About Gunnar Engblom

Gunnar Engblom is a Swedish birder who lives in Peru since 1998, where he operates birdwatching and nature tours for Kolibri Expeditions. He is popular guide both for hard core birding groups, as well as for groups who combine nature and culture. He is also a dedicated 3:14 marathon runner, right now training for Boston Marathon.. Gunnar has a past as singer-songwriter in a anarko/rock/punk project called Guran Guran. His recent songs "BirdParty" and "My baby just started birding" has given him 2 minutes of fame...and least in Birding circles.
Connect with Gunnar on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.

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by Gunnar Engblom   

You are an artist – The Icarus Deception

Just finished The Icarus Deception by Seth Godin. The main takeaway: There is an artist in all of us. We can all create something unique. We should. It is our obligation to create.

Art is necessary.

One of the thesis in the book is to ship some art every day. Something you made. Something you created. Blog, vlog, post a photo, a doodle, some music you created, a poem or some lines from your own novel or nonfiction.

Write your memoirs. Share  it. You don’t need to be published to create art. You don’t need a record company,  publisher or an art gallery.  You don’t need fans. You don’t create for your fans. You create for you. But unless you share it, it is not art.

You have so many ways to publish on our own terms. Start a blog, post on FB, TikTok and Instagram, upload a podcast or vlog.Just because some people may not like it, it doesn’t mean that there will not be someone out there who does like it. Don’t listen to criticism, but don’t drown in the accolades either to start producing just to please. Then the art is lost. Do your own thing!

There are a few other books on this same subject that I recently read. I recommend all three.

  • Steal Like an Artist – Austin Kleon. Nothing new under the sun (Ecclesiastes 1:9). Artists steal from many sources and reorganize the material into something unique. It is all based on ideas of the past mixed up into new art. It is a short mind-blowing read. Inspiring.
  • The War of Art – Stephen Pressfield – Brilliant reading for all aspiring artist. I mean “You”. Pressfield writes about the Resistance and Procrastination, and how to overcome it. You have to become a professional. If you love what you do – you show up – every day. It turns you into a pro. 

So here is my own commitment to become a pro-artist. I shall ship something creativeveryday. Follow me on GunnarEngblom.com, Instagram (BirdingPeru, Guranx2, 7WondersBirding), Twitter (@kolibrix), YouTube (KolibriExpeditions & Guranx2), TikTok (Guranx2) and Facebook (Gunnar Engblom, Kolibri Expeditions, 7 Wonders Birding and Guran Guran).

Where do you publish your art? Let me know in the comment section.

by Gunnar Engblom   

Not too late to run a sub 3h marathon after you have turned 60.

Gene Dykes, age 72 setting a new World Record for 70-74 Age group. What is his secret? I shall ask his coach to show me!

This blogpost was supposed to have followed when I had completed the goal of running continuously for one hour every day for an entire week, during week 5 (February 1-7), so this is a bit late. Regardless, publishing this now gives you an update on how my buildup phase is going. 

Let me give you some background. When I was 21, I ran my first marathon in 3h and 34 seconds. So close to break 3 hours. It has haunted me for forty years. I never managed to break 3 hours. Yet, I have not given up on the dream of eventually breaking that barrier. Is it at all possible after turning 60?

I had my golden age between 2014-2016 when I ran my fastest marathons, since my youth having just changed running technique to forefoot strike rather than heel strike after my May 2013 Lima Marathon in 3:58. 

Check out this progress:
New York Nov 2014 3:14
Boston April 2015 3:17
Peak to Creek, NC, US Nov 2016 3:04 (downhill race)

In late 2016 I had inguinal hernia surgery, and again in January 2017. Since I never really had any long training blocks with 18 weeks of fine-tuning and several long runs to increase endurance. My Marathon times suffered.

The best result was a mediocre 3.39 in Chicago in 2017. The half marathon split was just under 1:37, so I had decent speed but lacked the endurance. After that, I only ran two other marathons: Tokyo and Gold Coast in 2019. Both well over 4 hours and total breakdowns. I ran some half-decent half marathons in Lima in 2018 (1:33) and 2019 (1:36), but still far from sub-3h pace.

During the COVID pandemic last year, I turned 60. In 2020, I was also supposed to run Berlin Marathon, and the training plan I hoped to employ was going to take me towards the 3 hours goal.

We all know what happened with the races. All were canceled. 

After the Sydney Marathon fiasco in September 2019, I was devastated. The flight delay made me miss the race altogether. I had trained a lot for that race.

After that followed long stints of travel and guiding, with no running a far too much sitting created piriformis problems, which sidelined me for several months. I had just got started with a new training cycle when the COVID lockdown hit. 

Without any races to look forward to, my motivation went rock-bottom. There were some bouts of running on the treadmill (watching Netflix) as well as outside. But I was not motivated to do any virtual races. I need actual races to stay motivated. 

In October and November, the running came down to almost zero again, as I suddenly got some trips to guide in Central Peru when COVID numbers in Peru temporarily were low. 

Time for a new plan for 2021

Only by mid-December did I start running seriously again. I am focused on the Berlin Marathon on Sep 26, which was canceled the year before. I am betting on that it will not cancel this year as most people must have gotten the vaccine by then. Time to make a plan and make the Sub 3h marathon the #1 priority for the year.

I got my calendar out and started blocking the time for training. Here are a few targets to reach along the way.

  • Run every day. Make it a habit. ✅ Done! I have run every day since Dec 14. 
  • A week of 1h continuous running per day ✅ Week 5. Logged 80 km that week
  • A week with 100K running. Scheduled for Week Mar 10 8-14, but failed with only 66 km logged. It didn’t help that there was a strict lockdown on Sundays during the first weeks of March. I wasn’t even allowed to go outside. Instead, I decided to make this week,  March 22-28, the 100K-week. During this training block, the previous biggest week logged 84.5 km of running, and that was during the second week of February.
  • A week with 100 miles running. Scheduled for May 10-16. One hundred miles (161 km) is a lot of running. 23km/day. I will do it by running twice per day. It will boost my confidence, knowing that my body can handle a lot of mileage.
  • Final 18 weeks of sharpening with weeks at around 100-120 km. Lots of Marathon Pace, speed sessions intervals, and a weekly or bi-weekly long runs of 2.5 to 3 hours

The goals I have set for myself have worked OK so far, but I am still not doing very long runs. I probably need additional motivational triggers.

For the final 18 weeks, I was planning to use the 18 week 55-70 miles plan in Pfitzingers/Douglas excellent Advanced Marathon Training book.

Many sub-3h marathoners have used this program successfully. Yet, I have been a bit worried that the program may be too challenging for my age. Would it at all be possible for a guy my age to run such a fast marathon? What is the best strategy?

One of my heroes, Tim Ferriss, has a methodology for hacking training in any field and it is referred to in the 4 Hour Chef and also in this podcast episode. He simply looks out to find the best in the area and ask them for advice. So I applied the same technique.

Which plus 60 runners, run sub-3h marathons, and have not run sub-3h marathons earlier in their younger years? How do the train? What is their secret?

Before Chicago Marathon, I first reached out to Michael Brosilow, who had broken three hours for the first time as a 59-year-old. In Michael’s case, the key to his success was keeping weight down and run less but much faster miles. He also did a fair bit of cycling.

A couple of months ago, I reached out to David Lynn, who is currently ranked number #5 in the world in the 60-64 age group. He ran a PR 2:59:56, just before turning 60 last year. His secret? 

He told me that he also does more speed training and lots of racing. But the main thing for him was to get a coach. David, did not just get any coach, but John Goldthorp, who also coaches 72-year-old Gene Dykes. Gene Dykes recently ran a 70-74 age group Marathon record of 2:54:23 and was well above 60 when he ran his first sub-3h, and he credits much of his success to his coach. This information was priceless.

Why coach?

With so many excellent books out there with detailed training programs, my ample experience, and the ability to make a great plan myself, it may seem that getting a coach would be a waste of money. After all, I will still have to do all the running myself.

But there is one thing to consider! TIME and MENTAL RESOURCES. It takes time to tweak the training plan. Also, analyzing the data and the results is taxing on the mind and will undoubtedly steal away the mental resources needed for making a living and running Kolibri Expeditions.

The best runners in the world all have coaches, despite being quite capable of just going out and running well without a coach. 

I thought a coach would be a good idea and perhaps make the difference between running 3:04 or 5 minutes faster. 

So, I reached out to coach John Goldthorp, and he accepted to be my online coach from Apr 5. Then it shall be 25 weeks to get ready for Berlin Marathon. The cost of around US$200/month hurts when there is no income, but I am hoping that the benefits in time management which should allow me to stay sharp on the business part of my day, will likely mitigate that cost. 

We agreed that there was not necessary to create a defined program quite yet. Before starting fine-tuning, I should build up my endurance. John said to throw in some strides a few times per week. I had already been thinking that same thought. Strides are faster bouts of 10-20 seconds at the end or in the middle of easy runs. I started six weeks ago with 4x20s twice a week. Now I run each of 8x20s sprints or 8x 20s hill sprints on Tuesdays and Fridays.

I still have not done any actual long runs. I need to get a 3 hour run under my belt and up the weekly distance to over 100K. Therefore, my goal for this week is 100K plus and a long run of around 27-30 km in total.

Hacks: How to get 15-20 minutes faster! 

Less weight is essential if you want to run a fast marathon. All three of the references, Michael Brosilow, David Lynn and Gene Dykes, highlighted that keeping weight down is a good idea. When I ran 3:14 in New York in November 2014, I weighed 70 kg.

I would be very slim at 65 kg, and I think this would be an ideal marathon weight for me. Each kilo lost accounts for 2 minutes faster marathon. I could technically gain 10 minutes only getting my weight down 5 kilos from that of 2014.

Right now, I have plateaued somewhat with the weight of 67.9 kg. I have half a year to lose 3 kg, so it should be possible.

I have started with intermittent fasting and what is known as the 16/8 regime to control the weight. I downloaded an excellent free app called Zero a week ago. One simply logs the first and the last meal of the day with the app, which starts/stops a counter. For the last week, I have made it a habit to complete 14-16 hours of fast per day. It should slowly but surely get me to the goal of 65 kilos. 

I have also given up alcohol for an entire month now. I don’t drink soft drinks, but I always enjoyed a beer or a glass of wine. Yet, I have to consider the side effects. I have a tendency to have repeat doses when available; additional calories are ingested with these liquids with little nutritional benefit, and alcohol means inadequate sleep quality.
Finally, an additional expense is hard to justify as necessary when there is essentially no incoming business. These are times one has to be thrifty.

The other hack everyone is talking about right now is the new shoe revolution started with Nike’s 4% shoe. They are currently third generation, and other brands are following with similar solutions. Get my feet into one of these super shoes could also shave off several minutes. The tests claim these shoes make you up to 5% faster. 5% of 3:14 would correspond to 9 minutes and 40 seconds! So, almost 20 minutes just by these hacks. The price tag for these wonders is US$260. Ugh! 

The money saved not drinking beer and wine will have to cover this expense eventually.

Although aging slows one down, years of running also improves the running form. I am now a minimalist/barefoot runner for most of the miles I put in, as I run in the glove-like Vibram 5-fingers. Barefoot running is a great way to develop good form. 

If I can get my long runs logged and make the last 18 weeks of training very marathon-specific with a coach, it should be possible to run a sub-3h marathon in Berlin on Sep 26, 2021. 

I am not going to be lulled into safety by these numbers. I trained a lot back in 2014. Some very tough training awaits ahead of me, but the numbers crunched above, I realize that I should run well for many years to come. Coach John Goldthorp says this is just the beginning. One could well have a three-year plan in mind with steady improvements.

I will occasionally make updates in my training here if anything is interesting to write about. You may still follow me on Strava, Runkeeper, or Garmin Connect for the technicalities and root for me. 

by Gunnar Engblom   

All you need is LOVE ❤️ 💕 💗

Live - Geese courting at dusk

The fourth week (January 25-31) of my weekly challenges for 2021 consisted of showing more love and affection towards my wife.

Like most couples, we have our ups and downs. We have been together for 26 years this year, and we have two daughters of 11 and 14.

Being together for this long, much of the daily life becomes routine. I admit that there are struggles at times. I can get annoyed with her, and she sure gets annoyed with me. How she has coped with me during these years is close to a miracle!

Since I had started getting up earlier and consequently also gone to bed earlier since previous week, I was already getting more in sync with my wife’s schedule.

I decided to dedicate the week of January 25-31 to learn more about relationships to find out what I could do to grow our relationship.  Since then, I have continued learning more, as I have read no less than four books in total on the subject. I feel like an expert now…😜
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This blog post is a summary of what I have learned. During that last week of January, I read two different books, Rewire Your Brain for Love by Marsha Lucas and The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman and I attended Tony Robbins free 5-day online seminar, which dedicated one day to improving relationships. These sources had very different angles to how to improve a relationship.  I felt I learned a lot.

Over the last two weeks, I read two additional books recommended in Hal Elrod’s Miracle Morning that I blogged about last week. They are The 7 Principles for Making a Marriage Work by John Gottman and Nan Silver and The Soulmate Experience by Mali Apple and Jon Dunn.  Again, these also present different angles, why I will review what I have learned so far from all of these sources.

If you are impressed with the amount of reading I have done these past four weeks, the secret has been to listen to audiobooks at about 1.6-2x speed while I run, and reviewing the kindle books while writing this blogpost.
Get up to two Audible books for free when you sign up for Audible Plus.

All resources below tell you that you can certainly start implementing without your partner being onboard because the first thing to do is not to try to change your partner. You have to start with yourself. I have learned that there is a lot I can do in this respect.

Tony Robbins on relationships.

Between January 21 – 25, world famous inspirational giant, Tony Robbins gave a free seminar series Live on Facebook called New World New You with a bunch of great challenges for the five days. They were long, 3-4 hours, sessions in which Tony spoke for well over 2 hours every time.

On day 3, it was all about relationships, and it came in handy as I had already decided to do proactive things for improving my own relationship during the coming week.

The key thing that Tony brought to the table is that Men and Women are different and react to things in different ways.

He says: Intimate relationships don’t die from lack of love. They die from lack of intimacy. The difference between friendship or intimate relationship – is intimacy-sensuality

There are a couple of rules one can live by to improve the relationships.

  1. A relationship is a place you go to give rather than a place to get.
  2. You are 100% responsible for making it work. Phrases like: ” If she would only…” don’t work. Find out what things your partner likes and dislikes, and then deliver. Show your love.  Your partner will feel the love, and the relationship will grow. Eventually, you let your partner know what you like, if you feel something is still missing. 

Tony Robbins says: If you do this for 60-90 days, you will become a better lover and if your current partner does not get on board, you might move on or attract someone else.

Most people are constantly evaluating the opposite partner rather than themselves, and that’s the biggest mistake we make.

The word “problem” is often understood differently by men and women. Men understand that a problem must be destroyed or reduced. Let’s fix it!
Women understand that problems need to be talked about.

Learn these major general differences between the masculine and the feminine. The recipe is quite simple and perhaps overly so, but as general features in many couples, it holds.

This polarity is probably also true in same-sex partnership.  Exchange the words Women and Men for feminine and masculine traits, which are present regardless of gender.

The Three U:s of Women that Men must recognize.

  • Unseen. Guys, it is quite simple! Look at your lady! Comment positively on what she is wearing, jewelry, nails (painted toenails included), hair, smell, etc.
  • Not Understood. Listen to your woman. Repeat phrases to confirm active listening and ask questions.
  • Unsafe. Women in general feel unsafe much more than men.  Don’t patronize women’s need for safety. A simple question asking whether a man or a woman feels unsafe walking alone at night reveals this major difference between men and women.
    Women feel unsafe much more than men. Make sure your woman feels safe with you.

The Three C:s of Men that women must recognize.

  • Criticism –  no coaching. Don’t criticize-coach your man. If a man needs a coach (he rarely will say he does), he will hire one… and it will not be his partner. A man needs to hear praise what is good and great. He wants to be the hero. Your hero.
  • Closed. Women talk to their girlfriends about problems all the time. Men don’t. They are closed. Women have to understand this. A smart woman makes the man melt and open up by asking about his feelings and showing interest in it. Men can open to their partners. Nagging does the opposite and makes the man even more closed.
  • Controlled. Women try to control things. She tells the man WHAT he SHOULD do and HOW he SHOULD behave. This will lead to resentment and is not good in the long run in the relationship. You may try in a smart way to influence your man, but don’t try to control him.

At some point, I will, discuss these points with my wife, after I check her toenails, listen to how she feels, and make sure she feels safe.  😁

Rewire your Brain for Love

Rewire Your Brain for Love by Marsha Lucas gives a totally different approach.  Our brains is primitive when it comes to feelings. It is the amygdala that reacts with anger or fear, when we don’t weigh our reactions or words. In a relationship, this can soon be toxic.

