Yet another challenge

Throughout the past few years I've set myself up to a few challenges, sensible or not. These challenges, almost all related to exercise, were of varied degrees, realistic goals or even with a fair timeframe. There was the I'm going to start biking to work, no matter the weather - a challenge that worked out pretty good and lasted much longer than I expected. Three months later there was the I'm going to bike to the summer house work trip and back and shortly after that the I'm going to participate in the 60 km Blue Lagoon mountain bike race. All of these within the first 6 months of starting exercising on a regular basis again. I managed all of them with varying success of course. But I finished. The following two years brought on a 10 km run, another Blue Lagoon challenge, biking between two glaciers and biking the most popular hiking trail in Iceland. All finished.
And now, I've challenged a colleague to a fitness feat. This time around, it is the 100 day burpees challenge. In this, we aim to do a 100 burpees within 20 minutes on the 100th day of the challenge. In the days leading up to it we start by doing one burpee, adding one every day after that until we reach those 100. What is a burpee you ask? Well, a burpee is a full body exercise that tests both strength and aerobic ability. To perform, you start in a standing position (as per above photo), squat down and put the hands on the ground in front of you, kick the feet back to the starting position of a push up, lower your chest as you would in a normal push up, up again, kick your feet forward and then finally jump as high up as possible. Then repeat. 99 times. In 20 minutes.
This challenge is quite popular these days in the CrossFit scenery but has also been used extensively in marine training from what I can gather. There actually several very good exercises that follow a similar philosophy in CrossFit but most are of a similar degree, i.e. murderously hard!
We started on the 21st of February and so today was day 14. Now, 14 burpees might not sound like a lot, but believe me, I'm starting to feel them.
Wish me luck... I'll need it.

Labels: day2day, english, exercise, Jeddah, Saudi-Arabia

as written by Tobbi G. at 11:06 AM GMT

Guitar hero

Get a guitar, win the girl.

Labels: english

as written by Tobbi G. at 10:14 PM GMT

Great pictures from Hajj 2009

A greatset of photos over at Boston.com's Big Picture of the recently finished hajj 2009, the very same one we worked on for Air Atlanta. Sitting in the office here in Jeddah, shuffling around pilot and cabin crew schedules you are quite distant from this religious pilgrimage even though it is practically in our backyard. Mekkah is only a couple of hours drive away and Madinah less than an hour in a plane. And while we struggle through these two months and some days of flying, Muslims from all over the world embark upon one of the principle duties of the Islam religion. A duty which must be carried out at least once during a Muslim's lifetime, it is also a hard and trying period by the looks of it. Seems to be a lot of queuing, even more than in a bank in Spain! Approximately 1.6 million foreign Muslims did the pilgrimage in the year 2009. In total, including locals and ones without the proper visa, the number is roughly 2.5 million!

as written by Tobbi G. at 2:43 AM GMT

Highly recommended

Muse - The Resistance. An amazing album. Energetic to the point where I want to scream. Epic songs in between masterpieces. A definite Queen influence if there ever was one.

as written by Tobbi G. at 7:52 PM GMT

Lovin' this Zune thing

This is what you get by mirroring the backwards spelling of Zune :)

as written by Tobbi G. at 4:14 PM GMT

Rectangle in the black

I could easily see myself living in a house like that, situated in the solitude of Icelandic lava off in the outskirts of Hafnarfjörður for example. I can't even imagine that it would be expensive to build although tricking it out inside would be. via Arkinetia

as written by Tobbi G. at 6:30 PM GMT

Heading back from the land of beef

After nearly two weeks of blizz in the American South I'm in Frankfurt overnighting before my flight back to to Jeddah. Had a great time in Argentina and managed to do quite a bit. More on that later but for now I'll have to hit the gym like never before and drink water and eat cucumber only to get rid of all this beef that is hiding my immensely muscular structure. I won't be posting a picture of the belly. Just imagine a blimp. I'm the globe below it.

Labels: english, travel

as written by Tobbi G. at 9:09 PM GMT

Vacation, finally!




Well, finally after eight weeks on duty we are off to vacation. Next stop, Argentina. See'ya there.
- Posted from my iPhone

as written by Tobbi G. at 12:38 AM GMT