Walking Like a Penguin

Since I came home from Portugal in January that I haven't seen the grass in my backyard. There were some weeks that it wouldn't stop snowing all day. The first couple of days I found it beautiful and I loved to be outside. Right now, my opinion has changed. It certainly makes wonderful pictures but I can now understand why most of the natives don’t like it. The downside of living in a house is that I have to clean the snow everyday, several times a day. Anyway I loved these few months of winter, but it is now time for spring to come back.

The title of this post describes the way I feel like when I walk outside nowadays. I look like a penguin trying not to slip on the icy roads. I guess this is one of the reasons why people are fed up of winter by now. It’s annoying and embarrassing to fall down almost everyday in any public place for no apparent reason other that you can’t walk.

Christmas in Portugal

After 5 long months, I finally traveled back to Portugal to spend the Christmas holiday with my friends and family. It was nice to get some sunlight and using t-shirts again.

Being with my family after such a long time was nice and that makes Christmas even more special. 

Trainings

With the beginning of the season very close I feel motivated and I've been using most of my free time to do some extra sessions. However, this weather doesn't make it easy. It's very slippery outside and the cold isn’t pleasant either. In the last couple of months I've been spent a lot of time in the gym, spinning and running on the treadmill. Quite boring training but it looks like the best solution to survive a Swedish winter as a triathlete.

I will soon be competing in Portugal and I am looking forward for some sunny and warm weather. 

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.

 

Back to Sweden

If I could give you any advice in your life it would be: Don't keep stuff that might be useful someday, because they won't. The week before I came to Sweden I had to empty my apartment in Lisbon in order to rent it.

I had so many things that I didn't even remember that it took me the whole week to do it. I had to get rid of half of my life and then put the other half in boxes and move it to my other house in Portugal.

I was able to be done with it about 6 hours before I entered my plane to Stockholm. My luggage was, as always, huge because I had to carry my bike and all my Triathlon equipment.

 Somewhere above Germany

Already in Stockholm 

Almost home, at the train station of Västerås

This was supposed to be my week of rest from the trainings. I didn't rest much, but anyway now it's time to come back to it. In about two weeks I will be back to school

Here in Västerås it is really warm (It got to 33°!!) and those devasting fires that ussually burn the portuguese forests are happening here, in Västmanland. There is a huge fire  in the woods near to Västerås and the smoke has came to the centre of the city due to the wind. I hope it won't last to much. The firefighters have been working very hard, but the wind in't helping.

Summer in Portugal

My first school year in Sweden ended in the beginning of June. It a great experience and if I was given the choice to go back to school in Portugal and stay in Sweden I would certainly decide to stay. This International course I’m doing now is opening me new doors to the world everyday and being able to communicate naturally in English with everyone is one of the perks of studying in IB (International Baccalaureate). I love my classmates and despite we are from all around we enjoy very much being together. Although summer break is nice I’m looking forward for next year.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t even enjoy the midnight sun because I had to fly to Portugal, in the beginning of June, to be able to compete in Oeiras and Peniche. Hopefully next year I will stay in Sweden a bit longer and enjoy the real Swedish summer.

In Portugal I had a lot of training with my teammates. We cycled a lot together (sometimes too much) and went to beautiful places such as Serra de Sintra. I had the chance to swim a lot in the cold sea along lisbon’s coast. Finally I ran many miles in the most beautiful place in Lisbon: Belém. With all this training going on my routine came down to SWIM, CYCLE, RUN, EAT and SLEEP.

While I was in Portugal I had four triathlon races and I became Triathlon and Aquathlon National Champion in my Age group 16-17. To read more about my races check Triathlon Page.

It was sad that I struggled with my foot’s recovery and that I’m still in pain while I run. I am lacking motivation each day I get on the track and I feel my foot sore. Athletes are made to run, not to be injured. I will hopefully now give it a short rest and heal it properly for next season.

Last week I have been in Tavira (My little paradise in the south of Portugal) and I went a lot to the beach. The weather was perfect, the sea was as warm as you can imagine and the food was delicious. It was nice to go back there after 2 years off.

I had a great time in this wonderful country. I loved being with everyone again. The weather was very good and food was, as always, the best in the world. In the pictures are some of the dishes I couldn't eat in Sweden: "Polvo à lagareiro" (Octopus in olive oil), Snails and "Bacalhau à Brás" (Codfish with chips). I was happy that I found in Lisbon's IKEA one of things I miss: Kanelbullar.

Now it’s time to settle down and focus on the next year. In August I will go back to Västerås and start training and studying again. I'm sad I have to leave so many important people behind again, but that's how tough life is, see you again on Christmas.

I will try to write on my blog more often now. This huge lack of news was due to that holiday laziness that wouldn’t let me do anything useful :P

Thanks for supporting me <3!!