The author means that one can train the brain to react with more logic and less emotion, giving a much better response in those critical moments when unthoughtful words, anger, rage, and knee-jerk reaction take the upper hand and destroys much of the logic. 

The way to do this is through mindfulness. There are a bunch of meditation practices in the book that one can apply.

In my own case, much rewiring has already been done since the past week with the Miracle Morning/5 AM Club referred to in my previous weekly challenge, as I have been going to bed and get up more or less at the same time each day, continued the meditation practice, been physically activity as well as practicing gratitude. Mindfulness is in vogue!

The Five Love Languages.

The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman has a lot of practical tips how to learn to understand your partners needs better. There are five different love languages as ways of feeling love. Often the two people in a couple speak different languages and have not communicated to each other what kind of Love Language they speak. After the initial HOT LOVE recedes, suddenly small niggles seem huge, and when not communicated effectively (nagging or complaining doesn’t work), they can wreck the marriage. It almost always comes down to differences in Love Languages. By learning the key features of each, it gives cues on how to improve the relationship.

The five love languages are:

  • Words of affirmation. Say something nice. Complement the other person for something.
  • Quality time – scheduled meetings, lunches, and activities together.
  • Receiveing gifts – surprise your partner with a gift
  • Acts of service – do something your spouse wild like you to. Please her and show your love by doing things for her.
  • Physical touch – a hug or a kiss can go a long way.

It is often the case that the principle that couples have different priorities when it comes to the 5 love languages and that couples may not always be in sync. Therefor, it is important to learn the love language of your partner.

The Soulmate Experience.

The Soulmate Experience by Mali Apple and Jon Dunn deals a lot about freedom within the relationship. Although compromises are important to deal with locked positions,  a relationship should not be built on compromises that take away from each other’s personality.

The book’s central theme is not to expect from your partner – that your partner ought to do this or behave like that. Rather,  except that you are different and cherish those things you both enjoy. Using you should, you know, or you remember when turning to the other person is demanding and will likely close the other person. Instead of expectations, express your desires as invitations.

So with the example of birding.  Rather than telling your non-birding spouse that he/she should go birding with you, turn it around, saying you’d like to share your passion with the one who you love. That is an invitation. 
Another tip in the book goes into finding edge activities and adventures that you can do together. Experiencing new things together goes a long way, and you will grow as a couple.

Be sure to schedule time to be together.  Book a night out, away from the kids, at least once a month.

The book also deals with how to open your mind, how to love your body when not being content with your physical appearance, how to deal with jealousy, and how to connect more.

The 7 Principles for Making a Marriage Work

Perhaps The 7 Principles for Making a Marriage Work by John Gottman and Nan Silver gives the most hands-on tips on how to improve a relationship. 

It is based on Gottman’s research in his Family Research Lab, known as the Love Lab, where he observed more than 650 couples over 14 years, identifying what traits make couples stay together rather than splitting up.

With just 15 minutes in the Love Lab trying to settle some disagreement a couple has, Gottman predicts whether they will have a successful marriage or a divorce further down the line noticing SIX SIGNS. It is not that they quarrel that gives them away. It is how they quarrel.
Six signs that predict divorce are:

  1. Harsh start-up.  Immediately after the discussion begins, one of the partners counters with a sarcastic remark or is accusing/blaming/shaming the other. It could be meant as a joke, but it is not a good start.
  2. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Some kinds of negativity are lethal to a relationship. Gottman has named these the Four Horsemen. Even if you are the only one in the relationship reading this book, it is a good idea to avoid the Four Horsemen as much as possible when having an argument with your partner.

    Horseman 1. Criticism. You will always have some complaints about the person you live with, but there is a world of difference between complaint and criticism.  Criticism often contains “you always” or “you never.” Or a complaint is finished with “What is wrong with you?”.
    Complaint: I am angry because you didn’t do the dishes last night, even though you said you would. Could you do it now?
    Criticism. You always forget the chores you are supposed to do, and in the end, I will have to it. You just don’t care. What is wrong with you?
    Sounds familiar. It is quite common, so it does not mean you are heading towards divorce, but it does pave the way for a much deadlier Horseman.

    Horseman 2. Contempt. If one partner makes disrespectful comments or sneers or shows a sense of superiority towards the partner with sarcasm and cynicism, this is contempt.  Contempt hurts, and for this reason, it has a detrimental effect on marriages.

    Horseman 3. Defensiveness. Though defending yourself against contempt and criticism seems to be a natural reaction, unfortunately, it just escalates the argument.

    Horseman 4. Stonewalling. Next, it can escalate to Stonewalling. One part (often the husband) ignores the other partner and stops listening and talking. Classic response: He grabs a beer and turn on the football game and shuts himself out of the world.
  3. Flooding. Usually, people stonewall as a protection against feeling psychologically and physically overwhelmed.  They learn to do anything to avoid the escalation of the horsemen, bail out from tough conversations and avoid the topic altogether.
    As time goes, they disengage from the relationship. The meltdown of a relationship can be predicted by the frequency of harsh start-ups and the flooding as a result of the presence of the four horsemen.
  4. Body Language. During quarrels involving the four horsemen and flooding, the most apparent body reaction is increased heart-rate.  It is a primitive reaction of fight (critical, contemptuous, or defensive reactions) or flight responses  (stone-walling). Your ability to process the information is reduced, and you are not paying attention to what your partner is saying. Any chance of resolving the issue is gone, and further discussion will likely worsen the situation. Typically the heart rate rises to above 100 in these situations. 
  5. Failed repair attempts. Repair attempts, such as taking a break to calm down, will de-escalate the tension when they are successful. It becomes easier to listen to the other part when you are calmer, and in this state, a more intelligent discussion can take place. Still, if the harsh start-ups, the four horsemen and the flooding has created a vicious cycle, the repair attempts from one partner are likely not acknowledged.

    Couples who have successful repair attempts early on in the disagreement are likely still married down the road.
  6. Bad Memories. The author notes that couples who are destined to fail often don’t remember what made them click in the first place and they give negative incidents in the past too much importance.  It is a good idea to try to remember the good times and what you liked about each other when you had just fallen in love.

If all 6 keys are present, there is little chance that the marriage will work in the long run. However, if you recognize what is going on and make repair attempts early or when you both are calm, the future may look somewhat brighter.

If you further implement the seven principles from the book, there is no reason why a marriage that perhaps seems destined for failure could turn around.

The 7 Principles

The Seven Principles have to do about learning about yourself and your partner.  The more you do so, the more likely the success.  Practice these seven principles.

  1. Enhance your love maps
  2. Nurture your fondness and admiration
  3. Turn towards each other instead of away.
  4. Let your partner influence you.
  5. Solve your solvable problems
  6. Overcome gridlock
  7. Create shared meaning.

I will only review the first principle below, which perhaps is the most useful as is a fun starting point to get to know each other better.

Love Maps and Questionnaires

Throughout the book, there are plenty of questionnaires for you and your partner, or if necessary, you can do them yourself. Maybe your partner shows contempt with comments like: “So now you pretend to fix our marriage with something you have read in a book. Give me a break“. 
The author stresses that even if it is a one-sided approach to saving the marriage, you can still see drastic improvements implementing the strategies. Eventually, you will see that communications improves, and your partner will be more willing to learn what it is that has made such a change in yourself.
The sooner you realize that you need to change in the way you react, the easier communication will become.
The first questionnaire is what the author calls a Love Map.  This seems like a fun game I could do with my wife.

There are several additional questionnaires that allow you to learn more about each other. These can be downloaded from this website. I must find these questionnaires in Spanish to do with my wife down the line because they look like they are fun to do together.

Love three weeks later.

My wife is not making this journey together with me. I have not told her. The idea is that she shall note the change. 
Today, as I was finishing up this blog post, it has been three weeks since I started. I feel we are getting much closer to each other. I am also much more aware of our daily encounters, Whatsapp messages, and sharing of memes.

I don’t know to what extent I need to give thanks to COVID, but being quarantined, seeing each other more, and having more time for affection, certainly has brought some advantages.  From the start of the year when I planned to do these weekly challenges and since practicing mourning routines of getting up at 5 AM every morning to include meditation, yoga, exercise, and planning of the day, have set me up for being more attuned on different aspects of my family life, including teaching my kids Swedish. (I have a 15 days streak of 5 AM starts, as well as a 15 days streak with Swedish lessons!)

What is your take on COVID and your partnership? Any lessons learned? If you want to improve your relationship, it is important to remember that the biggest positive change you can make is not to try to change your partner but to change your own approach.

Running update

The first week of February, I decided to set a running goal of running continuously for a minimum an hour each day. This also allowed me to listen to the remaining audiobooks of the present blogpost.

Next week’s blogpost shall be about my strategy for my training for Berlin Marathon in September. Remember, I am 60 years old, and I am aiming for sub 3 hours. Is it all possible? Check out the next blogpost when published.

by Gunnar Engblom   

Miracle Morning and the 5 AM Club. How to turn myself into a morning person this week.

The Miracle Morning and the 5 AM Club.

Rising at 5 AM truly is The Mother of All Routines. It is the one behavior that raises every other human behavior. This regimen is the ultimate needle mover to turn you into an undefeatable model of possibility. The way you begin your day determines the extent of focus, energy, excitement, and excellence you bring to it. Each early morning is a page in the story that becomes your legacy. Each new dawn is a new chance to unleash your brilliance, unprison your potency and play in the big leagues of iconic results. You have such power within you, and it reveals itself most with the first rays of daybreak. ROBIN Sharma – The 5 Am Club. 

If there is one change, just one habit I should develop and the one thing that I know would have a tremendous impact on my productivity, my relationship, recovery in my marathon training, and my general well being – it is go to bed before 11pm and to rise very early the next morning to win the day. 

How hard could that be, really?

Changing habits, and getting new habits to stick is not as easy as one may think. It is not only about willpower, but also rewiring of the brain. It also takes a longer time than most people realize.

As I am looking back in my diary and notes that I have kept on Evernote since 2015, the revelation that I should I’d be more effective in the morning was one of the first things I realized. 
Note after note, I am jolting down that I shall try to get up early, but I am always failing. Before I go to bed, I always find something I need to do, emails to write, itineraries to write up for clients, etc, etc. At the same time, I have wasted far too much time on YouTube clips, and frequent trips to the refrigerator for snacks and beers. 

During the third week of January of my weekly challenges, I hoped this should be the turning point. Getting up early is a habit that I really would like to own.  It would mean so many positive things. 

Here is what I wrote in the New Year’s Resolution post.
Get up at 5 AM every day for a week when not on a birding tour.   Read “Miracle Morning” and “5 AM Club” and Morning Makeover. I have read them before. Early mornings is a constant goal for me that I have a hard time to fulfill. I am a night owl. I often go to bed between 1 and 3:30 AM. If I get up at 5 AM regardless, I will nap during the day to recover.

Getting up at precisely 5 AM is not a magic bullet in itself but it it helps. The trick is to create morning and evening routines.  Before I let you know how it went for me, let me review the three books I mentioned above – all which have become very valuable tools for me.

Morning Makeover

Damon Zahariades has written a bunch of handy, concise, and no BS self-help books. I have read a bunch of them. They are very concise filled with actionable strategies and tips and very cheap for Kindle (Morning Makeover is only $2.99). If you are a member of Kindle Unlimited, they are free. If you are a member of Amazon Prime which also gives you free two-day shipping on most Amazon products, plus a bunch of other benefits, you get them on loan for free.

The Morning Makeover book is only 152 pages packed with information.

  • How to know the amount of sleep needed.
  • How to get better and more effective sleep.
  • How much earlier you should get up to win the day.
  • Ideas with how you should fill your morning makeover.

It also summarise the morning routines of these high achievers.

  • Tony Robbins
  • Gary Vaynerchuck
  • Tim Ferriss
  • Kevin O’Leary
  • Fran Tarkenton
  • Scott Adams
  • Howard Schultz
  • Kat Cole
  • Cheryl Bachelder
  • Richard Branson

Common nominators for many of these role models are coffee (or tea) and fast for the first couple of hours, meditate, exercise, journaling, and gratitude – and of course, plan the day.
One of the first chapters go through the ten benefits of a morning routine.

  1. It gives your day structure, you decide what the most important thing to do during the day is, and your day is more predictable.
  2. You’ll experience more energy.  Try a cold shower, yoga, meditating, exercise, and a protein-rich breakfast.
  3. Less susceptible to decision fatigue. Some things in your morning routine will become habits. You no longer have to decide whether you meditate or do yoga. You just do it automatically.
  4. You’ll be more productive during the rest of the day. Less stress, more energy as you control your time.
  5. You’ll feel better. 
  6. You’ll experience less stress. You feel you have plenty of time, as you have taken care of many essential items early during the day.
  7. More positive mindset.
  8. Better health. Lose weight, more cardio, less stress, and mindfulness.
  9. Better focus. 
  10. Purpose.  It is much easier to work on your long term goals and drive when you have this alone time to reflect.

I can personally vouch for that planing my day with a morning routine works. I have often blamed my lack of focus on the much-over-diagnosed ADD that everyone seems to be suffering from these days, with an attention span of mere seconds to minutes in the constantly bombarding information flow.

I still recognize that a fair amount of ADD and ADHD have been with me since my childhood and explain many of the character traits I display, but the diagnosis is not an excuse for not trying to focus.

Now I am compensating for my weaknesses so that they can become strengths. I have lacked innate empathy towards other people for most of my life, being rather self-centered, and I considered myself unorganized, always distracted, and without focus. I am sure many people who know me well see these traits in me all the time.

Blaming ADD for all my faults is not very helpful. Building routines are actually the best way to combat distractions, procrastination, and disorder. Exercise, early mornings, and short bursts of concentrated work have done wonders for my own productivity – even if I can’t remember where I put my car keys.

The mindfulness acquired by meditation also gives me a tool for making improvements in understanding other people better.
I put myself in their shoes with intellectual empathy, since emotional empathy does not come very natural for me. This has been especially true during the COVID pandemic.
These techniques to overcome ADD to get more structured days can not be underestimated.

I am getting more things done, I have reconnected much more with my family, and I am getting less distracted by social media, etc.

5 AM Club.

Although only published in 2018, The 5 AM Club by Robin Sharma has already become a classic. Robin Sharma has been teaching this technique for over 20 years. He put together the main ideas to a story, like a novel, featuring an entrepreneur, an artist, and an old homeless bum (who in reality is a billionaire in disguise) attending a seminar by The Spellbinder. The book has some captivating dialogue, which makes it a fun read.  Eventually, the entrepreneur and the artist gets training at the billionaire’s beach estate on Mauritius. 

The birders will appreciate an appearance of Mauritius Kestrel and Pink Pigeon – two of Mauritius most threatened birds.

If you collect 7 Wonders for your bucket list, both Rome and Taj Mahal come to life in the story.

Some critiques have argued that there is a too much fluff. The essence of the book could would fit in about 20 pages.

I disagree. The format lets the strategies grow on you, and that is perhaps more effective to induce the change in yourself rather than just reading bare bone recipes in Morning Makeover.

Eventually, the morning routine is presented with the 20/20/20 formula consisting of 20 minutes to move, 20 minutes to reflect, and 20 minutes to grow.

The first step is to move – to perform vigorous exercise for 20 minutes. What’s important is to make yourself sweat. That’s because when you sweat your body gets rid of cortisol, the hormone of fear. Cortisol causes stress and impedes memory. Also the body generate the protein BDNF, or brain-derived neurotrophic factor, which repairs brain cells and accelerates new neural connections.
So by sweating for 20 minutes, you’ll think faster!

Then, make 5.20-5.40 a.m. a time for reflection with a period of deep peace and solitude. Before the complexity of the day emerges, reflect on what is most important to you. In an age of distraction, of constant notifications and messages, you’ll be amazed at what visions, dreams, and inspiration drift into your mind when you have a few moments of silence to yourself.
Write these thoughts in a journal. Commit your current ambitions, the things you’re grateful for in your life, and your frustrations and disappointments to paper. Doing so will help you understand your vision and let go of toxic, negative energies.

Take a few minutes to meditate. Research shows that meditation helps lower cortisol, reducing your stress. It’s a proven way to stay calm.

Now it’s time for the last 20 minutes of your first hour. Here, you need to grow, so take 20 minutes to learn. Study the lives of great achievers by reading their biographies. Learn about human psychology. Watch documentaries on innovation, or listen to audiobooks about business building.

The Miracle Morning.

The Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod (2012) is again about creating morning routines to make you more productive.  Although, published before the 5 AM Club, there are many references to Robin Sharma and other gurus in the book. Afterall, there are many books out there about morning routines.

The Miracle Morning was the first one I read on morning routines, and the strategies resonate well with me.
I often use Hal Elrod’s formula called Life S.A.V.E.R.S to start my day, even when I don’t get up at 5 AM. It gives me a lot of structure.

Here is the formula with the meaning of each letter in the acronym. You don’t have to do these in order.

