Global Bird Fair
I will once again have my own stand at the Global Bird Fair in the UK. I hope to see some of my friends there July 11-13.
Here you'll be able to purchase our tours with the ATOL protection required for participating at the Global Bird Fair. If you want to buy at standard prices directly from us, I suggest you email me before coming to the Bird Fair.
What else has Gunnar been up to lately?
In these Kolibri News newsletters, I often include details about my other hobbies. I'm sure some of you think it's because of pure narcissism, or that I have a weird need to scream for attention. Look at me!
And perhaps you're right in that assessment. Perhaps it's an ADHD trait?
BUT, I've also noticed that revealing a little about
myself has made this occasional newsletter very popular, with nearly a 50% open rate for these emails.
I could simply make dry announcements about upcoming trips without mentioning anything about myself, but if you're not actively looking for a trip, many of you likely wouldn't open such an email.
By including these other tidbits, there's a greater chance people will open my email out of curiosity to learn how close I'm getting to breaking the 3-hour marathon barrier or whether my
band is suddenly making it big on Spotify.
If you're not interested in this, you can stop reading now and perhaps subscribe to the Bucket List Birding newsletter instead, which is a traditional newsletter where I simply promote upcoming trips around the world, principally from the 7 Wonders Birding website, but occasionally broader focus trips in Peru as well.
I'm preparing a Bucket List Birding Newsletter for the next couple of days. One trip from that newsletter worth mentioning
here is our new Best Bird Photography in Peru Tour with a reduced price—the first tour runs in September. Check it out if bird photography is your thing.
There's also a short Taiwan trip coming up (September) and a new Borneo program (October) being presented.
Anyway, at the risk
of making a fool of myself (and not for the first time), here we go.
Running and Marathons.
After my only 2/3 successful downhill marathon in Las Vegas on April 5 (half marathon mark at 1:27:26, but breaking down at Mile 18), I had a hard time focusing on my running.
Juggling my band's concert on April 24, the upcoming tour in September (see below), my family, writing clients, and email marketing, I wasn't able to focus on running.
The race I was supposed to be training
for was the 10K on May 25 as part of the Lima Marathon celebration. I was eager to have a good result and a fast time. My fantastic online coach John Goldthorp of FixYourRun had put together a sharp training schedule with interval training for speed and strength, but I couldn't focus.
In a typical week, there are usually 2-3 key workouts. I missed practically all
key workouts except three during the last four weeks. I almost decided not to run the race because my training had been so poor, and because the race was starting at 5:15 AM. My bedtime had been close to that time the previous week.
But I pulled myself together. I got to bed a bit before midnight, set the alarm for 4 AM, and used the 2K from my house to the start as a warm-up. I was even slightly late to the start. As I was warming up, I suddenly saw the visually impaired runners already
starting. I had to jump the fence to get into the race corral as the gun went off. It took me about 20 seconds to stop my warm-up timing and reset to zero to time the 10K race on my Garmin watch.
I had reasoned that if I could finish under 44 minutes, it would still be quite decent and place me among the top three in my age group (60-64). In the end, I had a good race. I noticed one guy who I figured was about my age running alongside me for a while, but I couldn't keep up with him. He
disappeared from view at about 5K.
I maintained an even pace throughout and even managed to put in extra effort during the last kilometer. I finished the race in 43:17, and with that time, I won the age group. I was very pleased with the result. Had I completed all my training, I probably would have finished around 41-42 minutes.
What about the guy who passed me? It turned out he was older than I (67), finished in 42:05, and also placed first in his age group (65+). An inspiration to
keep hunting for the BIG GOAL of a sub-3-hour marathon.
Last year, I ran the Copenhagen Marathon in 3:09—my best time since 1984. If I stopped birding and only focused on marathons, it might be possible to train everything necessary to cut the additional 9+ minutes needed, but the reality is that I have many birding trips lined up too. So I'm putting my hopes on running another downhill marathon, like the one I ran in Las Vegas. I've signed up for the Big Bear Marathon on November 8. It
will also be a downhill marathon with a descent of 5,083 ft (1,549 m). This is where it will happen—the sub-3-hour marathon (at age 65)!
Never Too Late for Rock'n'Roll
I had a concert in Stockholm with my band Guran Guran on April 24. Now we're preparing for our 40-year anniversary as a band with a tour in September. Malmö, Stockholm, Göteborg, Växjö, Karlstad, and Uppsala are some of the towns where we'll be playing. Here's a short clip from the concert on April
24.
