Jackpot! Olympic size pool!

Ok, it sounds like my training in Luanda is about to be stepped up a notch! Just like my recent "finding" of a gym I used in the past, I decided to stop by the national swimming center in Luanda to see if it was operating.  I was pleasantly surprised with my findings! The olympic size pool was operational and empty at the time I went to check it out! This was great news since my pool back in London is only 26m long and busy all the time, no matter how early in the morning I turn up.

Now, with Luanda being the most expensive city in the world and my experience with gym shopping turning up a gym wanting to charge me $50USD for one day's workout, I was prepared for the worst with the pool fees.  The young lady at reception showed me the fees and was pushing me to sign for the yearly package at $1000USD per year! You gotta be kidding me! I told her I live in London and I will only use the pool every two months or so when Im in town so she called the manager to see if there was anything he could do! After a 20 minute wait (because the manager was fixing the power generator), the manager showed up and listened to my case! I told him none of the packages were in line with my needs and I suggested just paying for every time I go in swimming! Anyway, after a long debate he accepted and said it was an exception! GREAT! I can now swim in an olympic size pool in great sunny weather, cycle on technogym spinning bikes, and run as I have been doing lately! I have a feeling I'll train more here than back in the UK! Let's wait and see.

Tomorrow I am off to Mozambique for a week of meetings and I'm already looking for pools and gyms to keep the training schedule going. Bad news is that Im still not going to London, and I miss my ladies like crazy! The good thing is that 2/3 of my time away has passed so I'll be home next Sunday! Yeaaayyyy.

Keep posted for news from Maputo, Mozambique, and here is a nice Maputo sunrise.

Found a Gym in Luanda

Today I decided to find a place to cycle a bit and I went Gym shopping.  First stop was Hotel Tropico's gym, which apparently is the best in town, but as such, they were taking the piss with the price, charging $50USD per session!  They are out of their mind!

I got back in my car and I headed to Fitness Luanda, which I had attended about 7 years go! They had nice facilities and were affordable ad $15 per session, but most importantly, they had 2 spinning bikes in the gym area for clients to use! GREAT!  They also have 3 spinning classes every day so my lack of cycling here in Luanda has now been resolved! All I need now is to find a pool! 

Luanda 15Km run

Today I went a bit longer. Trainingpeaks.com says i should have swum for 1 hour and run for 1h:15m but, as i mentioned yesterday, I aint got no pool to swim on here in Luanda! Went out for a longer run and actually felt pretty good.