, the plan for NYE was to head over to our mates Olav and Camilla for dinner. Unfortunately my Mum got sick and couldn’t join which was a shame as that’s one of her favorite celebrations over that period. It seems so there has been some nasty stuff flying around recently whether it’s covid or the flu, loads of people have been sick.

Anyway Linda and myself got out and had a great night at Olavs and Camillas and finished about 4am! Some respectable numbers on the party front right there!  New Years day was a beautiful day in Cascais and we had a recovery HASH, the drinking club with a running problem;) I’ve mentioned this in a previous blog. Anyways we got out, had a bit of a shuffle then a New Years day dip and some beers after. A pretty decent start to the new year if you ask me! 

I don’t bother with new year’s resolutions really, I finished the end of last year strong so I suppose the best thing to do is just carry that on this year. To continue to grow my business is obviously my main goal really, but it isn’t going to be done in January alone. 

It’s a continuous development I have to work on. To improve my open water swimming is definitely something I’m keen to work on.  I’m very lucky to have the ocean right on my doorstep, so I need to take advantage of that. My advice to anyone who has a resolution is don’t burn out in January, there’s another 11 months of the year to go. Whatever your goals are, take them one day at a time, there will be great days, wank days and a whole lot of average days in between. All we can do is just keep on turning up and having a crack, it’s that simple. 

Have a great 2024 people!! 

Dry January never!!!

Ripping and tearing forever 

Beers soon!