S=Silence.
It can be meditation.  Right now, I am doing guided meditation from the Waking-up course. Earlier I used Headspace. Both programs are good.  You may also do Yoga, meditate on your own.

A=Affirmations.  Suppose to read those out aloud every day.  Think Muhammed Ali saying: I am the Greatest. Think about what you want, why you want it, and who you have to become to create it and then make that commitment. Those are your affirmations. They can deal with yourself and how you behave, your goals of physical performance or weight goals, family goals, and work goals.

V= Visualizations.

  • Visualize your dreams
  • Visualize who you need to be and what you need to do.

Visualizations can be a similar state to your meditation practice but instead make mental images of who you want to become.

E=Exercise. This could well be just a series of pushups or jumping jacks to get your body going.  Many people prefer to start with the exercise to get the body going.

R=Reading. 
Self-help books are great reading, which makes you learn new things.  I do a lot of my reading with audiobooks while  I do my runs, and I keep a lot of them on my iPad.  I often do fast scans repeating what I have heard in the headphones the previous day.
Here are a couple of books that the author recommends for you to grow financially and emotionally in your relationship.  The last three were very important for my fourth week of challenges, which shall be my next blog post.

Finance

Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill Secret of the Millionaire Mind by Harv Eker and Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey.

Relationships

The five love languages by Gary D. Chapman, The Soul Mate Experience by Joe Dunn and The Seven Principles for Making a Marriage Work by John Gottman and Nan Silver.

S=Scribing.  Writing. It could be blogposts or a diary. It is very therapeutic to put down in words your feelings. Many people prefer to write by hand, while I prefer the computer, because I can keep everything in one place (in the cloud) and I use the search function to find things. I am using Evernote for all my note-taking, including drafts of blog posts, newsletters, and journaling.  

As you can see comparing the Miracle Morning and The 5 AM Club is that they have quite similar recipes. I suggest you try to introduce only a few items at the time, unless you want to do the full monty with me in a 30-day or 66-day challenge explained below.

It is important to remember, since we are talking of adding several habits to the the habit of waking up at 5 AM, they will typically not fit in the hour that the authors are giving you. You will be much slower switching between the exercises and you will be distracted. Don’t get discouraged – it is normal.

Many times when I have gotten up at 5 AM, I am still planning my day at 9 AM. It is still a win, because a lot of days, prior to this I did not have a plan at all, and those days were certainly less productive.

The five-minute diary.

My journal is a combination of checking off the Life SAVERS, a to-do list, and the five-minute diary popularized by Tim Ferriss. I also include a lot of checkboxes for things I need to do regularly. Here is an outline of the 5-minute diary. Feel free to add additional thoughts in the morning and the evening.

I am grateful for:
1.
2.
3.

What would make my day great today?
The most important task:
1.
2.
3.

To be filled in at night:
Three amazing things that happened today.
1.
2.
3.

How could I have made today better?
1.
2.
3.

It is a straightforward way to keep tab how things are going for you.

Hal Elrod’s Life Story

Hal Elrod had a severe car crash that almost killed him and in 2016 he fought an aggressive cancer.  Check the new documentary on Amazon Prime Video called the Miracle Morning. Also, here is a recent Key Note talk by Hal Elrod on YouTube that is very inspirational.

My results of getting up at 5 AM for a two weeks.

The first week – and I also admit the second week – I did not manage to get up at 5 AM every day. I have noticed that I get more done when I get up early, and I get better quality sleep when I go to bed before midnight according to my Garmin which monitors sleep.

Sometimes after long runs, I feel very tight legs and realize that I need more rest. So I deliberately have stayed in the bed longer not getting up at 5 AM as planned.

Between Jan 18-24, I managed to wake at 5 AM five days of the seven, and the following week I woke up at 5 AM four of the days. I am quite pleased with the results.  Now, if I only could force myself to get to bed before 11 pm, the sleep would increase in quality. Of the 14 days, sleep time was before midnight only on five days, and only once before 11 PM.  Sure, I napped about 15-20 minutes on days when I felt too sleep deprived, but it is still not right.

A future challenge for my year with 52 challenges will have me going to bed at 10 pm for a week. I shall likely try that next week.  It may prove more difficult than getting up at 5 AM. We shall see!

Join me on a 30-day or a 66-day challenge.

Both the Miracle Morning and the 5 AM club provide challenges to inspire you build a good morning routine that will be come life changing once it is on autopilot.

In the 60s, Dr Maxwell Maltz popularized that it takes a minimum of 21 days to form a habit. To be on the safe side Hal Elrod, like many others, extend that minimum to a full 30 days for the practice to stick.  Find the resources for download on his web-page.

On the other hand, habits can take much longer than just 30 days.  Phillippa Lally – a health psychology researcher in London, and her research team figured out how long it really takes to form a habit.
They examined the habits of 96 people for 12-weeks.  The choose habits ranging from easy, like drinking water throughout the day, to more difficult ones to keep up with, like running for 15 minutes before having dinner. The result was that, on average, it took 66 days before a new behavior became automatic. It varied on the action, the person, and the circumstances.  In Lally’s study, it took anywhere from 18 days to 254 days.

There is a program and an app for the 66 day 5 AM Club Challenge. Check this link to sign up.

Let’s keep each other accountable, and let’s start either the 5 AM Club or Miracle Morning together. They are, in reality, very similar. I intend to make a combo of the two for 30 days and then continue for an additional 36 days. A great tool is this brilliant habit recorder that I found by coincidence.  It is free!
Here is a concise video of how it works.


Chose any habit you would like to acquire and run it for 66 days. If you fail a day, the counter goes to zero again, but on the other hand, your sessions are logged, so at the end of the year, you can tell that perhaps you only missed seven days of running, or that you only drank alcohol for a few days per month. Note that the tracker has South African time, but that can be easily changed in the settings.

Other tools for scheduling that I use include Google’s calendar, to which you can schedule daily habits you want to include in your life, and iPhone/Mac Reminders for which I have a number of different to-do lists inspired by Damon Zahariades To-Do List Formula.

Next weekly challenges.

Last week, of January 25-31, I intended to become a better, more mindful husband, and this has continued this week of February 1-7.
Here is what it said in the original blog post with my New Year’s resolutions.

“Show LOVE to my WIFE” week. I always do that of course, but it will be enhanced focus this week, and I will be more mindful about it. Read: Rewire your Brain for Love, and the 5 Love Languages.

I read both books the past week.
I have also added the other two books mentioned in Miracle Morning and will read these and listen to the audiobooks as I run the days ahead.

The Soul Mate Experience
The Seven Principles for Making a Marriage Work

I shall do a write up about my experience by the end of this week, I hope.

How is your marathon training going, Gunnar?

Thanks for asking! As you know, I am training for Berlin Marathon in September 2021. I am on track with my plan to build milage.
Week 1. 70K. Done!
Week 2. Easy with 45K. Done!
Week 3. 70K. Done!
Week 4. 70K. Done!

More Running is on, as the specific week challenge for the fifth week of the year – Feb 1-7.
One hour of continuous running per day.
I am increasing the amount of running to end the week at 80km (50 miles).  I am also getting a coach which I will tell you more about all this in the next blogpost after Feb 7.

Talk to me!

Let me know how you are planning to grow as a person during 2021. As I said above, it would be a good idea to hold each other accountable. Besides, it is much more fun when you do things together. Let’s share the grit. What will it take to become a better version of yourself during 2021?

I know many people are suffering mentally during the COVID pandemic, and it is tough economically and socially for many to adapt to this weird situation.
Perhaps it is my ADD and the innate lack of emotions that produced a positive change in myself. (Remember that I compensate with intellectual empathy).

So instead of getting depressed and get into dark places, I have gotten more focused, and I have started to care more about the people around me, and I take the time to be available. I believe I have become a better father and husband in the last year.

I feel somewhat ashamed to admit, well aware of the hardship a lot of people are going through, that despite catastrophic personal finances, the pandemic has been a personal blessing, of sorts. Does anyone else have similar reactions to this situation?

by Gunnar Engblom   

Tim Ferriss’s 3-day fasting protocol and a week of ketosis.

Tim Ferriss

New year’s resolution week 2.

For my second week of new year’s resolution to carry out weekly one-week challenges, I chose to make a re-boot my body with Tim Ferriss‘s 3-day fast and for the rest of the week adhere to a ketogenic diet while running 45k for the week, and drink no beer or wine.

What is Ketosis?

Usually, the carbohydrates we consume are broken down to glucose, used as energy directly, or stored in the liver and muscles as glycogen.  If you stop supplying glucose in the form of carbohydrates (<50g of carbs per day), glycogen from the liver is broken down to serve the brain and other vital organs.  The brain can’t use fat directly as a source of energy, but fat, digested or stored, is broken down in the liver to beta-hydroxybutyrate (BHB), acetoacetate, and acetone, released to the bloodstream and taken up the brain and other organs as fuel for the mitochondria. Excess is released with urine or in the case of acetone when breathing as it is volatile. (Acetone smelling breath is typical of a person in ketosis). Meanwhile, blood sugar levels remain normal due to the breakdown of amino and other fatty acids.

Why Ketosis?

What is the big deal with ketosis? It has become a trendy way to lose weight fast. But it is not the only benefit. It does wonders for those with Diabetes II, reducing all the insulin spikes and, in several cases, have cured Diabetes II. It also cleanses the body from dead cells as it reduces inflammation. Additionally, it inhibits the growth of and reverses several types of cancer and reboots your immune system due to stem cell-based regeneration. If one wants to stay in ketosis for long periods of time, it is best to consult with a physician, as there could be renal disfunction with too much animal protein, dehydration for not drinking enough liquid, and mineral and vitamin deficiencies if the diet is not sufficiently balanced.

How to get into ketosis?

There are two ways of getting into ketosis: fasting or a keto diet.  For short bouts like I have done, it should be perfectly safe.

Ketogenic diet

For the body to switch to burning fat rather than carbs, one has to eliminate practically all carbs from the diet (<50g carbs allowed) and make around 70% of the energetic value (the calories) comes from fat alone (remember fat has 4x as many calories per gram than do carbs or proteins).  Of course, there is a risk of eating too much unhealthy saturated fat with dairy and meat. Personally, I don’t have this problem as I usually ingest very little saturated fat, as a pescatarian. During my keto-days, I ate canned  Caballa (Chub Mackerel ), a fat fish with olive oil, nuts and seeds, olives, avocado, and eggs fried in coconut oil with turmeric and thyme. The only saturated fat was that of the eggs.

Fasting – general considerations.

There are several ways of doing fasting.  One of the most popular is the so-called intermittent fasting.  There are various protocols from the very popular 16/8 and 14/10, and more extreme 18/6 and even 23/1. That is fasting for 16 hours (overnight when sleeping and skipping breakfast) and only eat during a window of 8 hours. In the extreme case of fasting for 23 hours  – it means only one meal in 24 hours. While 16/8 and the less harsh 14/10 protocols becomes a habit, the extreme 1 meal per day is usually thrown in a few times per week in a regular diet. Let’s have a look at what happens physiologically while fasting for up to 5 days.

  1. When you eat, the normal scenario is that your insulin levels rise, which allows uptake of glucose to the muscles and the brain. Excess first stores as glycogen in the muscles and the liver, and further excess is converted as fat. Too many carbohydrates will make you fat—no doubt about that.
  2. When fasting 6-24 hours, insulin levels drop, and glycogen is converted to glucose for energy.
  3. After 24h to about 48h, the liver starts manufacturing glucose from amino-acids. During this period, excess proteins are broken down and converted into glucose. It is not necessarily muscle. There are connective tissue, skin, old cells, and other junky cell parts that can be destroyed. This is the process of autophagy.  It is often misunderstood as it breaks down muscles but should really be seen as a cleansing mechanism rather than losing important muscle mass.
  4. After 2-3 days, you enter ketosis. There are low insulin levels, which stimulate breaking down body fat to energy as fatty acids, which can be used directly by the muscles as energy. The brain is a bit more complicated, but the fatty acids are further broken down to ketone bodies such as beta-hydroxybutyrate and acetoacetate, capable of crossing the blood-brain barrier.
  5. Finally, after 5 days of fasting, the body enters a protein conservation phase when high growth hormone levels maintain muscle mass and lean tissues.  Adrenaline levels increase. People on this long fasting report high energy levels.

Much of what I have learned about fasting comes from Dr Jason Fung’s writing and podcasts in which he has participated. First, a great article which explains the above in detail. Attached to the article, there is also a video series with Dr Fung, explaining the theory in detail.  Secondly, his two books can be recommended. The first The Obesity Code states that your body has a fixed body-weight thermostat, which will regulate you to maintain the weight (and fat reserves) you are currently at, regardless of whether you eat fewer calories or exercise more. The base metabolism will adapt and decrease as the caloric intake decrease and your physical activity increases. You are caught in a trap. Fasting, on the other hand, increases metabolism after a few days.  Different fasting techniques are discussed in his second book called The complete guide to fasting.

3-day fast

I have done 3-day fasts three times before to fight inflammation. Those have been strict water-fasts with no additional caloric items added.  I would only drink coffee and water with some minerals and salt for 72 hours. Although you feel OK after two days, the time leading up to this is often gruesome.  I have gotten somewhat dizzy, forgetful, and have a hard time concentrating.

This time I did a slightly different protocol to avoid the lack of focus in the intermittent time that the body switches from using glucose as a source of energy to ketones. This makes it less a true fast but it is less taxing to do. The main purpose of the 3 day fast in this context is to get into ketosis as soon fast as possible.
I followed the method is described in Tim Ferriss’s book Tools of Titans in the section about  Dr. Dominic D’Agostino. The difference compared to the water fast is the following:

  • A glycogen depletion workout of day 1.
  • Quench hunger an exogenous ketones or MCT oil (Medium Chain Triglycerides) such as Brain Octane. Alternatively, use Coconut oil, which is cheaper but not as pure.  This helps against carb-withdrawal – and with this hack, I noticed there was really nothing to it. I didn’t lose concentration when allowed to consume up to 4 tablespoons of fat daily.

Here is the protocol:

  • Day before: plan to make phone calls during the morning or listen to podcasts and audiobooks for about 4 hours. 
  • Have a low carb dinner around 6 pm the night before.
  • During the three following mornings, plan to sleep in. The sleeping does some of the work for you.
  • Have ketones, MCT oil, or Coconut oil when you wake up and then 2 more times every 4 hours.  I had mine as a bulletproof coffee by putting coffee, oil, turmeric, a pinch of black pepper (piperine helps for better absorption of the curcumin), and cinnamon in the blender. It is an acquired taste but a fantastic brain boost for the morning.  Once you are in ketosis, you can stop using the oil, as you will not feel hunger.
  • Brisk walk for 3-4 hours to deplete glycogen reserves and drink lots of water with a salt pinch for sodium. I also took additional magnesium to avoid cramps. It is imperative to drink a lot.
  • Repeat the walk the next day if necessary
  • Keep on taking MCT oil or Ketones if you feel hunger.
  • You can add 1.5g of BCAA (Branch-chain Amido Acids) if you are concerned about losing muscle mass.  I took 1.5 g the first two mornings.

Results.

I had the best fasting experience yet. It surely helped with the MCT oil. The second day I did a shorter run, but that did not turn out well.  My HR spiked even though I did not run fast. So I cut it short to only 2K. It is safer to do another long walk. For the remainder of the week, I stuck with the Keto diet. I trimmed down about 1kg, which is less than I had hoped, but at least I got a feel for the protocol.  I did not run much during the fasting, so the bulk of the 45 km for the week was done Friday-Sunday, which I had planned.

During the week, I listened to the two amazing audiobooks from Audible in my headphones during the walk and my additional running. Both books were very motivational.

The first one The Power of Full Engagement, I mentioned in my last blog post. Jim Loehr – a legendary sports coach who has carried over his knowledge of sports coaching to apply to other business goals, personal life, health, and purpose. Get your work/life balance together.

The other one, 12 Lessons for Life by Jordan Petersen – read by the author + was fabulous!

No!
Jordan Petersen is not alt-right!
Those who think that have obviously not read or listened to him.  The main message is to think for yourself and take responsibility for your own life. Show confidence! Do the right thing!

So if any of my left-wing peers argue that one shouldn’t read alt-right authors, I’d rather find out for myself. I find Petersen to be a true humanist and his teachings are reasonable.

You get up to two free audiobooks when you sign up for Audible Premium Plus.

No alcohol week.

It turned out that I managed to complete a second one-week challenge in not drinking beer or wine. Of course, carbs should be limited, and many but not all alcoholic beverages are no go. Technically, however, a shot of whisky, a glass of red wine, or a Michelob Ultra would still have kept me in ketosis,  but I thought I’d go for a complete alcohol-free week instead – and managed. As I went to the supermarket on Sunday, I noticed my favorite beer Leffe was on sale, so I bought five to put in the fridge, with the sincere promise that for five weeks to come, I would reward myself with a bottle for each challenge I completed. I only had ONE LEFFE BEER on Sunday night when I broke the fast. A proof of the self-control character I have developed during the week. 😎

One Leffe per week is my reward for a completed challenge.

