Goodbye WWRY

Today is the last performance of my favourite musical, and I'm not even there (in London) to see it one last time...

I ❤ We Will Rock You

The Sara way

My boyfriend says that in life you can do things the easy way, the hard way, and the... Sara way. He also says I do most things the Sara way, and I'm starting to believe him. When I first wrote this post, I didn't publish it because I couldn't remember any good Sara ways I had done, even though I knew they existed. Well, since I asked life decided to remind me how it works... all within a couple of days.

1. Was it a great idea to run barefoot on a treadmill for half an hour, just 4 days before my next half-marathon? No, it wasn't. The soles of my feet burned and I could barely walk. Luckily, it got better before the race. 

2. On Friday I had to leave work earlier because of my flight to Sweden. In my head, our flight was at 11.40, so we told everybody we would barely be at work on Friday. It was quite a big fuss since we are responsible for some stuff and we had to ask other people to take our place and turn off some machines. We also told our boss, that changed our weekly meeting to thursday so we could attend it. After all was finally arranged I printed our boarding passes and found out... our flight was only 2h later, which means we didn't have to bother anyone.

3. After I packed my bag, I run through my head all the items I would need for the race, so I wouldn't forget anything important. After doing it 3 times I was happy. On Friday morning my boyfriend comes from the balcony with my running shoes and asks "were you going to forget these?". I would have left them behind if it wasn't for him...

4. The evening before I make sure my ebook has enough battery for the trip. You don't really want to spend hours in airports and planes without a good book. It had enough battery, but I finished my book on the trip and I had forgotten to put new books in it. No books, no reading...

Sara ways do make me tired of myself but it's alright. I have learned how to live with them, and most of the times they turn into laughs after 5 minutes.

Do you have any good examples of your own way??

O meu namorado diz que na vida se podem fazer as coisas do modo fácil, do modo difícil, e à moda da Sara (no original the Sara way). Ele também diz que eu faço demasiadas coisas the Sara way e eu começo a acreditar nele. Quando escrevi este post da primeira vez, não o publiquei logo porque me faltavam exemplos. Eu sabia que havia muitos, só não me lembrava deles. Uma vez que pedi exemplos de Sara ways, a vida decidiu relembrar-me como é que isso funciona... tudo nos mesmos 2 dias. 

1. Não foi lá grande ideia correr descalça na passadeira do ginásio durante meia hora, a 4 dias da minha próxima meia maratona. Fiquei com os pés todos queimados e quase não andava. Felizmente, fiquei boa antes da corrida.

2. Na sexta-feira tínhamos voo para a Suécia. Na minha cabeça o voo era às 11.40 e avisamos os nossos colegas que quase não iríamos trabalhar na sexta. Foi uma confusão porque como somos responsáveis por algumas máquinas, tivemos que arranjar quem as desligasse por nós. Além disso, também avisamos o chefe que decidiu mudar a nossa reunião semanal para quinta-feira, para que nós pudéssemos ir. Depois de estar tudo arranjado fiz o check in online e quando ia imprimir os cartões de embarque percebi que o nosso voo... era 2h mais tarde. Ou seja, não precisávamos de ter chateado ninguém. 

3. Depois de fazer a mala para o fim de semana, fiz uma lista mental de todas as coisas que precisava para a corrida, para não me esquecer de nada. Depois de percorrer a lista mentalmente 3 vezes fiquei satisfeita. Na sexta-feira de manhã, o meu namorado aparece vindo da varanda com os meus ténis de correr e pergunta "ias-te esquecer disto?". Ia mesmo...

4. A noite antes da viagem verifiquei que tinha bateira suficiente no meu ebook. Ninguém quer passar horas em aeroportos ou voos sem um bom livro. O raio do aparelho tinha bateria suficiente, mas acabei o meu livro no caminho e esqueci-me de lá pôr livros novos. Sem livro também não há leitura...

Sara ways cansam-me de mim mesma às vezes, mas não faz mal. Aprendi a viver com eles e na maioria das vezes acabam numas boas gargalhadas.

E vocês? Também têm a vossa própria maneira de fazer certas coisas??

Goteborg Varvet

Me enjoying the sun in the park, just before the race started.

Last weekend I ran Goteborg Varvet, the half marathon of the city of Gothenburg, in Sweden. This race has been the biggest in the world with about 65.000 registered people. This year 48.000 people finished the race, and there were about 200.000 people watching the event. The entire city stops in this day, and people go all over the course just to enjoy the live bands and support the runners, with more or less humour. As a runner, this is probably one of the most enjoyable races as your mind gets off the pain and more on the atmosphere around. I lost count on how many kids I high fived, how many words of encouragement I heard, and how many funny things I saw (from people drinking beer to make the runners jealous, to hand written signs such as "if you decide to stop come and join our picnic"). It was all great!!

The park next to the start and finish lines, full of athletes and families, and other people just enjoying the race and a picnic.

The start of the race was celebrated with colorful fire works!

Such big race requires quite some organisation and I'm impressed by it. There were 32 start groups, which means that not everybody started at the same time, but in groups according to their speed. The first group started at 13h and the last at 16h, which is quite a big range of time. In this way, even though there was always a lot of people around, I never felt it was the 50.000 people that ran the race.

This is one of the start groups... there were 32.

With me were my favourite athetes, my boyfriend and his brother. We have planned this race together, and we have virtually trained together, which means even though we live in different countries we shared our trains, tips and efforts. It has been great fun to challenge each other! Of course no team is complete without a good support team. J.'s parents waited there for all of us to complete the race, carrying food, clothes and towels. They sat in the stadium where the finish line was and watched people finishing the race for more than 2h (Thank you!).

