Rowan Spazzoli

Strategist. Lecturer. Consultant

Eat clean

So we ate a lot of food in Portugal. And didn’t exercise much

And now we have become semi tanned Teletubbies.

So we’ve started eating clean for a little while and trying to build it in as a habit.

No sweets. No chocolates. Few carbs. No beer. No potato products. No ice cream. No pastries.

But from sunset on Friday to sunset on Saturday we can indulge in whatever we want.

Combining this with the running will hopefully make me a slightly fitter looking teletubbie.

#fitnessgoals #healthy #imsohungrypleasehelp


Image is of my lunch today. Enjoy

Blog: 245/365

Song of the day: Getaway car – Taylor Swift

Marathon Training Begins!

So… I signed up for the Cape Town Marathon again.

Despite looking like this at the end of the last one:

IMG_8644

I think that the reason I’ve done it is that I really enjoy having a goal to work towards. It motivates me to get out there and train even if I don’t want to.

Last year’s marathon destroyed me. I cried at the finish line.

But I was also in a terrible space emotionally. I had struggled to get myself to train. And it was before I had started seeing my therapist and psychiatrist.

So I’m going to do it again this year, and do it even better. I’m aiming to train 4 times a week, and include the details of the training at the end of the blog.

The route this year is also much better, so I’m excited to run it 🙂

My Goal

My time last year was a decent 4hrs 55min.

But this year I want to do it in under 4hr 30min

And I know I’ll do it.

74 days to go… Let the countdown begin


Image was taken while running down Long Street 🙂

Song of the day: Dig Down – Muse (check this video out, it’s really great)

Blog: 244/365

Training update : Light 6.6km to the prom and back 🙂 7.18/km but stopped to chat to Holly (TR1)

Happiness at home

“Welcome home sir!”

The officer at passport control was one of the nicest I’ve ever had at the airport.

I grabbed my bag, headed through the gates and was greeted with a massive hug from Jared.

Back home, Jared, Marcelle, The Doctor (aka Su-Anne), Jarred and myself had our Sunday night dinner.

We caught up, shared stories and laughed.

I had a phenomenal holiday.

And it’s good to be home


Image was taken from the flat a few weeks ago 🙂

Blog: 243/365

Song of the day: Donna Lewis – I love you always forever

Obrigado Portugal!

Note: double post today cause I missed one last week 🙂

Today is the end of my Portguese adventure. I´ve been here just under three weeks and have had an exhilarating and relaxing time here.

Some of the highlights include:

  • Eating a ridiculous number of pastel de natas. I´m not even ashamed of it
  • Swimming and braaing with family in Tavira
  • Scooter rides around the Algarve
  • Photobombing a German rap video
  • Drinking and partying in the streets
  • Trying to do activities hungover
  • Watching football games in the Praca de commercio.
  • Eating sardines
  • Eating peri peri chicken
  • Eating (in general)
  • Dancing through the streets of the Albufiera with a tamborine
  • Dancing through the streets of Vila Franca with bamboo clickers
  • Happy hour at the hostel
  • Having a beer on the beach in Albufiera with Jared and my brother
  • THE MUSE CONCERT
  • THE HAIM CONCERT
  • Eating

And of course, the people that I have met and spent time with along the way.

Thank you to everyone that made this trip so special (including Jared, Alzira, Lorenzo, Fabio, Mom, Brenda, Dave, Alex, Jen, Mark, Jessica, Karina, Giles and all the amazing people we met along the way)

It´s been so special

Obrigado Portugal!


Image is of a Pastel da Nata at the Lisbon football fanzone, taken on the first day I was here 🙂

Blog: 242/365

Song of the day: Amália Rodrigues Uma Casa Portuguesa

Captured

This afternoon I sat at “Miradouro de Santa Luzia”, which is a beautiful plaza that overlooks Lisbon and the river. I found a shady patch and let myself soak up the view. And I managed to get some “people watching” in.

I noticed that most people would arrive at the viewpoint, look briefly and then whip out their phones and snap pics… of the view, their travel buddies and themselves.

And then they would rapidly move on.

I recon that most people didn´t spend more than 15seconds looking at the view, despite being there for around 5min on average.

And those pictures will look nice, but you can probably get better ones off google anyway

I´ve noticed this at concerts too. People will spend entire songs watching the concert through their screens.

And those videos will probably never be watched

Capturing the moment

I love taking pictures… they capture a moment that you can remenisce over later.

The problem is if you spend the time only taking photos, you don´t actually get to be in that moment at all.

What I like to do is take one or two pictures, usually with me in them. And then I´ll put my phone away and sit in the moment.

Experience it

Be mindful of it

So by all means, we can capture the moments on our phone

But try not to let your phones capture you.


Image was taken at Miradouro de Santa Luzia 🙂  pretty isn´t it?

Blog: 241 /365

Song of the day: Where is the love – Black Eyed Peas

Internationalised

Norwegian. Portuguese. Spanish. Dutch. Australian. Irish. English. Chilean. Swiss. Mozambican. Danish. Swedish. Italian. Canadian. American. Mexican. Puertorican. Kiwi. Zimbabwean. French. Brazilian. Nepalian. Chinese. Angolan. In 20 days I’ve met all these people from all over the planet. And with each of them I’ve found something in common. We spend a few minutes understanding one another and then we spend the rest of the time as best friends.I’ve said it before on the blog. But the point needs to be established again.We have more in common than we realise. We are more similar than we know.And once we establish that, we can bring the whole world closer together.


Image was taken tonight with some Portuguese and danish friendsSong of the day: DespacitoBlog: 241/365 (note: my WordPress app on my phone seems to ignore paragraphs. I’ll fix this post in South Africa when I’m on my laptop)

Being a child

I’ve brought up the concept of “play” a few times in my blog posts. It’s an overlooked part of adult life, something that we relegate to children.

In our work and personal lives, we leave little room for play. Things must be taken seriously, and work must be done without any silliness.

This can produce results, and help lead a normal functioning life.

But I’ve found that as I’ve begin to let myself play I’ve been more free.

Free to make errors.

Free to explore.

Free to be myself.

Today we went to an aqua park. We let ourselves play. We got on the rides with the same enthusiasm of a child. We expressed ourselves unashamedly when the rides ended.

And we had an incredible time.

Maybe there’s a time and place to grow up. But if play is childish, I’m happy to still be a child


Image was taken at the aqua park this afternoon 🙂 we got photo bombed by one of be birds of prey

Blog: 241/365

Song of the day: I’ve got to break free – Queen

Open psychology

After dinner and a few drinks, our conversation today turned to mental health and psychology. My cousin (Alex), his friend (Fabian) and myself had a great discussion about our own issues as well as mental health issues generally.These discussions can be really difficult. And mental health used to be such a taboo topic. But we spoke about it as if we were talking about a sports team or the weather.The final point we discussed was whether people were more depressed today or whether we were more aware of it.We concluded it might be a combination of the two. But that people nowadays are more able to discuss, diagnose and deal with mental health issues.And that’s pretty awesome


Image was taken while walking down the streets of Lagos 🙂Blog: 240/365Song of the day: Myst by Myyst (my cousins band from Oslo) 🙂