This week’s challenge

I decided to wake up at 5 AM every day this week, which will inspire me to perform many other good habits. As resources and inspiration, there are three books I have read before. “Miracle Morning” and “5 AM Club,” and Morning Make Over.

I have had the goal to get up at 5 AM for a long time. In fact, it has been constantly on my mind since 2015, when I first started to make notes to plan my day. But I have had a hard time living up to it since I am really a night owl. I have often gone to bed between 1 and 3:30 AM. This week I will nap during the day to recover if I don’t get enough sleep. I’ll let you know by next week how I did.

The links are affiliate links, I get a small (very small) commission when you buy from the links. You pay the same. Thanks for your support.

by Gunnar Engblom   

First week of 52 New Year’s resolutions 2021 – Jan 1-10

FACEBOOK MARKETING

Background

Before New Year, I decided to take a different approach to 2021’s new Year’s Resolutions. I know I always want to do too much and that I inevitably would fail in most intentions.  It takes time to create habits, and concentrating on too many things to change makes it too difficult.  So I settled for one Big Goal – the sub 3h Marathon -which shall require a lot of planning and starting new habits. Apart from this, I am testing one new thing every week. All is explained in my last blog post last year.

Week 1. Birdcalls and Facebook Marketing

On January 1, I started with what was to be the first of my 52 weekly resolutions.  One of the 52 challenges was study birdcalls.
It was a good start and something that would serve for the upcoming trip to Northern Peru.  I got started with downloading a bunch of calls from Xeno-canto.
Come Jan 1st, and the first bomb is dropped. A 14-day quarantine for all arrivals from abroad from Jan 4. Obviously, a response to the new, more contagious strain of COVID 19 in the UK. Two of my clients had to cancel their trip.

Oh well! One client was to arrive on Jan 2, so I would still go birding. On Jan 2nd, the next bomb dropped. My client could not get his PCR COVID results to arrive on Jan 3 before the quarantine and had to cancel.
All this meant there was little reason to study birdcalls just right now, so I decided to switch focus and make the weeks Monday to Sunday. And a new challenge every Monday.

I had bought a Udemy Facebook marketing course a year ago that I had not even opened yet. Fortunately, there had been a timely 2021 update, without extra cost.

I had time to go about it Monday-Sunday, knowing I would not learn all but perhaps a fair bit in a week. What remains would be consumed in short bursts the following weeks whenever I had time.

What I learned about Facebook Marketing this week.

It has been a good course so far. I am learning how to funnel cold public into warm and later hot leads with various strategies that I am trying one by one. One interesting idea is running a FB ad first in a country where clicks are less expensive to get more post-likes and conversations.

I made a try by posting this FB video of a Diademed Sandpiper Plover to bird photographers in India. You be surprised how many people in India are interested in Bird Photography.
The same post will later be reposted for birders in the US/Canada as well as Europe.  Already having a lot of likes gives the post more clout and is more likely to be noticed. Smart!

Please help out by commenting on the post for it to stick out even more. And if you like, please share it. I will also do some A/B testing in future ads and very likely set up some evergreen ads that will bring birders to our blog and mailing list.

One particular idea is to make some pillar blog posts to promote. I am currently working on a blogpost for 7 Wonders Birding Tours called “Overseas Birding and Bird Photography Tours for Beginners” to be promoted on the 7 Wonders Birding Facebook page is screaming to have more followers.

I shall also write up the blog posts about each of the New 7 Wonders and the birding possibilities at each place, such as this blog post about Birding Machu Picchu as well as broad poll-like posts on the FB page making questions like “Which is New 7 Wonder is included in your next birding trip?”.

Additionally, I am playing a bit with promoting my band’s (Guran Guran) YouTube channel on Facebook with this video.

Here, I learned some tricks on a YouTube tutorial. For instance, one should only promote YouTube channels on the desktop and provide the Subscribe button link directly rather than just the URL to the channel.

Other interesting things the past week.

  • Starting over on the Sam Harris Waking Up meditation course. 🧘‍♂️ Will try to stick with it every day from now on.  It is such a great reset.
  • Ran every day.  Did 70K last week. I have been running every day since Dec 14. Still all very slow piling up the kilometers. There is no rush—still 38 weeks before the marathon. I will gradually increase to do 100K plus running weeks.  However, in the coming week, while fasting, I am doing much less. I hope to reach  45km by the end of the week, so it is much of a recovery week in many ways.
  • Still doing Yoga. 🧘‍♀️ The app on my phone is called Pocket Yoga. There are probably more elaborate apps, but this one works for me for a fast guided yoga session. I use the Sun Salute A – and two rounds of that takes about 9 minutes. More is better, of course, but little is better than none.
  • Read the 10th installment of the crime series by Norwegian Jo Nesbø – called Police. I read it in Swedish on load as an ebook from the Stockholm Library. I only have two more books to go in the series. The Thirst, I started immediately and am reading it now. I guess by next week, I will likely start the last one called Knife.
    If you want to start from the beginning, the first one is The Bat.
  • Listened to a Tim Ferriss podcast and an interview with Jim Loehr – a legendary sports coach who has carried over his knowledge of sports coaching to apply to other business goals, personal life, health, and purpose. I immediately got his book The Power of Full Engagement for kindle and started listening on Audible. Precious lessons learned, which will help me both with my marathon and work/life balance. Get up to two free audiobooks when you sign up for Audible Premium Plus.
  • Reached a new all-time high for the Puzzles on Chess.com app. 2065 I am quite proud of that achievement.
  • Signed up for Tony Robbins “MAKE 2021 MY YEAR” 5 DAY CHALLENGE“.  It is totally free. Tony Robbins is one of the world’s best motivational speakers.  A five-day course of 90 minutes or more live – for free. Unbelievable. OK. You will find plenty of purchase options along the way, and it may well be that some of those will resonate with you and for sure will be good value, but the value of the free stuff will absolutely blow your mind in any case. Believe me. He is that good.

This week’s challenge. Fasting and Ketosis.

First on the list was Fasting and ketogenic week with resources from Tools of Titans by Tim Ferriss and The complete guide to fasting by Jason Fung. I am already on the second day fasting, as you are reading this. The results will be presented in the next blog post.

What challenges have you tackled this past week?

by Gunnar Engblom   

52 weeklong New Year’s Resolutions.

New Year Resolutions
2021 – What are you going to do?

Let’s face it. You will likely fail your new year’s resolutions. I know I always do. But that is OK, a few things stick and you become somewhat more mindful of who you want to become.

The problem is that it is hard to create new habits, and I also struggle with too many things I want to do. In the end you feel that you hardly do any of them after you failed to keep them up. I have thought a great deal how to handle this.

There are two simultaneous strategies for me in 2021.
First – The Most Important thing of the year. Set One Goal for the latter part of the year.
Second – Make a huge list of smaller projects, books you want to read, habits you want to obtain, but only make a commitment for one week. There are 52 weeks, and 52 commitments. I will explain below.

The Most important goal of 2021

Decide on just one thing!
I have decided to make one thing the most important one of the year – a Sub 3h marathon!
Having missed Sydney Marathon last year when I was in quite good shape, and also the canceled Berlin Marathon this year which I managed to get into, but which was canceled because of COVID, I now have the Berlin Marathon on September 27, 2021, as the most important date of the year. The goal is not only to complete the race, but to run it in less than 3 hours!
It is a flat course.

I am very aware that this seems next to impossible. After all, I am 60 years old. My best times have been 3:04 in 2016 (a downhill race) and 3:14 in New York in 2014.

On the other hand, I have become a much better runner since 2014 and 2016. I have a better technique. What has been lacking to get good times have been hiatuses due to too much sitting/driving which tighten my hips (piriformis) and taken me off training for periods of 2-3 months in some cases. The other thing has been the lack of a long 18 week period with no guiding/travel when I can totally immerse myself in the training.

I am keen to learn what I would be able to do if I gave it my very best shot and not let anything in the way, It will be a lot of hard training ahead.

I have already started the plan. First I am going to build up to a lot of slow miles. Even reach 100 miles in a week. Then, I am setting off 18 weeks before Berlin Marathon for intense training. Speed, Marathon pace, and Long runs will be the important sessions. The only scheduled guiding work during this time is a month with a bird photographer (which means I should be able to go for lunch runs or times during the day when photo conditions are not ideal). I will also do a couple of Lima day tours, as well as an Uganda trip in late August for a week if we get the clients for this trip, but should be able to include some running while at it. I will be following the 70 miles 18-week plan in the book Advanced Marathoning by Pete Pfizinger and Scott Douglas.

What is your most important goal for 2021?

52 New Year’s resolutions

I am notorious to try to do too many things. I did a fairly successful 10-day good habit reset at the beginning of the pandemic which I described in a blogpost. (Check it out for some ideas). It worked to some extent, and some of the habits are very much in my mind every day, but actually complying with each and everyone on a daily level is a different story.

So I am playing with a new strategy. I am giving myself 52 weekly projects. I don’t have to decide which one I have to do beforehand, but I shall have 52 different ones to complete through the year. As the calendar of the year fills up with birding trips, marathon training, and holidays I need to stay flexible. For instance, I can’t do a 100-mile running week when I am guiding, similarly it is probably not a great week to not drink beer, as I totally enjoy a beer after a birding day.

Want to try this? Get a piece of paper and a pen and think of 52 things you would want to try out during this year. It could include books you want to read, skills you want to learn, projects that have been postponed, and habits you want to take on etc.

Next year 12 of the habits you have tried, – the ones that you felt gave you the most value, could become 30-day challenges. That is what I plan to do.

I don’t know if I could go vegan for life, stop drinking alcohol and get up at 5 AM every morning, but I sure can try one week, and perhaps a full month next year.

Here are some of my 52 bullets. I have included some links to books I have in my library, which include both books I have read as resources as well as some I have yet to read. The original list is in random order, and I get to choose week to week which commitment I want to take on. I will edit the list chronologically, as the year unfolds.

  1. Brush up Peruvian Bird Calls. Started this on Jan 1-3, but my upcoming trip was cancelled so I jumped to next item.
  2. ✅Udemy: Facebook Ads and Facebook Marketing. I bought a bunch of Udemy’s featured courses in 2019, but have still not even looked at them. Udemy has 90% sale right now, so a good time to buy courses. Below are the ones I bought. It is time to dust them off. ✅ Did the course Week 1 between Jan 4-10. About one third done and tested a few ads. Deadline for completion Jan 28.
  3. ✅ Fasting and ketogenic week – Tools of Titans Tim Ferriss. The complete guide to fasting and The Obsesity Code by Jason Fung. This was week two.
  4. ✅ Drink-no-alcohol-week. Not too difficult to stay away from booze for a while, but sometimes it is good to be mindful about it. When I drink, I have a tendency to drink one more than I originally intended, with consequences to sleep quality, bedtime, hydration, recovery, and productivity. Additionally, with the tight economy now with the lack of birding trips, there is also a financial reason not to drink.
  5. ✅ Get up at 5 AM every day for a week when not on a birding tour.   Read Miracle Morning and 5 AM Club and Morning Makeover. I have read them before. Early mornings is a constant goal for me that I have a hard time to fulfill. I am a night owl. I often go to bed between 1 and 3:30 AM. If I get up at 5 AM regardless, I will nap during the day to recover.
  6. ✅ “Show LOVE to my WIFE” week. Not that I don’t always do that, but it will be my main focus this week and I will be more mindful about it. Read: Rewire your Brain for Love, and the 5 Love Languages.
  7. ✅1 hour running per day – Almost there this week. But I want to make it a full week.
  8. ✅1000 birds project. Compile a list of the 1000 best birds of the world. A long-overdue project. With an immersion week, I may get going again. It is also a way to highlight my own bucket list of birds I want to see
  9. 7 Wonders Birding and Kolibri Expeditions websites improvement week. Check for typos, enter maps, and photos in the itineraries.
  10. Vegan week. Animal Liberation Peter Singer, No Meat Athlete Matt Frazier
  11. Avoid anti-inflammatory food week. (Gluten, casein, alcohol, trans fat, refined sugar, artificial food, and saturated fat). See this website. The problem with my hip is basically inflammation of the piriformis muscle.
  12. 2 times Seven per day. Seven is a great fitness app with several different HIIT workouts (High-Intensity Interval Training). And it only takes Seven minutes per workout
  13. 50 pushups per day week – I am horrible at pushups. I can only make 13-14 pushups in one go. Start with 5 sets of 10 per day.
  14. Run twice per day. Preparing for the big 100-mile week.
  15. 100 miles running week – that is about about 23km per day. Mostly done in two runs per day.
  16. Learn Everything about Lightroom. My photo editing skill and cataloging and tagging my photos leave much to desire.
  17. Learn everything about Photoshop. Really should learn this software once and for all. There are two tutorials for birders by Tropical Birding guide Andres Vazques on the School of Birding website.
  18. German. Need to brush up German before traveling to Berlin. Some German films, German Music and DuoLingo and Pimsleur this week
  19. Language cultural prep before Asian Bird Fair in November. Not clear where it will be yet – but it may be Myanmar.
  20. Chess immersion. A week of playing chess.
  21. French immersion week. Duolingo podcast, Stories and try to find some conversation online. Pimsleur while I am running
  22. Chinese immersion week. Hello Chinese, other courses, Pimsleur while running.
  23. Japanese immersion week
  24. Italian immersion week
  25. Portuguese immersion week
  26. Read James Joyce Ulysses. Three classic James Joyce in one set was found in my bookshelf. But what is more, the bookworms had eaten the complete set. I threw away the book. I got them on my iPad with the convenient and cheap Kindle version of James Joyce’s complete works, so will read them there. It will be a challenge to read all three in one week each, but I will concentrate on one for a week and then continue with it being a secondary book for weeks to come. I will not necessarily read them in this order.
  27. Read James Joyce Dubliners
  28. Read James Joyce A portrait of the artist as a young man
  29. 10 pull-ups per day. I suck at pullups. I can make 3 in a row – at the most at present. A goal is to be able to do 10 pull-ups in one go by the end of 2021.
  30. 30 min yoga per day for a week. So far I am just doing about 10 minutes per day, if that.
  31. Meditate for 30 min per day for a week. Again, just doing about 10 minutes of guided meditation. Read “Waking Up” by Sam Harris. This is the guided meditation I am presently using. It is a good app.
  32. Read “Antikens Historier” – A classic book on my bookshelf by Alf Henrikson – about principally Greek stories.
  33. Study Egyptology. I want to get my head around Egypt’s vast history before our 7 Wonders Birding trip there in 2022.
  34. Read Don Quijote de La Mancha in Spanish.
  35. Read The Battle that shook Europe: Poltava and the birth of the Russian Empire – Peter Englund. A book in Swedish in my bookshelf that I still have not read. I brought it with me from Sweden 25 years ago. About time.
  36. Read Among the believers. V. S. Naipul. Another book in my bookcase, I still have not read.
  37. Udemy: Instagram Marketing
  38. Udemy: Entire MBA
  39. Udemy: Google Ads
  40. Udemy: YouTube masterclass
  41. Udemy: How retargeting works
  42. Udemy: Modern Copywriting.
  43. Swedish with kids immersion. I need to get my kids to start speaking Swedish. They want to learn, but I often find myself too busy. So a dedicated Swedish week with the kids would be great. We have been using DuoLingo together.
  44. In bed at 10 pm every day. Read “Sleep Smarter“. It is related to the previous point as well as recovery for the marathon training. I need to get to bed earlier to recover. The most effective time in the night for restorative sleep is between 10 pm to 2 AM.
  45. Learn how to Swim better – go swimming every day. Bit of a challenge for me. I only know breaststroke. And I don’t enjoy swimming. Tim Ferriss describes how he learned swimming in The Four Hour Body.
  46. Read Start Finishing and Make your Bed.
  47. Prepare my Audiobooks library to my new phone, so they can be enjoyed while running.
  48. Read “Profit First” and “The One Thing“. Books on how to make a business more effective.
  49. Read  Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill and The Effective Executive by Peter Drucker. Two classics on Business and management that I have planned reading for a long time.
  50. Read “Poor Charlies Almanac” about Charles Munger and “Who Not How” on how to build teams.
  51. Duct tape marketing, Talk triggers, and Marketing Rebellion. Three books about new marketing ideas I picked up at the Social Media Marketing World in San Diego in 2019.
  52. Social Media Marketing World lectures online. I have a lot of online lectures from SMMW that I have not checked. I should spend a week doing that to get some ideas from these great people.

So, as I said, it does not have to be in order. I will start the first week with Peruvian Birdcalls, since I am leaving on Jan 3 on a birding trip in the North. The second week is Yoga week 30 min per day. Third week I’ll do two times 7even per day. Finally week four I will do a vegan week (while birding).

I shall update you once a week to let you know of my progress on each challenge.

What New Years resolutions are you making? Does this idea of 52 weeks of different immersion resonate with you?

by Gunnar Engblom   

Transferwise – works well in Peru now.

Transferring money, fund-raising, or payments for abroad has always been an expensive enterprise. As I have set up the Satipo road community hostel project on Kolibri Expeditions’s blog with different models of fundraising, it was quite annoying to see that as much as 10% of the funds would disappear in various types of fees and intermediary banks.

Friends have been raving about sending money with Transferwise, but until recently it did not work that well with Peru. That is not the case now, but first, let me go through the options for receiving funding to Peru.

Bank transfer

Our checking account for Kolibri Expeditions has always been in US$, as we have priced our trips in dollars, and the currency is easily converted in Peru. However, when clients send money via SWIFT transfer directly to our account there are quite large fees. First, there is a fee from your bank, and there is a fee by our bank. We tell the clients to cover both these fees. But there is also an intermediary bank that wants a cut, and it is very hard to tell how large this cut will be, and there is no way to prepay it, because nobody seems to know how much it will be. For instance, $890 was sent to us in November 2019, and only $812 arrived, and on top of that, there was a fee of the issuing bank. $78 dollars in fees!

What I have learned the last couple of days is that intermediary bank fees can be avoided by having an account in Peruvian Soles, then the intermediary fees are totally avoided.

When sending larger amounts of say $5000-10000 to pay for the complete tour for a party, then the intermediary fee is more manageable. We still have a lot of our payments that we have to do in US$ so we can’t skip the USD account completely.

For amounts less than $2000 dollars is where Transferwise works best.

Fundraising

For the Satipo road project, it is unlikely that any individual will donate larger amount, why different platforms such as GoFundMe, VAKI or even Paypal traditionally have been preferred by me in the past. However, before the money has reached Peru there are about 10% fees for VAKI and 7.5% for Paypal. GoFundMe that I used earlier does not work in Peru now.

Transferwise

Sending between $200-$1900 Transferwise is a new much less expensive way to send money to us. The fee is less than 5% and close to 3% with $1000, as in the example in the headline. The current rate here in Peru is 1USD=3.53 soles. For the time being, I only have a personal Soles account, but once the pandemic is over and business starts picking up, I will ad also a company checking account in Soles.

Use either of these accounts, sending Soles for an amount between $200-$1900. This is best used for deposits for your future trip with us, and helps us stay afloat during the pandemic. You can simply enter Transferwise and send in your own currency and it shall be transferred to Soles by my bank.

Use either of these two accounts in the name of
Lars Gunnar Engblom
Nationality: Swedish
Carnet de Extranjeria 00881166
Occupation: Biologist
Interbank account number 297-3082928396
Banco de Credito del Peru (BCP) account number 194-40354415-0-34

If you are going to deposit the equivalent of £200-£500, I have 3 invitation links to deposit for free, use that and I’d get an additional reward of £50 for recommending a service and to be used for the project. Sounds like a good deal.

Fundraising with Transferwise

For smaller between $3-$150 and more typical of a fund-raiser, I have created “borderless” accounts at Transferwise in USD, GBP, NZD, AUD, and EUR.
If you live in the US, UK, New Zealand, Australia, or in Europe (also outside the Euro Zone for Euro deposits), you can make small deposits to these accounts free of charge. I am listing the accounts below.
Add 3% to cover the charge for me to bring the money to Peru once each account reaches around the value of US$300. Since it is so easy to donate this way and in your own currency, I hope that you will tell invite your friends to consider a donation this way.

US Dollars

It works best if you live in the US and use an ACH transfer from your own checking account directly to the account below. Some countries like Canada can also make ACH transfers if they set up a Transferwise account themselves.

Euros

From any country within the Single Euro Payment Areas (SEPA) using the IBAN number, you can make a transfer in Euro free of charge from your own bank account.

UK Pounds – Sterling

Only from within the UK.

Australian Dollars AUD

From Australia use the following bank account.

New Zealand Dollars

From New Zealand use the following bank account to transfer NZD to my NZD account at Transferwise.

Much smaller amount or donations from Latin America

If you want to donate between US$1-US$3, then Paypal is the best (7.5% commissions/fees. The Vaki-platform may be best for South America, because they have various platforms for receiving money that work within Latin America. The base fee for Vaki is 6%, but they are added costs for depositing to the Vaki site like a 3% for credit card, as well as fees transferring to my bank. I will change the current US$ bank account, that I have associated with the account, to one in Peruvian Soles, so there will be smaller fees transferring any money to Peru.

by Gunnar Engblom   

Gunnar’s 10 day Lockdown challenge.

2020 so far

Let’s try to use this lockdown and make it into something good. In Peru we still have 10 more days of confinement including today Friday April 17 – and then we shall see. I doubt we’d come out of the lockdown completely so there is probably more time to make changes in our lives. Permenent changes become habits. Habits form over time – and time we seem to have a lot of now. More about this further down this post, but first a recap.

During the last four weeks, I have formed some good habits, but also some very bad ones.

Good habits.

  • Languages
    Among the good habits is that I have been practicing Swedish with my kids daily with Duolingo lessons. They love it. I have also been quite diligent with Duolingo myself studying Japanese and French principally, but also brushing up German, Italian and Portuguese. The Duolingo app is available for both iOS and Android, as well as for desktop.

    Duolingo has become much better the last year or so. I particularly like these:

    Stories – a new feature for comprehension – are very good. There is also a podcast for Spanish and French with some English narration in between. The French one is excellent.

    Leaderboards. One particular feature that stimulates me to do more Duolingo is the leaderboard feature. There is a weekly league where you compare your progress with 49 other who started more or or less at the same time as you. The 10 most dilligent user become promoted do a superior leage. It becomes quite addictive.
    On the desktop version of the Duolingo you can also check how you score compared with your friends on weekly, monthly and lifetime basis. I am BirdingPeru on Duolingo if you want to add me – and compete

    Timed quizzes – on desktop. It is a fast way to get more points on the leaderboards
  • Yoga – OK. I have not been doing this daily but at least quite frequently. I bought a cheap app for the iphone and do a short Sun Salute with graphic video instructions. I have also included a couple of specific yoga poses for runners in my routine from Lexie Williamson’s Yoga For Runners – available on Kindle.
  • Chess – I play chess on my phone. Not sure if this is a good or a bad habit. I have probably done a little bit too much lately, but it was cool to finally reach over 2000 in rating for the puzzles on the free Chess.com app. The mental challange of Chess is probably a good thing, though.

    When I play, I prefer the 3-5 day correspondance version. This way one can put it down for a full day to be productive in other areas. I am on Chess.com, Lichess and SocialChess as BirdingPeru if you want to play me. I have made most games on Social Chess, and there my rating is around 1550. If I’d be an active tournament player my ELO rating should be in that range. I can’t remember a lot of openings, but I am quite strong in the middle game. Anyone want to play me?
    Got inspired to do more chess as I was reading Bobby Fisher goes to war. Great book about how a chess game was a central feature of the cold war.
  • Quality time with wife.
    Both my wife and I love a good movie. We don’t have a television, so we usually go to the cinema. That is obviously not a thing right now so we are confined to online options.
    For the third time I am trying a Netflix subscription here in Peru and this time I am sticking with it. Before, there were very few movies and series that one could see in Peru that were of interest to us, but recently even Scandinavian series are available with Spanish subtitles.
    I also have a Amazon Prime subscription and some good movies and series are available here as well, but in general many things we want to watch in Peru are blocked on Amazon Prime. A good VPN such IVACY which has purpose VPN to stream Netflix of US, UK and Australia, and Amazon Prime US help to watch a larger selection of movies even if you are outside of these countries, but this of course does not give us Spanish subtitles. Otherwise, Amazon Prime is of course very convenient for free 2 day Amazon Shipping, plus many kindle titles to loan for free, plus a bunch of other perks – try a 30 day free trial.

    Here are some tips of great series and movies that we have watched lately. To compensate for the inactivity and time sink, we often watch while I walk or run on a treadmill and my wife does her stationary bike.
    (I should run, but it is difficult to read the subtitles when I run, and it becomes annoying for non-english/spanish movies. Anyway, I’ll be more diligent with my running. I did 20 min barefoot in the treadmill yesterday, while watching a movie).

    Series:
    Sorjonen – Borderland. Finnish Nordic Noir Crime. Two seasons. I have written about it earlier on this blog.
    Fallet (The Case) – A Swedish Nordic Noir spoof. I have a hard time for spoofs, but this is very smart.
    Kalifat – Califate – Very intense Swedish series of second generation teenagers being recruited by ISIS to do a terror attaque in Stockholm.

    Movies.
    Mi Obra Maestra. Argentina. The agent of a misunderstood contemporary artist pull off a great stunt to make some money. A Comedy.
    Flu – a good Korean movie about a virus outbreak. Perhaps a bit morbid to watch movies like this right not, but in the light of things one realizes that things could have been worse. On Amazon Prime.
    The Cell – Fundmentalist terror attack in Egypt and a revenge. This action movie does not have to envy Hollywood.
    The Insult. From Lebanon. Tension between a Christian Lebanese and a Palastine refugee. Excellent and awarded movie in many film festivals.

Bad habits

The bad habits forming the past four weeks are easy to pinpoint. I have not been able to run much since I am not allowed to go out. Only to the market which is about a mile or so.
Also, I didn’t dare to train to hard when the quarantine hit us almost five weeks ago, as it could potentially compromise my immune system. I had just bumped up my running to around 80 km/week for three weeks prior to the lockdown. I figured I had best to take it a bit easier. But not this easy. I am not working out. I should at least do 7 minutes of strength training and at least 20-30 minutes of running on the treadmill per day. It should not be that hard. This will be part of my challenge below.

However, I go to bed too late (often at 3-4 AM) and hence sleep until very late. I can’t run after 8 pm because the treadmill makes too much noice.

Additionally, I have drunk far too many beers and too much wine. And lots of snacks after midnight. I’ve gained two kilos in a month.
It is really time for a change. Join me in my challange for 10 days! What changes would you include in your challenge?

10 DAY CHANGE HABIT CHALLENGE

First let’s get some inspiration. There are three good books I have read that has helped forming my habits. You will find that many have similar recipies such as meditation, exercise, journaling, etc. Rather than following any single plan, try to work out what works for you. What one thing will you need to change to cause a casquade of good effects to form other good habits. For me it is to get up earlier and to cut booze. Both will result in going to bed earlier and get better quality sleep, which leads to better morning alertness and better productivity.

Even though I am a night-owl, I am certain that for me it is best to create good habits in the early morning. Get them over and done with, and when having won the morning, it is more likely to keep a good streak for the rest of the day.

Have you read any of these books?

So the one thing I will do that will make permanent changes for me is to get up at 5 AM for 10 days in row. Today, I got up at 8 AM, but note that bedtime was 3 AM, so it was a good start. I plan to go to bed earlier tonight.

Here are some tools I have that to make all this happen.

  1. Alarmy App (free) on my phone. I place this in the bath room well away from my bed. You can set some tasks to be completed. In my case it math. I have to calculate in my head 5 operations like (3×72)+28=
  2. Water, vitamins and minerals. Next to the phone is my toothbrush and a big jug of water. First I drink the water with 1g fizzy C-vitamin and a fizzy Magnesium supplement. It hidrates me and I avoid cramps at night having my daily Magnesium. I also take B12 as I mainly eat a vegetarian diet. Right afterwards I brush my teeth.
    After the first two steps it is hard not start to the day. I am awake!
  3. Exercise. All morning routines include some exercise. A very fast routine I like is called Seven app – it is a very effective 7 minute workout. This, I shall include in my 10 days and hopefully keep on doing.
    I later do the Yoga routine explained above. It usually takes 10 minutes. I do that on our terrace in the sun only in shorts to also get my daily dose of Vitamin D.
  4. Meditation. I had a subscription of the Headspace app on my phone. This is a good way to get started. I can meditate now without the app, so it is not something I need anymore. Although I do find that I tend to forget about meditation if I don’t include it in the morning. The first 10 lessons are free.
  5. Bullet proof coffee. I usually don’t have breakfast and often practice intermittent 14-16 hours fasting with carb back loading at the end of the day.
    But I also often drink bullet proof coffee. I prepare it with turmeric and coconut oil (which contains a high amount of MCT oils) in a blender, and sometimes I add cinnamon. It is good for your brain and keeps you in fat burning mode. Follow the links if you want to buy the original bullet proof coffee and brain octane MCT oils.
  6. Naps. I am a night owl, so it is likely I will sometimes go to bed too late. It is vital to get enough sleep. When sleep deprived I revitalize immensly by napping.
    One of the best Nap-apps is Pzizz (free). Put your ear buds on, and set it for a 20 min Nap. You hear a soothing voice of a male British gentleman. The phrases…. a deep and refreshing nap …. and luxuriate in that feeling…gets me very relaxed. It is amazing how well this works.
    With between 4-6 hours sleep and 1-2 naps of 20 minutes each, I can get very productive, not having to sleep my usual 8 hours.
  7. A great way to plan the day and get more focused is using the kanbanflow app – I use the desktop version. It is based on the pomodoro technique and the Japananes Kanban tables of project planning and task management. I found out about the The Pomodoro technique almost 10 years ago and it became vital for me with my quite noticable ADHD traits to be able focus on the important things and to get things done, as we were bombarded with information and constantly interupted checking emails, social media to whatsapp messages. Whenever, I get overwhelmed with too many things that needs to be done, systematically organizing them in the kanbanflow table and take them on – one by one – in short bursts, soon have me back on track.

Hold me accountable, please.

These are my 10 commitments to forming habits these 10 days. Not everything is new and I already do many of these, but I plan on being more consistant by checking each box daily.

  • Get up at 5 AM
  • Meditate everyday
  • Do a Seven work out – everyday
  • 20 minutes minimum of running every day. I have to get better at reading the subtitles of the Netflix movies running on the treadmill. A great way to combine leisure with exercise.
  • 10 minutes mininum of Yoga
  • Some additional running strength and flexibility
  • minimum 20 minutes of Swedish with the kids
  • Duolingo French and Japanese. I usually do languages in the evening.
  • Chinese on HelloChinese app – this app is similar to Duolingo, but better. It has a far better voice recognition than Duolingo.
  • No alcohol

The main thing for me is to get up early to get more things done. I get some healthy habits and I will be able to produce more, and stay more resilient with a strong immune system, should I later get COVID-19.

Realistically, even if protecting oneself as much as is possible with social distancing, sooner or later most people will get the virus. We just have to make every effort for that to be as late as possible, and to be as healthy as possible once we get hit. Now is the best time to get in shape both mentally and physically.

Look out for updates on this blog and on Facebook to see how I am coming along.

Your turn. What will you do the next 10 days? Stay Safe!

Disclaimer: The Amazon links give me a very small commission if you purchase. You don’t pay any extra by using these links. Please see this as a small way to support me during the lockdown, as I currently have no income from tours. I have personally read all books I am linking to and can vouch for the positive effect they have made on me. .

by Gunnar Engblom   

30 day blogging challenge had to stop

OK. There are not enough time in the day to write a blog every day when one is guiding. Noah Strycker could do it, but he is a professional author.

But I will come back to this challenge once the trip is over on Dec 1. So I will do the full month on December instead.

I am a bit disappointed that I lost a whole section I had written just before starting this trip yesterday. Some 500 words or so gone. Grrr.

by Gunnar Engblom   

Sorjonen – Finnish Netflix series.

My wife and I started watching the Finnish Nordic Noir series Sorjonen (also known as BorderTown) season 2 tonight. Let’s start with some confessions.

  1. We don’t have a television.
  2. We prefer to watch movies at the cinema. The whole family. We have seen most of the Marvel, Pixar and Disney movies in the cinema.
  3. But we do buy pirate DVD once in a while here in Lima for 1US$ each to watch on the computer. It is convenient, but not very legal.
    Now shoot me!
  4. We don’t have a Netflix account, because we get addicted. I am probably the person in the family which would suffer from addiction more than anyone, even though I am getting better at managing screen time lately.Furthermore, the series and films we want to follow, rarely have license in Peru. Hence, nothing Scandinavian or Irani on Netflix, that we love so much. I have subscribed twice for a trial month to Netflix only to find that I hate the selection available in Peru.
  5. I do have Amazon Prime (mostly for the free shipping), but we have not watched a single show yet. Again, I am afraid to get addicted.
  6. We downloaded some Scandivian crime series from ThePirateBay.org. So we have seen The Bridge, Wallander, Borgen and The Kiling (Forbrydelsen)…and of course the Millenium trilogy (the latter at the cinema!). These probably don’t need an introduction, but if you missed any of them…. GET THEM.  They are very good.Of course this is a copyright breach….and I plead guilty, but living in Peru, trying to consume Scandinavian culture is not easy.

