My relationship with sports has been inconsistent, alternating very intense seasons with others of absolute laziness. Throughout my life, though not always, the peaks and valleys often relate to a lesser or greater nightly social life. There are people I admire who are able to consistently party hard and then, during the week, maintain their exercise and sports routine with a lot of intensity.

Well, unfortunately, I don’t. I like both worlds very much separately, and I have not been able to make them compatible in a sustainable way. Obviously, I’m talking about seasons, not a weekend or two isolated, or a vacation.

So, depending on the year you catch me, I could be fitty-fit, or I could be more of a rolling meatball. But what is constant is the desire for activity. My battery is full and it’s hard for me to sit still on the beach if there are waves, or a paddle, or a frisbee, or a boomerang…

The beginning

When I was very young, my parents laughingly said that they were scared because all I wanted to do was sleep. And I could sleep for many hours at a time. Something that seems strange in a little baby, although later they discovered that I was inappetent; that is, I never felt like eating. And of course, hunger did not wake me up.

After a short time, the needle turned 180 degrees, and I had so much energy, I always had something to do or paint or calculate. It’s as if those first years of sleepyheadedness had accumulated energy that was constantly being released. Like Obelix and the cauldron, but with a battery.

To entertain myself, my parents federated me in soccer since I was very young. To train in the afternoons, and soccer on weekends. That’s what an ordinary child is like.

Earth

If it bounces, I like it. So from a very young age I became a fan of soccer, basketball and tennis. When I was studying at the university and my head was toasted with those intense study sessions, the solution was always to jump over the school fence and play a 21 by myself in the basketball court. And it could be 8 o’clock in the evening, or 2 o’clock in the morning.

If it has wheels, I like it too. I’m lucky enough to have a friend who didn’t move on to professional cycling because it didn’t suit him, but he has instilled a love of two wheels in his family and friends. We were a bunch of pre-teens out on those wonderful BMX bikes, decorated with burning skull stickers, little balls on the spokes, and even lenticular wheels! (What a laugh now that I remember that in the group we were convinced that the lenticular wheels on my bike allowed me to go “faster”, even on days when it wasn’t windy at all that could help. In reality, they were an additional weight to the bike that added more inertia, and because they were spinning they added more stability due to the conservation of angular momentum (gyroscopic effect), but from there that’s still quite a jump to make me “faster”… xD).

From that BMX I went to an Orbea Sierra Nevada with shifts in the frame with which I went back and forth everywhere, including sometimes to the Campus de Rabanales. And I would also go out on to the Almodovar town with this cycling friend of mine when he had to “let his legs go” during the weekdays. He would go to relax after having done a long and intense training, and I would ride my bike behind him so that he would cut me off the wind, because otherwise I wouldn’t make it. Differences.

Switching to a Mountain Bike was just a matter of flexibility about the routes I could take when on the go.

I also like to run in the countryside when I have the chance. I’m not a great runner in the field, but I enjoy it when I do it.

I have been fortunate enough to have friends who invited me to go climbing with them on some days, and the truth is that I loved it. I like the feeling, and I like the philosophy of the sport.

It is wonderful to feel the body in constant tension and, above all, to overcome one’s fears.

With snowboarding I have had some mishaps. I like it, but the first day is to “get the hang of it again” and the second day I enjoy it more.

The first time I tried snowboarding, in Valdezcaray, I rented a board and without knowing much about what I was doing, I went down a run -straight- at once. “Ah, so,” -I thought to myself, being born in Córdoba and who, at the age of 8 or 9, had to be taken on an excursion to get to know the snow- “I’m “a natural” at snowboarding. I was born for this!”. So I bought the required equipment and went for it. There you go, The natural, my friend. Well, “the natural” could have saved himself a few stitches. Lmao. But when I finally get the hang of it, it’s a lot of fun.

Water

I had the good (or bad, depending on how you look at it) luck that, the day I went to buy a second hand surfboard in Los Caños de Meca, the first or second wave I tried, I surfed it. In a straight line, only a few meters, but of course, again, I am a “a natural” at surfing. Here it is, Mr. natural at your service… haha. Saltwater, I’ve swallowed the big stuff. I have completely dried whole beaches, even the sea was retreating scared from me. But when I catch a wave, it’s a wonderful feeling.

The best thing is that surfing gives you the perfect excuse to escape to the sea again and again. And if when you get there there are no waves, you stay in those beautiful charming surfing villages. Sometimes I have done a Madrid-Zambujeira do Mar (Alentejo, Portugal, more than 700 km., 8 hours) over the weekend, arriving in Madrid at two or three o’clock in the Monday’s morning -and thus avoiding the traffic jam at the entrance to Madrid-. I don’t find it hard to drive.

If the sea is too rough or choppy, a bodyboard or buggy will fix it because it is more fault tolerant and also easier on the fins.

And if the day is neither for surfing nor for bodyboarding, then you start to do anything to be active, like fighting with the waves, which in the end is all about having a good time.

Having lived in Miami for so many years, the love of snorkeling comes naturally. The water in the Caribbean Sea is very warm – not always, but more than once I have celebrated the new year on the beach by swimming – and very clear.

In Miami the beaches are very good; in the Gulf of Mexico they are extraordinary, and snorkeling in the Florida Keys and the Coral Reefs is something else.

Of course there will be much better places in the world to dive and snorkel, but the truth is that Florida is a privilege.

Anyway, if we are at the beach and we can’t surf, bodyboard or snorkel, and we haven’t brought our paddles… well, look around, maybe I’m playing the fool out there.

Air

Will.