My struggles as an amateur triathlete and a novice tennis player… and most of all, how I’m trying to stay in shape.
Hello, I’m Michael Sliwinski, founder of Nozbe - to-do app for business owners and their teams. I write essays, books, work on projects and I podcast for you using #iPadOnly in #NoOffice as I believe that work is not a place you go to, it’s a thing you do.
My struggles as an amateur triathlete and a novice tennis player… and most of all, how I’m trying to stay in shape.
Today I was in a bar with friends watching a FIFA World Cup football game of my home country of Poland against Mexico. We tied as Robert Lewandowski screwed up a penalty. Anyway, watching this event is a bitter-sweet experience as I read that the small, authoritarian country of Qatar got it only through bribes and manipulation of high-profile Fifa officials. And it goes downhill from there:
I’m a big fan of Golden State Warriors and over the last few years seeing their success and their selfless play I got an image of that team as true “brothers in arms”. Last year they won NBA championship again with great contributions by their new young players, especially Jordan Poole. My whole image of them all came crushing as I heard that a few weeks back one of the leaders of their team, Draymond Green, punched and knocked down Jordan Poole while they were having a team practice. I’m extremely disappointed and sad. And I believe such behavior is unforgivable.
I’m a basketball fan and I’ve written about my favorite team Golden State Warriors before and their unselfish play but now that they’ve won the title one more time, I have additional thoughts. After being 5 times in the NBA finals in a row, they were hit by injuries, adversity and they fell to the rock-bottom of the league, only to come back up and win a title again. It was about their selflessness once again!:
When back in 2014 I tried a sprint-distance triathlon I didn’t suspect I’d stick with this kind of race for so long. Later that year I tried my first olympic-distance triathlon which is 1.5km swimming 🏊♂️, 40km cycling 🚴♂️ and 10km running 🏃♂️ - all sports one after another - and I loved it and started doing such races regularly! Three years ago I completed 11th race and yesterday - 8 years from starting my triathlon adventure - I finished my 15th olympic-distance race and 17th triathlon overall. I’ve shared many of my thoughts on triathlons in my last post and described tracking it with Apple Watch but I have new conclusions that, if you’re into sports and gear, you might find interesting:
I started cycling seriously when I got my road bike back in 2014 after I completed my first triathlon. Since then I’ve participated in many races and I’ve done over 15,000 km on the bike (both road bike and MTB) while also having only few accidents. Luckily, most were minor, but there were two that stood out and taught me valuable lessons - one that happened back in 2014 and the other last Saturday. Here’s what I learned from them:
A few years back, I started training tennis and I slowly became a fan of the sport. And now I’m so happy and proud of the first female athlete from my country who became a number 1 in tennis - Iga Świątek!
I’m a huge fan of basketball and especially the Golden State Warriors team. And in particular I admire Stephen Curry. Today he broke the NBA all-time record of 3-point shots ever made. Here’s how it happened:
Just yesterday I crossed the 400-move mark on the Apple Watch which basically means that for 400 days straight I managed to move enough that the Apple Watch classified it as “fitness day”. So I’ve been on the move for more than a year now, despite the pandemic, to hopefully stay in shape and lose some weight. It worked. And here’s how I did it:
Yesterday I mentioned that this last Sunday I competed in an olympic-distance triathlon with an Apple Watch. Thanks to the advice by Ian of “Apple Watch Triathlete” blog blog I downloaded the app Tri Tracker for my watch and it worked perfectly. Here’s the full story:
Last Sunday I ran my 11th Olympic distance triathlon. Can’t believe it’s been so many. It all started after my first sprint-distance race - back in October 2014 and in 5 years I’ve done 11 events! Here’s what I learned so far and why I keep doing triathlons: