30 December 2017. Just finished an hour of cycling on my home Tacx Home Trainer. The floor was splattered with drops of my perspiration as I pushed myself to finish the series of intervals.
Recovery from injury
The trainer was my exercise staple for the last month of my 3.5 months of non-running period (end August to end November). I started running again the beginning of December, about 2 short runs per week until the third week of December when my whole family descended on me from the far east – Singapore and Australia. Indeed, the whole family. My parents, my siblings, their own families, a cousin and his family, all in all 19 people.
Family reunion in Europe
They chartered a tourbus, accompanied by 2 tour guides from Singapore and spent two weeks visiting Paris and several cities in Italy. Silviu and I joined them in some of their Parisian jaunts, before meeting them in Rome, and then continued to Perugia, and Florence, before leaving them on their last leg of the tour – Venice and Milan.
Paris Tour
Italy Tour – Rome, Florence and Perugia
Digestive system working overtime
Totalling 7 days in Italy, where my digestive system was put in full gear. My 5 senses, especially my sight, palate and smell, were seriously pampered in this short period: endless daily 3 full meals of pasta, prosciutto, fish, the Italian cheeses (Stracciatella di bufala, parmigiano, pecorino etc), the different styles of tiramisu, the continuous rounds of chin-chin of Italian wines.
Uphill fight against festive weight gain
Consequently, all the calorie intake without the equivalent or exceeding output mean that I returned 4 days ago with an additional 1kg luggage around my waist. Since then, I have been running 3 days in row, despite the relentless rain and wind in this part of the world, plus the above mentioned one-hour indoor interval training on the bike on my recovery day.
