Good evening, friends!
Today I'm writing to you at the end of a day well spent, and very different from all the others this week.
This year I decided, as I have done before, to take my birthday as a holiday. And when I did, I immediately had something different in mind. Nothing that involved taking a flight or travelling to another country... The options I have close to me are not at all different from what I usually do, so I started thinking about programmes and options that involved contact with nature. In one of my searches, I came across the Mondego Walkways. An interesting route, with a not too high degree of difficulty (so as not to exceed my physical limitations).
So I started looking at the (public) transport options for that part of the country. And lo and behold, not surprisingly, I realised that it wasn't possible to travel by public transport unless I spent more than 6 hours travelling... Which, being just over 300 kilometres from my home, is far too long. A second problem arose... Since tomorrow is a bank holiday in Portugal, many people have taken today off, or even if they haven't, they'd have at least a 3-day weekend right at the end of autumn, and just in time for the Christmas holidays.
As the walkways I'm talking about is close to Serra da Estrela, you can imagine that most of the hostels and flats were booked out, and many of those that were free were absolutely prohibitively expensive for just one person.
My comadre, whose parents have a house in a beautiful location very close to the Serra da Estrela, heard about my plans for my birthday and immediately offered her parents' house for me to stay in during these days.
Gold on blue! It couldn't get any better than that! A fantastic house, with all the amenities and very up-to-date (including a high-speed internet connection), what more could you ask for, right?
I travelled here at the end of the day yesterday, and although I was a bit tired from it, even before the shower, I managed to add another 100 squats to the monthly challenge....
Today, and motivated by my birthday, I managed to add another 306 squats, which makes the beautiful sum of 6000!
And you wonder why the hell I did 6000 squats when the challenge was only 100 a day? Well, just as I replied to @livinguktaiwan , I had a number in mind. I suffer a bit from OCD, I confess! But that question only has to do with the round number. I set myself the goal of doubling the number of squats, because it was eleven years ago this September that I lost my father to cancer. He was diagnosed with carcinoma of the stomach at a very advanced stage of the disease (after emergency surgery for a supposed perforated ulcer...).
Long story short... Even though he underwent chemotherapy after the first surgery, and underwent a second surgery to remove his stomach, unfortunately he was never discharged from intensive care... The situation became more complicated medically, and between suture dehiscence, dehydration, kidney failure and sepsis... my father died after almost a month in intensive care and always ventilated.
Since I know that if he had the chance, he'd take on this challenge with me, I've decided to make that little extra effort and do "his" squats with his help! What do you think?
As we come to the end of November, and on my birthday, I'm proud to say that I've achieved my goal.
I hope the fundraiser was a success. And I hope to contribute to a future edition, and who knows if there won't be a challenge of this kind organized by the Portuguese League Against Cancer.
When I get home on Monday and have organized the photos, I'll publish them!
| Squat Challenge | Day | Total |
|---|---|---|
| Daily Squats Average | 200 | |
| Record | 15 November | 440 |
| Days without any squat | 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 22 | 6 |
| TOTAL | 24 | 6000 |
I've done the 100 Squats per day Challenge with @livinguktaiwan, @pardinus, and @dbooster to raise funds for Cancer Research.
We were in this fight together!
If you want to donate, send HIVE/HBD directly to @livinguktaiwan and she will convert it to fiat and donate it herself.
"Squat by squat" we made it! 🏋
I hope you enjoyed my post!
Bem Hajam 🍀🏋
Photographic edition with PhotoScape X
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