Johan, me and Daniel

Of course the boys are much faster than me, and did a great job on the race. As I said before, I decided to take it easy and enjoy the atmosphere. It was the right thing to do, because I didn't die in the hills, I didn't hit the "wall" and I only got really tired around kilometer 18, so almost in the end. I made it in 2h04m07s.

Now let's have some rest, train just for fun and make plans for next year. These 3 pairs of shoes still have a lot of kilometers to run together.

Goteborg Half Marathon - the preview

My next half-marathon is already tomorrow, and I can´t believe how fast time has passed. I registered for Goteborg's half-marathon months ago, and I have been so excited since then, to participate in the (probably) biggest race in the world. More than 60000 people are expected and there will be plenty of enterteinment and loads of people watching and supporting the runners all over the course. 

Since the race in Prague I have trained way less than what I wanted, but after all the adrenaline was gone, it just felt nice to rest. Because of that, and also because I don't want to drag myself in the final quilometers of the course, I decided to not care about my time tomorrow and just go with flow. I want to really enjoy the run, the music and the atmosphere. The course has a few hills, so I would probably not beat my personal best anyway. 

My highest start number ever!!

Marta's Sara Jump

A minha irmã enviou-me um Sara Jump fotografado no parque Pena Aventura, em Ribeira de Pena, no norte de Portugal. O salto foi feito por ela e pelo amigo Pedro já depois de muitas aventuras que incluiram subida às árvores, slides, e paintball. Uma animação!!

My sister sent me a Sara Jump, performed at Pena Aventura park, an adventure park in Ribeira de Pena, in the north of Portugal. This jump was made by herself and her friend Pedro, after many adventures that included tree walks, slide, and paintball. Lots of energy!!

Estudo sobre a emigração portuguesa

Dois investigadores portugueses estão a desenvolver um estudo sobre a emigração portuguesa, e procuram portugueses que morem no estrangeiro para responderem a um questionário.

Eu já respondi e nao demorou nada. Aqui fica o link.

Uma boa semana a todos!

Motivation

Has anyone seen my motivation?
When we get to the level showed in the image it means it's time to move on, isn't it?

To work in Science is not the wonderful thing a lot of people think it is. Low salaries, long non-paid extra hours and it gets worse when your superiors seem to not recognise or acknowledge your effort.
Tomorrow is a national holiday and I will spend 13h, alone, in a dark lab, hitting buttons every 5min, and I will do it again for 8h on Friday. I have done this once before, and it's not fun. And my boss thinks this is a normal thing to do. After all, I'm a scientist!

Sei que o mundo está perdido...

... quando passam David Carreira numa aula do ginásio. Sim, um ginásio num suburbio de Praga.

Love day & čarodějnice

No dia 30 de Abril celebra-se a čarodějnice. Esta é uma tradição de origem pagã na qual se fazem fogueiras e se afugentam as bruxas. Hoje em dia as pessoas aproveitam os restos orgânicos dos jardins, acabados de ser limpos e podados com a chegada da Primavera, e fazem fogueiras onde se celebra o final do Inverno. Reza a tradição que as mulheres devem saltar as fogueiras para terem sorte. 

Este tipo de celebração é comum nas aldeias, onde as pessoas juntam os restos dos jardins à entrada, para fazerem a fogueira. Ainda assim, também há celebrações na cidade, mais em jeitos de pequenos festivais, onde as pessoas se vestem como bruxas. Nós encontramos um onde havia musica tradicional, algumas barraquinhas com comida tradicional, cerveja e vinho caseiro.

On April 30th, Czech Republic celebrates čarodějnice. This is a pagan tradition, in which fires were made to scare away the witches. Nowadays, people take the organic waste from their garden, cleaned when spring arrives, and use it to make fires and celebrate the end of the winter. According to the traditions, women should jump over the fires for good luck. 

This celebration is common in small villages, where all the inhabitants gather their old branches and old plants and pile them together at the entrance of the village, to make the fire. In the city, this celebrations become more like festivals, where people go dressed as witches. We found a small one, with live traditional music, and small cute huts selling traditional food, beer and homemade wine.

Lángos, um pão frito tipicamente Húngaro, com molho de alho, ketchup e queijo.

Lángos, a Hungarian deep fried flat bread topped with garlic, cheese and ketchup.

Salsicha no pão. Provavelmente a melhor salsicha que já comi (e eu já comi muitas!!).

Sausage on bread. Probably the best sausage I've ever tried (and I've tried a lot!!).

No dia 1 de Maio, além de se celebrar o dia do trabalhador, também se festeja o dia do amor. Manda a tradição que os rapazes beijem as raparigas por baixo dos ramos de uma cerejeira em flor. As sortudas que o conseguem vão ver a sua relação florir no futuro. Esta é uma tradição engraçada e que neste dia leva muitos casais aos jardins de Petrin (a mini torre Eiffel), onde existem muitas cerejeiras floridas por esta altura. 

On May 1st, besides the Labor day, also the Love day is celebrated. According to the tradition, the boys should take the girls and kiss them under a flourished cherry tree. The lucky girls that get the kisses should see their relationships flourish in the future. It's quite a fun tradition and in this day a lot of couple can be seen in the Petrin gardens (the mini Eiffel tower), where a lot of cherry trees can be found.

Motivational push from Nike

When you see something like this you can't help but feel good about yourself and get extra motivation for the coming challenges. You gotta love the Nike website and their awards and levels system. 

"Fantástico. Acabaste de correr o comprimento da Suécia!"

Acabei de ultrapassar mais um nivel na página da Nike. Quando vemos algo assim sentimo-nos bem connosco próprios e são estas pequenas coisas que nos dão aquele empurraozinho que nos faz ir mais longe. Só posso ser fan do site da Nike e do seu sistema de níveis e prémios e afins.