Fit by Thirty - (Five). -22kg in 12 weeks

 I'm 35 in 12 weeks. I'm 122 kg and rising for the last weeks after a spell of losing weight. So I'm yo-yo dieting, but it always ends up higher like the staircase trick . Now I will at least try to do one of those yo-yo tricks where the yo-yo sticks to the ground!

Now 22kg is probably too much. In fact is 170,000 calories of fat to burn (and/or not consume). It's 817 beers, 157 big Mac meals,. 700 scoops of chocolate ice cream (I had two today already).  

It's also only 344 hours of walking, or 137 hours of straight kettlebell workouts, 250 cycling hours out of 2023 hours in the challenge. Yeah I'll be sleeping for 674 of them (in truth more like 500) but that leaves 1350 to act.

It's not crazy.

It's ambitious.

I'll fail, but be happy with half.

Well, it's out there. On the internet. Let's see how I do.

Euro Velo - Donau - T minus one day. A 38 Km warmup

So I was in Passau two days early. The main plan is to cycle along the Donau to Vienna and maybe further to Bratislava and Budapest depending on Covid and if I still have the legs.

The sun was shining so I took the opportunity to take the bike for a spin without the extra weight of the paniers and followed the river Inn south to get an ice cream.

Next time I may just cycle along the Inn Velo route.

https://www.strava.com/activities/3921970291

Euro Velo - Donau - T minus 2 days

 Do you ever get that nagging feeling that you need to do something today? It can't be just me.

I planned my summer cycle tour down to the day and hotels giving myself plenty of time to go where I need to in the day. On the 16th of August I will go to Passau and the next day start cycling along the Donau towards Vienna. 

A week later a fellow touring cyclist told me that the Isar cycle route is also nice so I thought I would extend the trip by two days and cycle Munich to Passau and get the full Munich to Vienna cycle under my belt.

I hadn't organised those two days but they were stuck in my head to the point where I conflated the two start days.

Stupid me, I went to Passau two days early.

Lucky me, two days extra holiday!

Passau is lovely, even in the rain.

Barcelona

Barcelona is memorable to me for many reasons, first of all it was the location of my first marathon and second for one of the maddest weekends I've ever had!

Most of the events cannot actually be put in a blog that my parents and family might read, so unfortunately I'll have to stick to the "family safe" stories.

I've already mentioned the marathon and the (truly amazing) Sagrada Familia. So I think I'll start with the morning after the marathon, as you can imagine my legs were pretty sore and did not want to do much walking. So guess what we decided to do? Yeah, we went to the Nou Camp! What a place though, was well worth the agony of getting up and down the stairs!

Me and the Nou Camp "More than a Club"

I enjoyed reading the history of the famous Barcelona club, but for one massive oversight, they didn't even mention the legend Sir Bobby Robson who managed for one season and won 3 trophies! Nonetheless it was a very impressive stadium, with such a trophy room as to be the envy of every club in Europe! (Especially my club, Newcastle who now haven't won a trophy in 43 years!)

This is a panorama shot I took of Barcelona's 6 trophies from the 08-09 season, with Erik and Jamie

If you've done the Nou Camp tour yourself then you will know how many steps yo have to go up and down, and my knee was killing me! It was worth it though and I'm glad I did it, I don't know which is my favourite out of the Nou Camp and the Santiago Bernabeu, but my Spanish team is Real Madrid so I guess the Bernabeu.

The next stop was to go back to the hotel room and get changed to go out for a meal. Instead we found a Tapas place that I will never forget! Their offer was one beer and one Tapas stick for 3€, so Erik suggested we have one then go get changed to go out. We ended up having 7! That was Erik's idea too.

Erik and Jamie in our favourite tapas place

It was only 7 PM, so we still had plenty of time to go to a restaurant, so we eventually made it back to the hotel. I was absolutely shattered though and a little bit drunk, so I decided to get a power nap, people in Barcelona don't go out till 10 anyway. The next thing I knew it was 4 AM. It was the best nights sleep I've ever had.

That day we went to the Sagrada Familia, an amazing place that warranted its own blog post (LINK).

After that Erik and I went to the seaside, there was a man made wharf that had a shopping centre on it, it had a bar/restaurant that served maß beer!

After two of those maß beers the madness began. It is definitely not a family friendly story, but we ended up walking up and down the famous La Rambla street looking for "buenos chicas". That was when my phone got stolen. What a crazy night.

We went out drinking with our marathon winners medals, so proud we had to show them off!

Me and Jamie snogging our medals

I want to thank Erik especially for convincing me to run the marathon and give me an excuse to visit this amazing place, also thanks to Dave and Jamie for making it such a memorable trip!

Viel Spaß homies!

Sagrada Familia

The Sagrada Familia is probably the most amazing building I have ever seen. The scope of imagination it would take just to even plan one of the spires is absolutely mind boggling!

They originally thought that it would take a few hundred years to complete the church, but thanks to modern technology and construction techniques it is estimated to be completed around 2026, 100 years after the Architect Antoni Gaudi died. The guy managed to envisage this building, and build this scale model of it:

Now I am not a Christian, but being in and around this masterpiece gave me a new sense of belief about the power and creativity of man. Everyone should visit it and see what I mean. I will definitely come back to see it when it is finished.

One picture, or even a hundred could not describe all the unique details in the exterior or the extravagant beauty of the interior, but I had a go. Check out my album in the link below:

https://plus.google.com/photos/116611446148642353119/albums/5727824403845464801

Viel Spaß homies!

Marathon #1 (Barcelona)

So my first marathon has been successfully completed!

Today I ran the Barcelona Marathon in 5 hours 5 minutes. My knees and quads are in absolute agony right now, but the sense of achievement is astonishing. To be honest, considering how poor and interrupted my preparation was I am happy that I just managed to finish it. Next time I will aim to substantially improve my time and hopefully completely avoid having to walk.

I ran it with my friend Erik from eriksmarathon and 2 of his friends. The first half marathon 3 of us basically stuck together, which was nice as we got to see the Nou Camp and the Sagrada Família together, but the pace we were running wasn't exactly ideal for my race strategy and I ended up dropping back just before the half was completed and couldn't catch up either.

The last 10k was very tough, as my knees were burning, so I had to walk at least half of the time of that distance.Given that the most I had trained was 19 miles (31k) and that was intervals with walking and running I am pretty pleased with that I could complete it, and hope that the next one goes a lot smoother on the knees!

The pic at the top is the 4 of us at the finish line showing off our medals and our pecs, below is a closeup of the medal.

It was a good day so far, but now I need to leave and have a celebratory beer and stuff! :)

A full blog about Barcelona will appear soon.

Viel Spaß homies!

Marathon Mini Series: A Mini Update

Hi All!

I am pleased to announce that I am quitting being a quitter; I'm going to run (or at least attempt) the Barcelona Marathon as originally planned!

I got my flight tickets yesterday, and will travel very early on Saturday morning and spend an afternoon in Barcelona and the next day explore the city in my favorite way, running!

I hope I can do it, but as my training was cut short due to the harsh winter conditions for running I'm not in as good a shape as I should be to tackle my first marathon. I hope to do it even if there is a bit of walking involved. I'm looking forward to sharing a beer with Erik, Dave and Jamie with our medals after the run!

Viel Spaß homies!