Last night,  I was in murky waters even though I was not saving anything on my computer.  We used a service which provides series… I mean all series available from streaming services…. for free!

It can’t be legal…. but it is convenient… especially if you do not speak English, becuase all the series are either dubbed or subtitled into Spanish.

As I mentioned above, it was season 2 of Sorjonen which runs on Netflix. We had downloaded the first season some months ago, but when we wanted to start the second season we noticed there was hardly anything available for download.

The service is called Series24.  Be aware you have to click through some porn advertising before anything happens. Check on Netflix if it is available in your country.

The plot is somewhat similar to that of the Bridge in that the main character detective Kari Sorjonen, has mental disorder that makes him extremely sharp for details, but socially a bit akward. The plot is set in Lappeenranta, a border town close to Russia. Sorjonen – a workaholic – takes a position here to have more time for his family. Little did they know…..

by Gunnar Engblom   

Great day!

Day 2. Gunnar’s 30 days Writing Challenge.

Although, this day has been absolutely amazing, I still not sure what do write today that can bring value to you. But let’s step back a little to yesterday. Didn’t I complain about three major things yesterday. And today I am saying that I feeling great.
What caused this change?
Perhaps this is the take-away that could have some value for you. I made a plan yesterday how to get myself out of trouble, and stuck to it. That made a big change.

So if you want a recommendation what to do when things are not going the way you want, perhaps make a plan how a perfect day should look like – and then try to implement it next day. This is how panned out for me.

My girls: I got up early and at least got a little bit of time with girls before they went off to school. When they came home, they each made a Duolingo lesson of Swedish/English with me (there is no Swedish/Spanish – so they have to use two foreign languages simultenously) and we listen to a Mora Träsk video.

A few minutes ago, I saw them off to bed. Anahi said she was going to sleep like Pippi, with hear feet on her pillow, which gave us a chance to practice a few more words.

I ran: I can’t believe it! First I did my pain managing meditation with the Headspace app I subscribe to, foam rolling, yoga practice and the Chigong I learnt yesterday. Then I  walked 6k on my work treadmill work station, while completing some programs for clients. Later I did run 5 k without pain.

As for the business, still no new clients signing up today, but a private client for July-August wants to do 30 days of solo birding, and that should be ready by the end of the week. Also, I am organizing the details for a group from India wanting to do Costa Rica for a week in May.  Meanwhile, a non-birding program for a group of 10-16 people from Malaysia visiting 4 countries (Brazil, Argentina, Chile and Peru) is shaping up. I have sent it off to Lizbet for pricing and hope to send off the prospect by the end of the week.

So while no clients yet for December, it is cooking for 2020. More so, once I send out the much delayed newsletter I have been working on with the work title: The Birding Revolution. Ha, that should have gotten you intrigued!

I also made a post for our Facebook page in the same spirit that was already posted on my FB profile.

The best part with posting on a FB page, is that one can reach potential clients trough targeted advertising. But first one needs to try to get as much organic reach as possible during some 24-48 hours. So please, go ahead with comments, share and likes. Comments weigh more than shares, shares weigh more than likes, but all interaction is appreciated.

Finally, when I opened Twitter just now, my heart sank. The secondary school in Tensta, where I used to live, will stand empty and will not host the campus of  language and international studies as was planned. It is a scandal, how it was turned into a commercial project, when it used to be a well functioning public school. Damn politicians. Integration does not seem to be a priority.

My song which soon hits 300 000 views on YouTube reflects some of the problems but also the go-go spirit of the people here. Mind you, the song is 30 years old, but it was recorded two years ago. The problems were the same then, but it has escalated now. And the politicians are just sitting on their fat asses and doing nothing or when doing something making it worse. I am boiling!
Listen to my song. English subtitles can be activated.

Enough ranting. Have a good night and see you here tomorrow.

Gunnar Engblom is a Swedish birder who lives in Peru since 1998, where he operates birdwatching and nature tours for Kolibri Expeditions. He is also a dedicated 3:04 marathon runner (Nov 2016), soon to resume training for Lima Marathon in May 2020. Currently, injured but working on rehab.  In 2016, Gunnar additionally re-launched his rock’n’roll singer career with his band Guran Guran, and in 2018 they released a new single and another one in 2019.

by Gunnar Engblom   

30 day writing challenge

A new beginning.

I have slid away from blogging lately. It is very time consuming and hardly anyone read blogs anymore. Having said that, listening to podcasts with people I admire such as Tim Ferriss, Chris Brogan and Seth Godin, they all do a daily writing session and the two latter by blogging. So I have decided to give this ago by doing a personal challenge of writing for 30 days in a row. Not sure all will result in blog posts but I shall write some way or another.

Day 1.

Right now I am suffering in too many ways.  Here is the list of what it wrong in my life at present.

  • I can’t run. My body aches after too much driving in Brazil, and too much sitting, without any running. On top of that my, carrying a too heavy camera on the same shoulder all the time, both in Brazil as well as the Big Month section between Jaen and Tumbes at the end of October got my neck and shoulder tight.
  • I am spending too little time with my two daughters and feeling more and more guilt that I have not been able to teach them Swedish.
  • There are too few bookings the coming months and this affects the economy of both the company and myself.

The blogging may become somewhat therapeutic, so here are some ideas I have for reducing the suffering.

1. How to deal with the body ache and lack of training.

I have started several things that should get me back in shape to start running again.
First I am doing Yoga every day. Just a relatively short Sun Salute repeated twice. I have a Yoga app on my phone.
Today I also found recommended a good Qigong exercise to do on the Sub 3h Marathon group on Facebook.

I am also subscribing to Headspace meditation program and have start a pain management meditation cycle. On Day 7 already in the program.

Today I did two short runs taking it very easy and walking some shorter stretches 2x 1.5 km.

I have also added a short strength routine for strengthening the hip. I do some squats, clams, leg lifts and bridges.

Too keep track of all, I use Google calendar app, where you can schedule repetitive tasks to create new habits.

2. More time with my daughters.

My wife and I came back from Colombia last night, and today I only saw my daughters very briefly, but I plan to get up early to spend time with them before they go to school – and give them an hour or so in the afternoon.
Tomorrow, I will get up at 5 AM and work more efficiently in the morning and get my morning routine sorted. If this means too much lack of sleep I shall do two-three 20 min naps during the day. A guided nap app is Pzizz. Absolutely fantastic for napping.

3.  More Kolibri Expeditions/7 Wonders Birding sales to improve the company finances

We need to improve sales. There are too many up and downs. For December there are no Peru bookings at all. The programs we have scheduled around Christmas and or New Year have not sold.  What is so special with Christmas anyway. I would just want to go away and flee from all that shopping craziness. If anyone reading this agrees here are the trips you can sign up for. I’ll give a 10% discount as a reader of this blog.

Dec 22-31 North Peru getaway (10 days) featuring White-winged Guan and Marvelous Spatuletail 
If that is too long and you hate the idea of being away for Christmas Eve, here is the alternative shorter tour.
Dec 26-30. Short North Peru tour starting in Jaen. Arrive in the afternoon of the 25th or early morning of the 26th.
Dec 31-Jan 3. Scarlet-banded Barbet and Cordillera Azul Antbird.
Jan 3-8. Iquitos – White sand forest and canopy walkway.  This trip does have two  confirmed bookings, and may just fill up with two more interested.

The other thing that could get more attention is our intent to use word of mouth to spread the word of the concept of running our most popular 5 day trips weekly. You shall certainly hear more about this. Meanwhile, just check out my Facebook post from the other day…

It reads….

BIRDING PERU – ANYTIME!

Here is the idea: We offer our most popular birding destinations in Peru all year around. Three short tours of five days which run every Monday to Friday. You can sign up anytime to the most iconic Peruvian Bird Species (Marvelous Spatuletail, Condor, Cock of the Rock, Inca Tern, etc), the BEST Biodiversity Hotspots (Manu road, Abra Malaga and Abra Patricia) and Classic Peru Bucket list items (Machu Picchu, Ceviche, Pisco Sour and if you wish Guinea-Pig).

The Birding Peru – Anytime programs are perfect for:
* Anyone having limited amount of time and money.
* For non birding spouses and friends. Perfect length. Short trips both serve as introduction to birding and are not overwhelming, even if it is birdwatching most of the time.
* For Bird Photographers.
* For serious birders doing all three trips for maximum diversity in two-three weeks.

Here are the three tours:

Check the calendar in Kolibri Expeditions website to learn more or message me on Whatsapp +51988555938 for more info.

Photo by Richard Pasquarella on Unsplash

Gunnar Engblom is a Swedish birder who lives in Peru since 1998, where he operates birdwatching and nature tours for Kolibri Expeditions. He is also a dedicated 3:04 marathon runner (Nov 2016), soon to resume training for Lima Marathon in May 2020. Currently, injured but working on rehab.  In 2016, Gunnar additionally re-launched his rock’n’roll singer career with his band Guran Guran, and in 2018 they released a new single and another one in 2019.

by Gunnar Engblom   

Birding kit. Essentials for a full month birding in Peru.

Noah Strycker's gear for his Big Year. Photo: Noah Strycker

On October 1 at midnight, I shall start Kolibri Expeditions’ Big Month after 4 days of scouting and birding in Puerto Maldonado. The goal is to get 1100 species before the end of Oct 31. This is the longest I will have spent birding ever in one go since I started birding I think.
No! I never did a big year, and even on my big long birding trips, there have always been one or two easier days with recovery.

Peru Big Month and The Fabulous Four of Birding.

There are a few clients who have signed up for parts of the adventure and three top birders who I have invited to join me during parts of the 31 days in the field. They are Trevor Hardaker from Cape Town, South Africa, Noah Strycker from Oregon, US and Diego Calderon from Medellin, Colombia.  If you want to join any of the sections you should sign up immediately. I also, (still) offer one slot for the full monty, 35 days of birding for only $7500. Ordinary, price is $8800. We start next week!

This will be a marathon of birding for me and the pace will be brutal.  We do aim to see as many of the species as possible, even if hearing the birds would suffice to count them as part of the record.  Those joining me have to come to see! Just hearing would not be satisfactory enough. We all need to finetune both our skills and our equipment for this trip.

I have just arrived to the US for the American Birding Expo and as usual I am ordering stuff I need from Amazon. So I thought you’d be interested to learn what I am ordering to make this trip a success and what gadgets we are bringing. There is more to birding than just the binoculars.

Shop til You Drop

First of all I am in need of a new backpack that can be brought as personal item on flights. It is important that it can fit under the seat. I opted for this cheap lightweight 35 liter backpack from Gonex. Additionally, I will also need a new cabin bag. My old one has a broken handle and is very uncomfortable to carry. I am ordering this convenient soft cabin bag which will be my main hand luggage. Look how much space I have now with no need to stand in line around the carousel waiting for my bags to arrive. Everything, shall be taken inside the cabin. I travel like a pro.

I have for quite long now not been recording bird calls when I am guiding, but for the Big Month, I do need some sort of documentation, and I think getting a nice light weight small pocket recorder would be advisable. This Zoom H4N Pro for just over $200 has been recommended as the internal microphones are quite good per se, which means I don’t have to deal with an external mic when we need speed for the big day.  I can get a good microphone at a later stage.  I used to have the ME-66 Sennheiser with the K6 battery module and windscreen. This is a great directional microphone and very popular among birder recordists, but it does set you back almost $500. Also, need fast SD-cards. I prefer 32GB, not larger, so I don’t have to clear space in my Mac in order to transfer to a disk.

Light and Cameras

Of course, one also needs a good torch. I have one already that I am quite pleased with, but Diego recommends this amazing owling torch from Olight. Diego also used the Phone Skope adapter for his telescope. I shall be playing with my Canon and the new 100-400mm lens I bought which should be back from service when we start the trip. It is an absolutely amazing lens. Trevor, the true photographer of the lot of course carry his bazooka – a Canon 500mm F4 (only $8999 🙁 )

My camera is the birder standard Canon 5D Mark IV. It is a fantastic portable combo for any birder with 100-400 lens.

I also use a powerful point and shoot camera the Nikon Coolpix P900 with 83x digital tele equivalent to 24mm-2000mm. It has served me well when my DLSR camera is being serviced, and it has a very stable video function. I saw it was on sale on Amazon for only $475! But perhaps this is because a new Nikon monster just came out with 125x magnification. It is equivalent to a 24-3000mm zoom lens! Check out the Nikon P1000 here.

Blend in with the tribe and sleep management.

Clothing is another matter. I have been wearing jeans in the field for as long as I remember. I have never been a member of the kaki-club and probably broken every single dress code there is for birders. (Unreal birders wear Blue Jeans – to paraphrase a famous book.)
This time however travelling lightweight, it is essential to have items that dry quickly, so I am getting more appropriate clothes for myself. There are some good offers on Amazon. I am getting a pair of baggy trousers and a pair of stylish pants that also convert in to shorts.  And I found a matching fast drying outdoor shirt as well.

One of the most important things for this long trip is to fight sleep deprivation. Micro-napping will be essential. Therefore, I have gone to length to find the best portable neck pillow. The Cabeau pillow is recommended by Tim Ferriss. I am looking forward to try it out on the plane back from the US.

Vitamins and Supplements.

As a vegetarian, I have ordered a lot of supplements for those days in remote areas when eating enough greens and nuts simply is not an option. Some of the below are for my vegan wife, though.

Identification and keeping track.

Finally, of course I should of course mention the only book you need. Birds of Peru by Schulenberg et al. Note that it is also available as an app if you prefer this, with all the calls from Peter Boesman’s CD. You should be aware that there are a number of important calls missing and that the xeno-canto library now contains a number of additions.  A smart move is to download the Aves Vox Pro app to your smartphone. From this, you can download selected bird calls to your phone. The paid version is best,  as it allows you to make lists. Another great app that every world birder should get a subscription to is BirdsEye. I will be doing checklist for every location I am to visit and save those on my phone. The checklist will come
I am having problems with the ebird app currently. It may be my iPhone that is giving me the problems, but in any case I shall be doing my Big Month on iGoTerra. They have a fantastic system to generate fast trip reports. Also, a great plus is that it keeps track of mammals and herps as well.

With iGoTerra you can:
– Select Clements or IOC
– Record observations on subspecific level
– Use iGoTerra Pocket for recording observations in the field, and then synch when internet connected.
– The Observation Diary (with lifers=Month-ticks, maps, photos, etc) can be shared on Facebook each evening
– Your life list will be visible continuously
– You can also record mammals etc.
– You can create your remaining target list
– Only one list needs to be run during a birding outing. This list can be shared to everyone’s own iGoTerra accounts and be uplodaed to other systems like eBird.

Noah’s Birding Gadget Favorites.

1. Leica 10×42 Noctivid binocs
2. REI Vagabond 40-liter backpack
3. Mountain Hardwear down jacket
4. Birds of Peru field guide
5. SureFire Fury LED flashlight
and I always carry a pen and a good plastic spoon 😉, says Noah.
Noah gives a good rundown on his gear in his Big Year equipment blog post, from which the featured image of this post is taken.

Diego’s Birding Gadget Favorites.

1. Phoneskope digiscoping adapter
2.  JBL clip2 speaker.
3. A decent light for owling. Olight M2X-UT Javelot 1020 Lumens.
4. Swaro bins.

Trevor’s Birding Gadget favorites

Trevor writes: I have always used Leica 10 x 42 bins and it will be no different on this trip! I will be bringing a Canon 500mm F4 lens with me for bird photography and possibly a 100-400mm lens as a backup and a 100mm macro lens for any of the smaller stuff we may find. I currently use a rechargeable LED Lenser torch which I am very happy with.

Disclaimer: 

This project will not generate income rather the contrary. Too few people have signed up so far. But it is Kolibri Expeditions 20th anniversary this year, and therefore I am determined to go through with it, despite raised eyebrows from the family and co-workers. The Amazon-links are affiliate links, so if you purchase something from these links, you will be making a supporting our endeavour.

What is more important is that the project will also highlight many of the most important areas in need of conservation. Putting them on the map with continuous blog posts and social media reports will hopefully inspire more people to come to Peru to watch birds. After the hard core birders, follow the more mainstream birdwatchers and bird photographers, and soon the areas will attract other people interested in nature and to experience biodiversity first hand.  All this is essential for conserving the most endemic rich areas and will bring incentives to invest in birding resources such as lodging, reserves, hides, and feeding stations.

Daily blogs of our progress will be updated on www.KolibriExpeditions.com/blog.

Gunnar Engblom is a Swedish birder who lives in Peru since 1998, where he operates birdwatching and nature tours for Kolibri Expeditions. He is also a dedicated 3:04 marathon runner, soon to resume training for Tokyo Marathon in March 2019. Currently, injured.  In 2016, Gunnar additionally re-launched his rock’n’roll singer career with his band Guran Guran, and in 2018 they released a new single.

by Gunnar Engblom   

Zlatan conquers America!

