Ok, just returned from Greece. There's been positive and negative sides to that journey.
The good
On a positive note, following the warrior diet is easy in Greece, as people there apparentely seem to live by it anyways. We were told by our hotel manager that "we never eat breakfast", and when we had our main meal at something like 10pm, the taverna was filled with locals. We quickly found ourselves a decent place to eat, called Nikos Souvlaki, which I can strongly recommend to anyone in the area of Plakias.
Due to the heat and the nearby sea, I've decided to substitute swimming for my usual running. This proved to be a great idea. Swimming will definately play a part in phase 2 of my current program, which will begin in September. Not only is swimming easier on the joints than running, it's also a full-body activity as opposed to roadwork. In Greece, I'd do HIIT swimming with my Polar on, stopping time intervals. For one minute I'd crawl all-out, after that I'd breaststroke for two minutes at a moderate pace. Here, since I have a indoor swimming pool available just 5 minutes from my flat, I'll do the intervals distance based (33 meters all out, 33 meters moderate).
Needless to say, the relaxation component was positive as well.
The bad
Now for the bad stuff. Although the topic of Pankration seems to be omnipresent throughout Greece, I had no luck in finding a school / club. Now I didn't expect to in Plakias, the town where we stayed, but there was none I could find in Rethymno, which is a bigger city (one of the biggest on Crete), either.
I did my technique training with my girlfriend, much to the hotel managers dismay, who didn't like the idea of having two martial artists doing padwork on his lawn. After two training sessions he indirectly asked us not to train in the hotel garden. Funny thing is we were the only ones in that garden anyways, so there was no chance we bothered any of the guests.
The ugly
As for the ugly, well, I've long since fallen in love with greek and turkish sweets (baklava, kadaifi, galactobureko)... being directly at the source of these made me actually gain a kilogram despite following the warrior diet.
All in all, I loved that holiday. Just what I needed after the last year. I'm really looking forward to re-opening my dojo again in September.
The good
On a positive note, following the warrior diet is easy in Greece, as people there apparentely seem to live by it anyways. We were told by our hotel manager that "we never eat breakfast", and when we had our main meal at something like 10pm, the taverna was filled with locals. We quickly found ourselves a decent place to eat, called Nikos Souvlaki, which I can strongly recommend to anyone in the area of Plakias.
Due to the heat and the nearby sea, I've decided to substitute swimming for my usual running. This proved to be a great idea. Swimming will definately play a part in phase 2 of my current program, which will begin in September. Not only is swimming easier on the joints than running, it's also a full-body activity as opposed to roadwork. In Greece, I'd do HIIT swimming with my Polar on, stopping time intervals. For one minute I'd crawl all-out, after that I'd breaststroke for two minutes at a moderate pace. Here, since I have a indoor swimming pool available just 5 minutes from my flat, I'll do the intervals distance based (33 meters all out, 33 meters moderate).
Needless to say, the relaxation component was positive as well.
The bad
Now for the bad stuff. Although the topic of Pankration seems to be omnipresent throughout Greece, I had no luck in finding a school / club. Now I didn't expect to in Plakias, the town where we stayed, but there was none I could find in Rethymno, which is a bigger city (one of the biggest on Crete), either.
I did my technique training with my girlfriend, much to the hotel managers dismay, who didn't like the idea of having two martial artists doing padwork on his lawn. After two training sessions he indirectly asked us not to train in the hotel garden. Funny thing is we were the only ones in that garden anyways, so there was no chance we bothered any of the guests.The ugly
As for the ugly, well, I've long since fallen in love with greek and turkish sweets (baklava, kadaifi, galactobureko)... being directly at the source of these made me actually gain a kilogram despite following the warrior diet.
All in all, I loved that holiday. Just what I needed after the last year. I'm really looking forward to re-opening my dojo again in September.
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