Its not all traveling on my 'dream' sabbatical! I have been working and training too (though admittedly only for 3 week periods..!). I signed up with 2 agencies to get the most work possible over the 3 weeks and have been working as a waitress at various hotels and events, a receptionist and a kitchen porter. I have been a KP before but this was worse, a 9 hour straight shift of soggy rubber glove hands scouring the worst dirty pans all day. Glad that's over!
In-between shifts it is really important I keep my fitness up, as I realised in Ireland, heat sailing is tiring and you need all the help you can get not to feel tired in Pozo, 2 sessions a day every day and you are shattered! There hasn't been any wind on the South Coast (I'm back in Surrey), for a while now that has coincided with a weekend, so for anyone interested, here is the training plan I have been using as I haven't been able to afford a gym.
Mix these up training every day if possible:
Anaerobic swim training. Warm up 10 lengths, then do 4x sets of 4x 25m lengths breathing every 5th stroke, with a minutes rest between each set. Repeat again breathing every 7th stroke (this gets hard!). Then swim one length underwater and breaststroke back, minutes rest, all x10. Swim 10 lengths front-crawl to finish.
Running. I have about a 3-4 mile loop I do as fast as possible.
Cycling. I normally cycle a relatively traffic free 11-12 mile loop with lots of nasty hills to simulate fartlek training.
Crossfit body weight workout. 5 rounds of:
20 squats,
10 hand release press ups,
20 flutter-kicks,
2 wall walks,
10 tricep dips,
1 hill sprint, jog back.
I have also just ordered some TRX suspension bands (a cheap copy version though!) which are fairly new to me, but seem to be a great idea for a travelling work out and strength work for shoulders and core, I look forward to trying them!
This week I had some fun trying to book our kit onto our Thomas Cook Airline flight to the Canaries, who I have flown with many times before with numerous bags! This time however they said they had changed their policy and would only allow one bag per person, charging £15 per kilo for an extra bag (which would be near on £450!). It didn't say this anywhere on their website or the terms and conditions and after much arguing on skype a salesperson finally admitted that they had a more current version of the T&Cs which weren't on their website. I was pretty glad she admitted this on the phone and after nervous waiting and asking to speak to their manager, they rung back nice as pie and booked all my bags on! There was a lot of stress and skype credit, as the flights were 100% non refundable yet I knew I was in the right! So beware, check the T&Cs and make sure you can take all your gear on the flight! They said they would update their website shortly.
So my rant and warning advice is over! Soon I will get back to windsurfing, one more week and I'll be in Pozo! And if you want to check out my top 5 reasons why I windsurf, have a look HERE
