The Land of Oz

Life has taken me to Sydney, Australia where I’ve reunited with fellow Anywherefit Icelander Nick Lloyd. Traveling with good buddy John Arroyo and Games competitor Gabe Subry, I’m looking forward to 10 days of limited itinerary, creative training, and flexible Paleo. We’ve been here 24 hours and we’re checking those boxes fast a furious.

After a night out in Coogee, we woke up early and hit the coastal trail that leads to Bondi Beach. Along the way we discovered walls to climb, innumerable stairs to hike, a few sets of bars to play on, and lots of swimmable coves. We took our time hiking the 3-4 miles in order to soak up the experience and the view. Sydney has no shortage of vistas, this much I can attest to.

When we got about halfway to Bondi we found a cluster of pullup bars, parallel bars, and other generic fitness apparatus tucked to the side of the trail. Naturally we made a pit stop. There wasn’t anything organized, but levers, human flags, muscle ups, dips, hand walking, and glide kipping were all represented. We even managed to invent some exercises along the way.

From there we wound our way North past a cliff-side cemetery and an Olympic size pool that spilled into the ocean. Apparently to be a member at this club you must swim every Sunday of the year without missing. Hands down the coolest pool location I’ve ever seen so it might be worth it.

Just before grabbing lunch at the burrito shack, we came upon a stretch of graffiti wall art that had to be 200 yards long. The wall itself was a little over 9 feet tall with a double bar railing that you could climb over to finish in the beach parking lot. We combined handstand pushups at the base of the wall with wall muscle ups, pullup climbs, and some 360 degree hanging rotations to create a good short conditioning sequence. Having no real goal in mind for this made it a lot of fun, and a great way to ease back into high intensity training. We spent the next hour sipping a beer and eating burrito bowls next to the fat kid from Superbad. Day well spent.

Looking forward to another 8 days of the same.