World class Soccer comes to the US.

The book I am reading right now, Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs by Chuck Klosterman, strikes me as Vonnegut-witty in many ways. Chuck Klosterman does not believe Soccer will ever be great in the US. Listen!

….people continue to tell me that soccer will soon become part of the fabric of this country, and that soccer will eventually be as popular as football, basketball, karate, pinball, smoking, glue sniffing, menstruation, animal cruelty, photocopying, and everything else that fuels the eroticized, hyperkinetic zeitgeist of Americana….

….The truth is that most children don’t love soccer; they simply hate the alternatives more. For 60 percent of the adolescents in any fourth-grade classroom, sports are a humiliation waiting to happen. These are the kids who play baseball and strike out four times a game. These are the kids who are afraid to get fouled in basketball, because it only means they’re now required to shoot two free throws, which equates to two air balls. Basketball games actually stop to recognize their failure. And football is nothing more than an ironical death sentence; somehow, outcasts find themselves in a situation where the people normally penalized for teasing them are suddenly urged to annihilate them. This is why soccer seems like such a respite from all that mortification; it’s the one aerobic activity where nothingness is expected…..

….A normal eleven-year-old can play an entire season without placing toe to sphere and nobody would even notice, assuming he or she does a proper job of running about and avoiding major collisions. Soccer feels “fun” because it’s not terrifying—it’s the only sport where you can’t fuck up….

Zlatan magic LA Galaxy

Yet, the last two weeks my head have spun around soccer, following both Peru and Sweden’s training games, where Peru won against both Croatia (2-0) and Iceland (3-1) and Sweden lost (1-2) against Chile and (0-1) Romania.  Sweden is strangely playing without 37 year old superstar Zlatan Ibrahimovic, after he retired from the national team two years ago and now just started a new career in Los Angeles Galaxy in the US.
You can hardly have missed Zlatan’s début even if you are only vaguely interested in soccer. Zlatan came from the bench a bit jetlagged with only 20 minutes left of the game and made the last two goals as LA Galaxy turned around the 0-3 game against Los Angeles FC, winning with 4-3. The equalizer was incredible.

It seems he may just be the kind of injection that proofs Mr Klosterman wrong.

Now everyone in Sweden is talking whether Zlatan will be playing World Cup for the national team or not. I am getting a bit obsessed as well checking Zlatan news almost daily.  He will certainly be needed if Sweden shall have a chance against Germany and Mexico in the World Cup.

Today, Zlatan commented about Cristian Ronaldo’s amazing bicycle against Juventus in Champion’s Leage. First see Ronaldo’s goal.

Then listen to cocky Zlatan.

and have a look at the 40 meter bicycle he is referring to.

It shall be interesting to follow Zlatan conquering the US – and fingers crossed that he will be playing the World Cup.

The Swedish coach Janne Andersson will present the World Cup squad on May 15.  The coming games in the MLS will be decisive I think.

My heart also pounds for Peru of course, who has had a fantastic streak of 8 games now without loss and are ranked 11th in the world. They have qualified to the World Cup for the first time since 1982.

Just found out that the last preparatory friendly before the World Cup for Peru and Sweden is actually against each other on June 9 in Gothenburg, hopefully with Zlatan.

Both my Peruvian daughters, 8 and 11, have said they will route for Sweden.

Speaking about books, a few years ago, I read Zlatan’s biography – I am Zlatan. Very entertaining and highly recommended.

 

by Gunnar Engblom   

The Big Five for Health. Gunnar’s Midweek Bullets

Coffee. Michael DernbachAs promised last week, this delivery is shorter. It is still a bit of an experiment, so please have patience. Have a coffee. I am mixing cats and dogs, apples and oranges.  I am sure you don’t share all of my interests, but on the other hand, if you get this in your mailbox or read it on the blog, at least you share some. Since it is concise, you can either explore further or just skip the bits of no interest to you.  Just as last weeks I am covering my main topics: Birding, Upcoming tours, Health, Podcasts I’ve listened to, Running and Guran Guran (my band).
Ready? Here we go!

Birding

  • I am extending the special offer 15% discount for March-May until Monday March 26 at midnight (Peruvian time). You best hurry if you don’t want to lose out on this. Check out this blogpost with the details.
    Just as I am writing this, I have a couple interested in a 5 day Manu road and Machu Picchu between April 1-7… spring break. Any other teachers out there who want to join?
    Also, one person just signed up for Carpish/Unchog April 12-16.
  • I liked this article by Kenn Kaufman. I Became a Better Birder When I Stopped Focusing on the Males. Even dull birds are interesting.
  • My book review of Noah Strycker’s Birding Without Borders was just published.

Upcoming tours

Here are upcoming and confirmed trips from Mid-July until September, some that still have a few vacancies which you can sign up to for best price. The trips in April to June you find in my last week’s Midweek Bullets.

Big Month October. 
October will be the month of celebration for Kolibri Expeditions in Peru. You may join us to try to set a raise the bar for greatest number of species recorded in a single country. Hopefully over 1100 species. You can join the full month for $6500 or sign up for parts.
More about the details and the exact program in my Midweek Bullets next week.

Brazil in October – Want to see a jaguar?
We are setting up another jaguar and birding safari in Pantanal first week of October. If you are dreaming about cats and wildlife, plus spectacular birds, you could join us on this epic trips. It will last one week for best price and still ample of time. One can combine with a week of birding and bird photography from Sao Paulo afterwards.
Details follow the next week. Stay tuned.

Best videos I have seen the last week.

  • Leather made from mushrooms. The future is near. Vegan leather.
  • Absolutely hilarious Chinese promotional video for their indestructible phone

Best podcasts this week.

  • Fascinating life story from Airbnb founder Joe Gebbia on the Tim Ferriss Show. Part 1. Some stories Joe are telling! Also lots of Life Lessons to learn here. To see opportunity. To work hard to meet a goal. To find a solution to something which seems impossible.  The word tenacity comes to mind. Don’t give up. Don’t get discouraged by rejection.
    I listened to the podcast while running. Many of the latest interviews comes with video like this one below. This is a fantastic interview. Don’t miss it. Download the podcast and listen to it while on the run or doing chores.

Health

  • Fasting. Last week I made a big deal about this. Here is a fun article (or should I say rant?) by Jason Fung – the fasting Guru I talked about in the last GMB. What’s the difference in power between fasting and LowCarb High Fat (LCHF)? Obviously, fasting is so much better.
  • Coffee is VERY GOOD for you. The more the better. I was reminded opening a short read Coffee Fights Disease and Extends Your Life the other day. I have heard it before. One of the most compelling was the interview Ben Greenfield did with Dr Sanjiv Chopra. This was the first time I heard of that coffee actually was that good for you, and that I should have not remorse for loving it.  In the interview Dr Chopra summarizes his book The Big Five Five Simple Things You Can Do to Live a Longer, Healthier Life. Yes, it is spiritual wellness guru Deepak Chopra‘s brother. The journey of the two brothers ending up in USA from India, and their successes is wonderfully described in their book Brotherhood. Get the Audible version, because the it is great to hear them read the chapters themselves. Try Audible and Get Two Free Audiobooks.
    Me re-listening to the interview above, I thought I’d mention the other four of the Big Five I implement (most) every day.
  • Meditation. I have listened to a bunch of highly effective people on various podcasts, reading books about creating good morning routines as well as books on fitness, health and entrepreneurship, etc, etc, ….and 90% of them mention meditation as the magic bullet for success. Since a year or so, I have tried to practice it with a short session in the morning. I am not great at it, but it has been helped to get a free introduction via the app Headspace and then sign up for a subscription (for a while).
  • Nuts. Eat nuts every day. Do it mindfully. One by one. Walnuts have lots of Omega 3, Brazil nuts contain Selenium which may protect against prostate cancer, pecan nuts have beta-sitosterol which helps against benign enlarged prostate and peanuts (not really a nut, but anyway) are good for the brain.  When joining Amazon Prime’s 30-Day Free Trial you can get a large choice of good quality nuts with free shipping. Check for the Prime logo.
  • Sunshine – D-vitamin. You are about to go out and it is a sunny day. Before you go out, you smear yourself with sunblock factor 50 or more. Wrong! Chances are you are not getting the D-vitamin you need.  There are many people who are D-vitamin deficient with serious health problems, and although you can of course take a supplement, the easiest way to get enough D-vitamin is to get exposed to sun. Get the sunblock on after 20 min or so depending on your latitude and time of day, if you will remain in the sun, so you don’t burn. The key is to expose yourself just a little bit. The risk of skin cancer is with prolonged exposure and burning. I have the last year often running without my shirt on, or I have done some morning exercise in the sun in our apartment open air patio.
  • Exercise. No problem there for me, as I am a runner. Maybe even too much of the good thing. Marathon running is perhaps a bit extreme. But don’t underestimate walking. Get yourself a treadmill, and with a piece of wood and some thick books to adjust the height of your laptop and voilà! You have a walking treadmill workstation. You get loads of aerobic training without leaving the office.  Here is my set-up.
    If you want something more fancy, you can buy this awesome workstation off Amazon.

    As for me, I shall probably soon instead get a smart-TV to connect to the laptop, and put inside bookshelf in front of me. This way, I’ll keep my head looking forward instead of down on the screen, which will be better for posture.

Productivity

I found a few easy applicable tips just flipping through Flipboard. Best tip is usually, not to do too much Flipboard, because you get sucked in. On the other hand you may learn something. Just set a time limit, if you do find yourself flipping.
Here is how to be more productive. This is old stuff really, but worth repeating.

My Running

I am still not running as much as I would like, since I needed to catch up with a backlog of Kolibri Expeditions stuff including quotes, new programs, marketing and planning after almost 5 months of way too many days away from the office.

I am still getting some extra aerobic training while working, by using the treadmill above walking for 3-4 hours per day, apart from shorter runs around 10k. Skipped a run day yesterday, but just ran 16k today, so hopefully the long walks will make up some for lack of running. I shall make a test next week to see what my what speed I can maintain at a low HR of 135.  I think I have not too much in fitness, by maintaining all this walking. I am considering doing the NatGeo 10K race on April 22, just to check if I am losing a lot of speed by doing all this slow aerobic training. It will be about time to start with faster workouts around then anyway.

Guran Guran

That’s my band. In 2016-2017 we got together again after a hiatus of 25 years. Last year we released a brand new album. Since a month  ago, you find the songs on Spotify, Apple Music, Google Play and other digital media platforms.

Although, my songs are 20-30 years old, but just released, it seems in many ways they are still very current.
Check these two YouTube videos. They are in Swedish of course, but you can activate the English captions to get what they are all about.

The first one and title song to the album is about refugees fleeing wars and conflict, to be met by xenophobia and threat of rejection of their asylum status. The song was written during the Balkan refugee crises.

The second song in 30 years old from when I lived in the immigrant dense Stockholm suburbia Tensta (1985-1998). Rinkeby is just next door. Both have got bad rap in the press very recently including a 60 Minute crew attacked as they tried to film there. We filmed without any problems of course and the result is this video which has gotten over 215 000 views in less than a year.

More videos will be uploaded with English lyrics shortly. I would very much appreciate if you subscribe to our channel.
Oh, and there is a song about birding too. You may have heard it. This one is in English. BIRDPARTY.

I will be going to Stockholm in June and get the band together again to do some more recordings and one gig. Furthermore, in August we shall also do some gigs in Sweden.

It is a wrap up, folks… Not quite as long as last week… but still a bit long. OK. Next week under 2000 words, promise.
Let me know what you liked and what you did not like about this post.

Gunnar Engblom is a Swedish birder who lives in Peru since 1998, where he operates birdwatching and nature tours for Kolibri Expeditions. He is also a dedicated 3:04 marathon runner, right now training for Gold Coast Marathon, Australia in July 2018. In 2016, Gunnar additionally re-launched his rock’n’roll singer career with his band Guran Guran.

by Gunnar Engblom   

No More Lima Pelagics – No more! Gunnar’s Midweek Bullets.

New newsletter – Midweek.

White-chinned Petrel on first Paracas Pelagic 11 Mar, 2018. Photo Gunnar EntblomI am a fan of Tim Ferriss Podcast and his books (get 4 hour work week, 4 hour body, The 4-Hour Chef, Tools of Titans and Tribe of Mentors) and Tim does a weekly 5-bullet email that reaches over 2 million people.  I am adopting this idea in my new newsletter/blog Gunnar’s Midweek Bullets, in my personal way, updating you on birding, birding tours, bird photography, running, health, food, podcasts, blogposts, books, music etc that I come across. If you share any of my interests….and I know you do…I am sure you shall like this. If you want to sign up to this newsletter, please visit my birding blog where there is a subscribe field in the upper right corner.

There will also be some more personal bullets related to my three hobbies.

  • Kolibri Expeditions. My birding and bird photography tour company. My hobby turned into a business. I blog here in English
  • Marathon training. Trying to defy age (now at 57) on a quest to beat my 21 year old me breaking 3h on the marathon
  • Guran Guran. Yes, I put my band together again after 25 years. You will get news here in English, in case you missed the Guran Guran Facebook group postings and any blog post. But yes, that is all in the internationally absolutely essential language to learn – Swedish. Ah, well. There is always Google translate of course, and the videos on our YouTube channel (more coming soon) are always with English subtitles which can be activated in settings. Rock’n’Roll!

Normally, these GMB posts shall be very short. Today, however, since I have not posted for some while, it will be a bit longer. Many tidbits to tell you about below.

Ready? Here we go!

STOP THE PRESS: NO MORE LIMA PELAGICS.

After 18 years of running pelagics from Lima, it is now a fact that there are no boats that pass the rigorous Callao Port Authority and Municipality safety rules for venturing beyond Palomino Islets.
Therefor, we are moving our pelagic operation to Paracas 230 km south of Lima, where there are several operators of fast speed boat. Still not easy to get a partnership going.  Luckily, I have found a partner in one of the oldest operators of boat trips to Islas Ballestas. I know the owner since 1990 when I first went on a trip to the islands. So we managed to do a pelagic from here, which was very promising on March 11. The photo of the White-chinned Petrel is from then.

So, our scheduled pelagics from Lima will in the future be transferred to Paracas instead. Start will be at 5 AM. This means that you need to take a bus to Paracas (last bus leaves at 2pm and takes 3 h 30 min) and stay overnight or get your own transport, in case you are only interested in the pelagic. We are also supplying, either a transport for our clients who are doing more tours  with us or doing a two day tour which provides stops at birding sites on the way and a visit on the Paracas peninsula for better chance of Peruvian Seaside Cinclodes, Blackish Oystercatcher, Peruvian Tern and South American Fur Seal. In the coming week the Pelagic web page shall be updated to reflect the new situation.

Other Birding News

  • Legendary Jon Hornbuckle died on Feb 19. He survived an accident last year, but lost his memory. Although I don’t know the details, undoubtedly it is the accident that caused his early departure. Jon had the longest birdlist of all with 9600 species seen. Many of us have enjoyed his company in the field and used his very detailed and excellent bird reports. RIP Johnny H.My song Birdparty is not about Jon in particular. We are many birders like that, including myself at times. Regardless, I will always think of Jon Hornbuckle when I sing “My friend Johnny is a birding legend”.
  • Just learned today from James Adams Facebook post, that Pico Bonito Lodge in Honduras is closing down, although it is not yet apparent on the website. The old owner died last year, and the remaining owners have no interest. For sale for 4M$, if you feel like owning a prime ecolodge. Who knows, maybe there’ll be a GoFundMe campaign or something, so the workers can run the lodge together.
  • Talking about lodges, I just had a family holiday in Costa Rica and visited Rancho Naturalista and Tapirus Lodge. Both excellent! I am preparing a new 5 day tour with both these places and which includes also La Selva. It will likely run second week of January, 2019.
    While at Rancho Naturalista, I met with Swedish world birder C-G Cederlund for the first time. C-G has a list of 9450 plus species and got three lifers in a day at Rancho Naturalista. I saw the same birds of course. Snowcap, Chiriqui Quail-Dove and Black-throated Wren. Awesome!
    Chiriqui Quail-Dove coming to feeder at Rancho Naturalista. Gunnar EngblomSnowcap. Rancho Naturalista. Gunnar Engblom.Tapirus Lodge has an amazing resource with a cable car that slowly moves through the canopy. Although my time was too brief, this strategy should help to spot Bare-throated Umbrellabird and many canopy flocks. If anything interesting appears, the cable car may stop at the spot for a more prolonged view. We ran into C-G again here, with his guide Forrest Rowland.  Forrest told us about a massive ant swarm attracting Ocellated Antbird on a nearby trail. We got brilliant views.

Upcoming birding tours.

