559 Miles

It's 4am and i am about to get in the car, the tank is full and the road ahead is clear...today will be a good day : ) Just off to Scotland, if the weather allows i will try and climb Ben Nevis, if not then just have a wonder come back down to the Lake district and see what Scafell Pike looks like. I will post photos and let you all know how it went when i get back in a few days!

Santiago

21082 metres

The sun is shining and despite various rumours during the last few days that the weather was going to deteriorate, mr blue sky is here with us. Breakfast today is a bowl of chopped fruit; two kiwis and two bananas to be exact. I can't eat too much as this will result in stitches. In a couple of hours i will be in the first few steps of my 13.1 mile half marathon which will take us around the back lanes of Tunbridge Wells, Bidborough and Fordcombe. Am i looking forward to it? Yes i guess i am, i am full of energy, i have set up a playlist long enough to see me through the worst of it, and all i have to do now is put one foot in front of the other.

"It's the eye of the tiger."

Santiago.

Half marathon; a work in progress.

I am pleased to say that this week's running went as planned, and i have done five 3 mile runs one of them including a very long and steep hill. All these add up to about 15 miles in one week and I can feel my body beginning to adapt to the ongoing physical stress it has been exposed to over the last few days and i am becoming fitter, being able to run more easily for longer and my heart becoming stronger. I hope to keep up this training and in the next two or three weeks up the distances to about 30 miles per week.

Santiago.

Band of Horses

Sitting here in my candle lit room, i think i am going to chill this weekend and leave the big run to monday evening, a grueling nine miles should do the job! Will be going out for a few drinks tonight so that should be awesome. For now just browsing and downloading a few tunes, recent "band of horses" album has a few good hits!

Have a brilliant weekend!!

Santiago.

Long time no see

I guess it's been a bloody long time since my last post. I could blame it on the fact that I've been busy or just admit that i was a little lazy. The truth is i wasn't really inspired to write much during the last four months, and when i came back on to this and saw that my domain "traviajero.com" has been taken (my domain rights ran out and i failed to renew), well then i definitely lost all motivation to write a new entry.

However, i now feel like i am ready to write some more posts so i will begin 2011 by telling you guys a little bit about what has been happening. December was a little crazy work-wise. As you may know i work in a family butcher's shop in Hawkenbury and we sold somewhere in the region of 600 turkeys and hundreds of other orders. It was many long days of hard work to get the preparation on track and have all the fresh meat orders prepared for when people came to collect them. We managed it though and all that hard work paid off by adding a few naughts to my bank account. I have been juggling my time between that and spending time with a very special person I got to know and in the last few months have become very close to, I am delighted to say that she is now my girlfriend! Well, these news are a few months old now but it's never too late to announce good news. We are planning a couple of weeks away somewhere and providing I pass my driving test next week (19th) then the idea is to drive to the Swiss Alps and spend a few days skiing and driving around Europe. I will no doubt be posting such events on here and gladly get this blog back on the right track with more travels.

Last but not least, i have joined the Tunbridge Wells Half Marathon on February 27th which i am training for as of a couple of weeks ago. I have joined the local gymn in order to do a few upper body workouts and get me ready to take up rock climbing for real once i get my driving license here. I have just got back from the gymn tonight and tomorrow I plan to run eight or nine miles around town in preparation for the marathon. It feels great training for something real that is going to be happening in just a few weeks time. A real sense of achievement comes from all the hard work of running more miles than i have ever done before. I will let you know how it goes tomorrow and how many miles i managed to struggle through.

That's all for now, please keep checking back as I promise I will keep this updated regularly from now on!

Good to be back on the blog,

Santiago.

"Follow your heart,

and nothing else."

Lynyrd Skynyrd - Simple Man (1973).

For some reason i have lost my traviajero.com domain to a random generic and utterly useless vaguely travel related website. As good as a name it was i'm not too sure

Just a few words of wisdom

"Stress comes from negative thinking. The sooner you learn that the better your life will become."

I was thinking about this today as I went for a 6 mile run. I think it's important to think positively, however much a pile of shit your life is. There is only one person in the world who truly has the worst life, so it's pretty much guaranteed that there are many, many people, who are in a worse situation than yours. Just think positively, look ahead at the good things to come, whether these good things will happen in 5 years or 5 decades, act on and live your dreams. If you stop thinking positively you will start doing the opposite, and this will most likely lead to stress at work, on the drive home from work, at home, when trying to sleep, and it never ends.

I think I will keep working until the beginning of February and then perhaps take a couple of weeks off and drive across Europe. I was DJ for a party on Saturday which was absolutely brilliant, the feeling you get when the whole party is dancing to a 1985 remix of Bob Marley's "Three Little Birds" is overwhelming and is one of those memories that will stay with me for a long time.

That's all for now, keep your chin up and smile because life ain't worth it any other way!

Santiago.