I went hotel bar hopping with a group of my gym friends for pre-Christmas drinks on Monday 23 December. It was less planned but with a bigger group than last year, and with different folks. We visited 4-5 hotels to check out the Christmas tree / decorations, had a drink, and took pictures.

It was nice to hang out, chill, chat, and drink outside of the gym, and to wind down ahead of the festive holiday season. Italian Stallion shared the news that he proposed to his girlfriend and invited us all to his wedding, and suggested that we celebrate his stag in Barca.

It’s funny how this new “Christmas tradition” has already evolved and feels so different in the space of 12 months. It was a smaller group, who I was less close to last year, and all of us were at the same gym. This year, I am closer to some of the group, less close to others, but we’ve been chatting, training, racing, and supporting one another a fair bit. And I’m not even in the same gym any more, and the group is progressively moving away from the original gym, and we’re trying to figure out how we will train and keep in touch next year. This is quite an unusual group, as we’re wide in our age range, from early 30s to late 50s, and while most of us are in the financial sector (or ex financial sector), two are in hospitality. And it’s a mix of married and unmarried folks, with kids and without, with diverse nationalities (although predominantly British). It feels like this could totally be the premise of a sitcom… like “Friends”, or “Cheers”. Shame we don’t have anyone in the creative industries in the group….