Tired of snow? Hey, we are free for Easter. Interested in hitting Peru then? Either book any tour you want with an expert birding guide, and we try to pair you with others interested or perhaps rent our van and excellent driver for a week or more. Other confirmed immediate tours that have space follows below. Check out:

  • March 25- April 1. Triunfo, Chiapas with Horned Guan. Check our South Mexico trip report from last year.
  • April 22-April 27. Lowland SE Peru rainforest at Los Amigos. Amazing birding. People often ask me, which rain forest lodge I prefer. Amigos is without doubt the one. It has all micro-habitats including bamboo, terra firme, varzea, palmswamps, cochas, heliconia thickets, you name it. And target species such as Black-faced Cotinga, Rufous-fronted Antthrush, Emperor Tamarin and Anaconda. Guide: Gunnar Engblom
  • No bookings for May? Let’s do something about that. Where do you want to go? We are all ears.  Booking and paying deposit before March 23 we offer a 15% discount on any trip, which makes it affordable even if it is only you or together with a partner. Send me an email to kolibriexp@gmail.com.
  • June 11-15.  Short Manu road birding and photography trip. Can be combined with Machu Picchu before.
  • July 12-13. New Paracas Pelagic program. Confirmed, but still need to be uploaded to the website. Guide: Gunnar Engblom
  • July 13. Paracas Pelagic.
  • July 14-17. White-masked Antbird twitch  at San Lorenzo with Black-necked Red-Cotinga and Black Bushbird. Guide: Gunnar Engblom
  • July 17-21. Scarlet-banded Barbet and newly described Cordillera Azul Antbird. Guide: Gunnar Engblom
  • For later trips or anything in between, check the calendar and the Kolibri Expeditions Website regularly or shoot me an email at kolibriexp@gmail.com.

Bird Photography

  • A new book is a “must have” for all of you who use point and shoot bridge cameras with a mega-zoom lens. Stephen Ingraham just released his Point and Shoot Nature Photography. Available from Amazon both as Kindle, to be downloaded to your smartphone or tablet, and paperback. Dead cheap. You’d be silly not to buy it.
  • I just got my own digital SLR gear recently with the best current set-up for a birder who wants to go beyond point and shoot, but still not carry too much weight.  This is what I use.
    Canon 7d Mark II house very fast and with 1.6x crop factor.
    Canon 100-400mm 4.0-5/6 IS II great all round lense for birds with very fast autofocus.
    Canon 1.4x converter II. Helps when birds are small or further away.A great set-up.I used this set-up recently this year on my birding trips to North Peru, Japan and Costa Rica. Here is Blakiston’s FIsh-owl from Hokkaido, Japan. I will link to some more photos in my next post.

Health

  • Fasting. With a lot of traveling lately my eating habits have not been that great, but I got very well motivated after recommended to listen to Dr Jason Fung, who recommends fasting as a way to weight loss, boosting the immune system, get into ketosis for mental clearness and use fat as fuel when running long distances.This interview of Dr Fung by Ben Greenfield (also as podcast) was game-changing for me (skip promo until 5:10 to get to the interview). I have previously had a semi-fasting intermittent fasting protocol as I have started my days with Bullet Proof Coffee (coffee, 1-2 tbsp of Coconut Oil, Turmeric and Cinnamon – and sometimes cream or butter), had lunch restricting carbs, and then ate the majority of my carbs later in the day after my workout. This is also known as Carb Backloading.The intermittent fasting is skipping breakfast all together and get all your food in a 8 hour window. This is known as the 16/8 protocol and perhaps most made famous by Hugh Jackman. This I have already tested, sometimes involuntary, as I start working at my desk and forget to eat.
    A few weeks ago, after having listen to the podcast, I tried a 36 hour fast with no calories at all to see how I felt. I did allow for coffee and tea. It was not that hard.Now; I am on a 72h fast.  The idea is to get into ketosis, which happens after 36 hours, so that I shall utilize the body’s fat deposits instead of glycogen to increase the endurance while running the marathon.  Check out Dr. Jason Fungs two books. The complete guide to fasting and The Obesity Code for more info.
  • Tim Ferris has a variant of this, where he simply starts taking MTC oils such as coconut oil, or exogenous ketones. As my main goal is to get into ketosis, I will phase into Coconut oil the last 12 hours of fasting. And also include a workout.

How I train for my upcoming Marathon

A bit more than two weeks ago, and in fact my last day in Japan, I started my 18 week marathon training to prepare for Gold Coast Marathon, Australia on July 1. I had set goals to follow Jack Daniels Running Formula and the 18 weeks with 2 quality sessions per week. So I did for a week, but it was too much of shock for me with increased mileage and then on top some really hard workouts.  It is a great training plan and very successful for many runners to set PRs and go sub 3h, but I needed more base, before jumping into this plan.

I stepped back and tried to make a new plan. After having run a very successful marathon in North Carolina – my second best ever at 3:04.11- in 2016 and in a similar situation. Then I hacked with a lot of HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) sessions every other day or so to gain speed and mitochondrial growth,  but not so much distance. It was really only my lack of long runs that did not get me under 3 hours that time.  Ben Greenfield has a lot about hacking training to get stronger, faster and more endurance quicker in his book Beyond Training – a great source of tips not only on how to train, but also habits of eating, sleep, meditation and supplements to take.

First I needed to build base. I like the idea of Dr Phil Maffetone’s Maximum Aerobic Function, which basically is the highest speed you can maintain when mainly burning fat as fuel.  Thus, lots of slow running, and the total opposite of Ben Greenfield. Maffetone’s ideas is presented in his Big Book of Endurance and Training.

So my idea of hacking it is building base with Maffetones ideas for 10 weeks at slow pace with very little speed training using a HR monitor. The idea is to get more efficient at burning fat and this is where ketosis comes in with my current fasting.
My speed at MAF should increase during the course of the weeks. The last 8 weeks are destined for racking up pace with intervals, hill sprints, marathon pace and a few races such as Half Marathon in Lima and a 10K in Sweden. You can follow evaluation of this tactic and my progress on GunnarEngblom.com, where I also post about other things that interest me such as cinema, wine, traveling, bio hacking, etc.

Some books I read now or have read recently.

Most of my recent books are mentioned above, but since I am preparing a blogpost review of Noah Strycker’s book Birding Without Borders on my blog at Kolibri Expeditions, you may want check out this book. No less than 33 pages are dedicated to Noah’s adventures with Kolibri Expeditions in Peru.  Worth a read if you travelled with us before or think you will want to take one of our amazing trips. If you think, on basis what you read, that it is always so adventurous, mind you that the Central and South part of Peru in February when Noah was here is in the rainy season. The North and the coast is still great birding that time of year and if one ventures to the rainforest away from the mountains, even SE Peru can be great from Puerto Maldonado in the rainy season, as it is served with several daily jets all year around.

Some interesting podcast episodes I have listened to recently.

I mentioned Tim Ferriss.  Here are my two favorite episodes from the past weeks.

Finally, even though some may think this is political, it is really just common sense. I share a cat video explaining about guns. Or something like that. It is funny and educational. Enjoy.

That’s all folks. Until next week, which shall be much shorter I promise. Please consider signing up to the newsletter on my regular birding blog, and you will get a message in your email inbox.

Gunnar Engblom is a Swedish birder who lives in Peru since 1998, where he operates birdwatching and nature tours for Kolibri Expeditions. He is also a dedicated 3:04 marathon runner, right now training for Gold Coast Marathon, Australia in July 2018. In 2016, Gunnar additionally re-launched his rock’n’roll singer career with his band Guran Guran.

by Gunnar Engblom   

10k – slow but an Age Group win.

I won the race running a slow 10K

It wasn’t my best race. It was hot and humid in the end. And I am far from well trained. I shall have to far faster than this in 12 weeks. Having said that, I still won the age group and placed 23rd of all men. Not bad for an old man. I am happy.

The race started out well. I held a pace of just around 4:10-4:15 min/km for 6 kms (4:02, 4:09, 4:09, 4:16, 4:14, 4:09).  Then the uphill started for 2km (4:36, 4:34). The last kilometer was somewhat uphill to start with and finished with a 500m downhill where I went fast getting the split down to 4:20. The Garmin reads 140m above 10k, so the last bit downhill to the finish I pressed it at 3:50 pace.

I had a quite high HR throughout at 168 bpm on average, and 173 on the last km. Pressing it to the finish the HR went up to 175. I often get convulsions at the finish of the race went going up a gear, and this happened also this time.  Crossing the finish line, I throw up. All my morning coffee and last night’s salad came up. Interesting that it was not better digested. Something to think of for future races.  It was not a pretty sight, me puking this black gue. People came up to me as I was bent over asking if I was OK, as it looked like I had puked up my intestines.  “No worries. Just a bit exhausted!”, I answered. 

From the photo above, I can see that I need to work on my form. I have a hunched style. I think it has to do with rather week core and tight hips. Strength and flexibility exercise is what I shall do.

Weekly summary.

This week I ran about 45k in total, which is not a whole lot.  I had a decent 4x1200m interval with 400m easy jog in between on Thursday. I had aimed for 3:45 min/km but I am not quite there yet.
4:44 pace 3.57 min/km
4:46 pace 3.59 min/km
4:57 pace 4.07 min/km
4:52 pace 4.03 min/km

Weekly Summary
Monday, Oct 30, 2017 thru Sunday, Nov 05, 2017

Day Miles Pace Duration Description HR Egain Link
Mon 1.3 9:01 0:11 Afternoon Run 130 0 strava
Mon 2.0 11:26 0:22 Evening Run 106 75 strava
Mon 0.7 9:33 0:06 Night Run 130 0 strava
Wed 3.0 10:34 0:31 Evening Run 120 52 strava
Thu 7.3 8:42 1:03 Intervals 4x1200m with 400 jog. 142 101 strava
Fri 0.9 9:54 0:08 Evening Run 128 42 strava
Fri 0.9 9:35 0:08 Evening Run 135 0 strava
Sat 0.9 10:06 0:08 Afternoon Run 142 0 strava
Sat 1.0 11:20 0:11 Afternoon Run 118 49 strava
Sat 2.4 10:34 0:24 Afternoon Run 127 78 strava
Sun 6.3 6:55 0:43 10K Race 168 160 strava
Sun 1.7 10:42 0:18 Evening Run 127 42 strava
28.4 9:09 4:20 599
by Gunnar Engblom   

Back to the basics

Gunnar after Stockholm Half MarathonMy running has not been great lately. I had a poor cycle before Chicago Marathon.
A month prior to the marathon I ran Stockholm half marathon on a hilly course in 1:37 and Chicago full marathon was in 3h39 minutes. My legs and my pace for a 3:15 finish collapsed pretty much at km 26.2. They had not understood that it was 26.2 miles I was supposed to run.  I put on my headphones and with some of my own Guran Guran music and a selection of songs by David Bowie, Clash, Iggy Pop, Molotov and Cake (Going the Distance) I kept moving my legs in a slow run without stopping until the finish. Prior to the marathon I had not done a single long run of close to 30K since May – and that was the disastrous 4:23:24 Lima Marathon.

Having said that, there are a few take aways.  My Marathon in Chicago was 44 minutes faster than in May.  My 5K, 10K and Half Marathon times for all these races have been:

Lima May 21: — (5K) 46:43 (10K) 1:42:24 (HM)
Stockholm Sep 9: 21:05 (5K) 44:31 (10K) 1:37:00 (HM)
Chicago Oct 8: 23:10 (5K) 45:39 (10K) 1:36:51 (HM)

This means I was running a sub 3h Marathon pace for 5k during Stockholm half marathon (and actually maintained this until km 8), and ran my fastest half marathon in Chicago beating my Stockholm time with 9 seconds maintaining a 3:15 marathon pace.  So I have been improving somewhat. I am a long way from my dream of running  a sub 3h marathon though. I am 57 now, and I can’t withstand too much high intensity training and at the same time adding to milage.  I have come to the conclusion that milage alone will not take me there. I need more speed!

During the past weeks training I started following Hanson’s advance marathon plan which focuses a lot on quality and less on extreme long runs. On Tuesdays one does speed sessions and on Thursdays one does marathon pace runs.  Last week I realized that I could not keep up the marathon pace run at 4:15 min/km (6:50 min/mile) because my legs were too exhausted from the Tuesday speed session.  I need to adapt the program for my means.

This is what I shall do in short:

  1. Keep the Tuesday speed session according to Hanson.
  2. Do a HIIT session on Thursdays. 5 to10x30 seconds with 2 min easy jog in between.
  3. Do Marathon Pace within the long runs every other Saturday.
  4. Every other Saturday do 10 x 10-20 seconds hills. HIIT.
  5. Keep on doing a daily Seven (7 minute HIIT workout) for strength.
  6. Include particular strength training according to Runners Connect’s Strength Training for Runners.
  7. Do running form drills and minimalist transition exercises from Runners Connect’s Improve Running Form 6 week course.

All this should probably lead to more strength, better form and faster pace.The HIIT sessions helped me a lot to run the 3:04 in North Carolina in October last year, so I think this will be crucial to getting me closer to my goal. But I also need to get endurance, so I shall plan for 3x32k long runs in the remaining 12 weeks to Miami Marathon on Jan 28, but I won’t sweat it to run a lot miles apart from this. I am doing a lot of my daily work on the computer as I walk on a treadmill, and this shall give some general fitness too with very low impact.

Leading up to this race there are very few tune-up races I can fit in. Tomorrow, I have a 10K race for which I merely hope I can hold the sub 3H marathon pace of 4:15 min/km and an end time of below 42:30.  Anything better than this is an improvement.
In a month there is another 10K race in Lima with a week of traveling to South Korea and the Asian Bird Fair in between. Hopefully, this 10K will keep me motivated to get my runs and strength training done even when traveling.

I shall post some progress here, and also give tips on training and nutrition along the way. Looking forward to your comments.

by Gunnar Engblom   

Day 3 with 6 weeks to go to Lima Marathon. Hill repeats. Wednesday April 12.

Hill repeats

Today is Wednesday, and the third day of 42 days before Lima Marathon, and my second key workout. HIIT. Fast hill repeats bring a lot of bang for the buck.  It is in many ways a shorter version of the fast all out intervals of 30 seconds each  I did on Monday, but the since it is uphill you cannot go as fast and this is good because it decreases the risk of injuries. So you gain speed without actually running that fast. Secondly you build strength and get a better kick. That is you have to move up lifting your knees, forward leaning, and put force into the ground and for this you need strong muscles. They will gain strength for each workout – believe me. The effect is fast. In a month or so you will already see results.

Added strength also helps become more resilient. You legs and tendons learn to deal with impact and the natural shock absorber in your legs will become stronger.

You also gain form, as you learn to focus on keeping head up, forward lean, synchronized arm movement and you have to run on your toes.

My workout.

When I first did this workout some years ago it was even shorter intervals than today. Only 8 seconds. I had had a short break because of some smaller injury and my online coach told me that these hill repeats was a good way to gain speed without actually running very fast I remember I was thinking. Eight seconds? That surely must be too little running for a marathon.

But much to my surprise I really enjoyed the workout. It feels great to give all you got once in a while and if one can do so without getting injured so much better. Last year I started hill repeats with 10 seconds and by the end I was doing 30s intervals. Therefor it felt quite OK to do 10 hill sprint intervals of 10 seconds each today. 

I am fortunate to have a great hill only 3k away from my house. The 3km to get there serves as warmup and warm down. This is access road to Circuito de Playa that runs along the beach and takes you towards El Callao and the airport. The ramp is called Bajada Armendariz. From top to bottom it is almost exactly 1 km.  

I realized as I started to run what was supposed to be the warmup, that my quads were still quite tight. Also my left Achilles tendon was a bit sore. 

Darn!  I broke a rule, that I made last year, to always begin the workouts with a stretching routine which is quite different to the routines that you see most recreational runners do. I don’t stretch by standing leaned to the wall to stretch the calfs. Stretching the muscles to extreme, before running is not good, when you want them to explode. Also, cold muscles stretching this way can get you injured. It is better do foam rolling and a dynamic warm-up exercise such a lunges, leg swings and heel drops. These also include short stretches but are within the natural movements when running so they are a very natural type of stretching that also warms you up. Those have been in my arsenal of pre-run warm-up last year and also before races.

I particularly like the lunge-matrix. It is incredible how it stretches, thighs, quads, calfs, abductors, calfs and achilles tendon. If I have felt kinks prior to the run, these simple exercise opens up and get immediate relief.

The other thing that I really need to do prior to the workouts if I am to continue to run with minimalist shoes is to do heel drops.

Although this exercise is recommended for healing Achilles tendonitis it is also a great exercise for prevention. Apart doing them with a straight leg as here it also a good to do a set with the bent knee as this also stretched the  Good for Achilles tendon and the calves. Check this example. 

So after 1.8 km in to the warm up I thought I’d better stop. The left Achilles tendon did not feel right. So I did the lunge matrix and 15 reps of both types of heel drops on both legs. It immediately felt better and I could follow through to the workout without problems.

I did 10x15s repeats and about one minute between of easy jog between.
Overall the workout went very well.