I guess I've been forgetting to sleep...

As usual, it’s been a quite long time since I last wrote here. Meanwhile a lot has happened:

When I came to Sweden after the summer I had about 2 holiday weeks left. I started training again and went for the first time to the wonderful city of Malmö. School started the following week and that was when my free time totally disappeared. From then on I’ve been trying very hard to manage my trainings and the IB programme. That’s the main reason why I haven’t been able to write on my blog.

My ankle's story

Last April I had a pretty bad ankle sprain while training. It was in a very important moment of the season and therefore I decided to live with the pain for a while and complete the rest of the season as best as I could.  Once I came to Sweden I decided to finally take care of it and I took it a bit easier on the running for some weeks.  It has improved massively and I have been able to do some pretty cool running sessions again. I hope it will continue that way.

Visit to Malmö

Once I was totally offseason when I came to Sweden I went to Malmö triathlon only as a spectator to support my brother. It is a wonderful city and I finally had the opportunity to meet the Larsson family. Thank you very much for that and I hope to see you soon in Västerås.

Stockholm WTS
Once more one of the stages of the World Triathlon Series took place in Stockholm. As a huge triathlon fan I went there to watch the best triathletes in the world racing. It was a pretty crappy weather but the crowds were amazing and the athletes made it perfect. In the men's race it was beautiful to see a perfect performance by the Brownlee brothers and of course the amazing portuguese athletes (Joao Pereira was 5th). In the women race it was a big surprise and it is very good good to see a different WTS podium than the usual. I had the chance to talk to Sarah Groff (the winner) in the end and it was very motivating to see how happy she was with her first WTS win. Melanie Santos (a junior portuguese athlete) did her first WTS race there as well and it was good that I was there to support her. I had time to take some pictures with the athletes and I got both Brownlee's swimming caps :)

Back to the Trainings

A new season comes with new goals and a lot more work to do. I have been feeling very good training in this new season. The end of the Swedish summer was very pleasant for cycling and I have been feeling really well in the running after getting rid of my ankle’s pain. It’s now getting a bit colder and I’m back to the boring indoor training but that’s life in Sweden and I’m better get used to it. I have finally been competing in swimming and I got some good performances as you can read here.

The 11th grade

This year I started the proper IB programme. It’s an international 2 year high school syllabus known for being very demanding.  I have 6 subjects, 3 of them at a higher level, 3 parallel projects and weekly assignments and tests. I start at 8 am and finish at 4.30pm almost every day. It takes a lot of dedication and up to now I’ve managed to get some good results. It’s very hard to conciliate with triathlon but I like challenges and will try to make the best I can out of it. I know the hard will pay off. I am glad I have the chance to be part of this programme, that I couldn’t be if I was still in Portugal. It's also in school that I have my best friends in Sweden.

Here you can watch a short video about IB in my school, Carlforsska Gymnasiet. 

Höstlov

This week long holiday is the reason why I finally had some time to stop, think and write on the blog. I am right now traveling back home from a wonderful trip. I spent the week  in Finland, near Helsinki. I didn’t have much time to travel since I still had to work out and do a lot of homework. I visited Turku and its amazing swimming pool and had a quick visit to Helsinki in Halloween night. Helsinki. This time we decided to go to Finland by boat. I travelled with Viking Line from Stockholm to Turku and back. It was a 12h long trip in huge boat. It’s for sure an experience to repeat.

Now it’s time to go back to school and back to normal life. I will try to get a bit more than 5 hours of sleep every night and maybe write on my blog more often.