2022 Week 32 - A week without wearing shoes
It didn’t start off being a great week.
I had originally planned to fly from our holding camp at the X-Bionic Sphere in Samorin, 🇸🇰 last Saturday to Roma, 🇮🇹 for the 2022 European Championships. Plans changed and I spent a day back in Czechia 🇨🇿 before flying to İstanbul Sabiha-Göçken 🇹🇷. From Sabiha, I had to get a bus out to Bursa, which was actually not that complicated once I got on the ground, it was about 90-minutes to Bursa, and then there was a taxi in the night to the hotel I’d found. I arrived around 10:30pm on Sunday.
The reason I was there was, unfortunately to celebrate the life of a great friend and colleague, Stefano Nurra as he passed away quite suddenly a few days before. The service was on Monday afternoon and originally I had thought about getting up early for a run but decided on a sleep in, since it was a long day yesterday and I wasn’t feeling 100% actually either. The service was conducted in Italian and then we went to the burial which was quite a ways outside of town, and mainly done in Turkish, so I just ‘was there’. It was great to see so many people supporting his family with their presence. After the burial I went back to my hotel, which was farther into the town than I’d thought, again I considered doing a token run but decide to not bother and just get ready to head back to the airport early in the morning and then to Roma.
Stefano was an extremely generous guy, always free with his time and his knowledge. Check out @TheSwimSuitGuy’s video from when we were in Istanbul just 2 months earlier.
Tuesday actually started going well - taxi was easy to find, bus was on time and things worked out well (I didn’t have to share a seat) and then the flight was painless. I landed at 2pm local time in Rome, after collecting my bags I joined the transports to my hotel. Arriving at the hotels for the competition the first step was an Antigen test for Covid 🦠… and I tested positive. They did another test, also positive and then a PCR test waiting for the results of which I needed to stay in my room.
I did feel a little sniffly on Monday and Tuesday, and certainly I had noticed during the last week or so I was sneezing a lot, but that’s pretty well it. After the PCR result came back (positive) that was it, I was in my hotel room for a week until I could test again on the next Monday.
My life for the last nine days was all inside this room… not very large but at least I had a balcony
So, day one I decided to make some rules for myself. :
Eat regular meals
Keep a regular sleep pattern (use melatonin)
Keep the door to the balcony open all day
Make the bed every morning
Shave and shower daily (I have never shaved everyday in my life!)
Practice Czech every day
Stretch daily
Eat lots of fruit
I also made a list of all the things I should do - things I ‘never get around to’. One was work on my Yearly Planning Template for next season. Not the content but the actual sheet, and included some automation in the calculations (and display) of the training. That looks awesome, and I’m quite proud of my work on it! Other things were less interesting like downloading some of the video analysis files from Stefano (ironically), working ahead on some training programs for 1-1 athletes. etc.
On about day 3 I did an antigen test which was clearly negative, but the Italian rules said I must wait 7 day and then do a negative PCR test… so on the 7th day I did that but it was still positive. I’ve learned since that these can be positive for a long time! I’d had zero symptoms at all since the Wednesday, so I didn’t really like the idea of staying in this room for the next 3 weeks. Luckily our team leader (and probably others) managed to convince them that we could do an Antigen test on day 9 - which was the last day of the competition - so we could take our flights home.
Last day I passed the test and ran out of my room, I didn’t end up back there until very late in the evening before hurriedly packing for my 5am departure. Not my most enjoyable swim meet, but at least the swimmers performed well with both Kregor and Simona advancing to the finals.
Overall I learned that not moving isn’t my thing, I like to be active, preferably outdoors. It didn’t really bother me not being around people, but the reintroduction was a bit stressful. And I think in the future if I had to quarantine again I’d do 90% vegetarian as the non-movement seemed to create a feeling of ill health in my gut.
That’s all for the 2022 season! Now we have a break and then go again.