Run Like You Mean It

I don't like asking people for money. In fact, I generally don't like asking people for anything but that's just awkward me. For charity, I'm willing to get over that, hence my fundraising for the Ehlers-Danlos Support UK charity. It's a worthy cause for a condition that has affected my family, and plenty of others, and just seems to fly under the radar unless you know somebody who has it.

To coincide with that, I don't really like running neither. However, I'm willing to get over that too for this cause. On May 10th, I'll run the Leeds Half Marathon to raise money for the charity. This one is special to me for a number of reasons.

1. It's the first organised race I will run (if you exclude a 4k fun run when I was about 11).

2. It's in my hometown, and there's something just special about doing it at home.

3. This condition has affected a few incredibly special people in my life, so it's for them as much as anything else. (They will be responsible for any post-run massages, food, drink supplies #justsayin).

4. Let's face it, I'm no spring chick - so it may be now or never!

If I have sponsored you in the past for a worthy cause, bought you a pint, taken you to a terrible game of some sort, or if you've been on the receiving end of any pleasant gesture (if it was unpleasant, just press the X in the top right corner) from anybody in my family such as one of my mum's braisin steak & Yorkshire meals or a piece of my dad's lasagne or if you've attended a family BBQ, then I'll unashamedly ask for a donation.

I don't care however small it is. A donation will likely earn you at least one more of one of the above and my eternal appreciation. The likelihood is that I will not be pestering you for a long time for any future donations and I definitely don't want to have to commit to any more runs in future!

https://www.justgiving.com/ROB-ESTEVA

Roberto xx

Super Sunday

There are very few weeks that pass by that my dad doesn’t ask me what teams and matches to bet on. He usually rattles off the 7-team accumulator he has put a cheeky quid on, and I’ll tell him that makes no sense or gives no value, and he usually ignores me. He asked me on Monday for a Superbowl bet, so he’s going to have to read this blog if he wants a prediction of mine to ignore!

I’m sure the term has been coined years previously but when Sky used ‘Super Sunday’ to describe their football schedule when the Premier League first started, they were on to something. Not the most complex of phrases to come up, but it was just one of those simple phrases that just worked.

So, I’m sat scribbling this blog right now, with Murray v Djokovic on the ipad on SkyGo, I have the England v Australia cricket on the laptop, and I’m watching UFC from last night as live. There’s two reasonable football matches on in the afternoon, though I am already predicting that Southampton v Swansea may be the optimal time for a cheeky afternoon nap. The day is then capped by the Superbowl tonight…..it doesn’t get any more super I guess. Well, I could be driving from Vegas for the UFC to Phoenix….that could be make it a fraction more super, but I’m saving my silliness for later in the year despite the encouragement of a lot of bad bad people.

I’ve been known to attend a sporting event or two in my time, and I’d really struggle to rank them the different types of events in terms of preference. That may be another blog post. Whether it’s the Olympics, the World Cup, or the biggest fight of all time (it’s always the next one basically!), they’re all great in their own way. The Superbowl is right at the very top of the list.

I’ve asked folks for their prediction for the game and this one just seems to be as close to call as any Superbowl I can recall. It is quite rare to get the top two ranked teams playing the Superbowl which is the case this time. Even the bookies are calling this one incredibly close.

27-24 Patriots

24-7 Patriots

23-19 Seahawks

27-20 Patriots

24-17 Seahawks

23-17 Patriots

17-14 Seahawks

24-10 Patriots

24-16 Patriots

27-9 Seahawks

24-17 Seattle

27-21 Seahawks

27-24 Seahawks

13 picks from a bunch of friends, 7-6 Patriots and 2 picks over 48, 1 on 48 and 10 under 48.

Six weeks ago, I placed a bet on Seattle to win the whole show. I’ve since laid it off. How do I see this game going? When looking at NFL matches, my first thought is to analyse the attacking and defensive strengths and weaknesses of both teams, and how I see them measuring up to each other. And parts of this game are quite logical. Seattle have the best defence of the two (and the league), and the Patriots have the best offense of the two (and the league). When you have elite defence against an elite offense in any sport, I generally edge the elite defence – it’s often easier to destroy than create.

If we look at the other side of it, the Seattle offense against the Patriots defence is an interesting one and where this game could be decided. Seattle’s offense is underrated at times and I love how Wilson can make something from nothing. Lynch is as tough a runner as they come. I do think they have their struggles in terms of receivers despite the Green Bay miracle in the conference game.

The Patriots defence is not as good as the Seahawks, but it is as good as they have had for several years now. They started the season poorly but have gradually improved since Browner came in at week 5, and unlike last year when they lost Aqib Talib in the Conference final, they have a fully fit group of players which is key. This Patriots D can stop the run with their mobile linebackers, and rely on their secondary to stop the Seahawks receivers. Measuring these two up is where I think the Patriots have a greater advantage than the Hawks D v the Pats offense.

Both teams have as strong a home advantage when they play in their own stadiums whether it is the noise in Seattle or the cold in Foxboro – I do not see either team having an advantage in Arizona. The timezone factor is not a major issue here – the Patriots have had sufficiently long enough to acclimatise to it. (That said, there have been some naughty fire alarms going off twice in the middle of the night in the Patriots team hotel this week).

All that mumble jumble to say that I have no clue really who is going to win this one – I slightly edge the Patriots (24-20), but this will come down to small details and moments. I sincerely hope that this game is better than last year’s blowout. I sat in some random bar at silly o’clock in Antwerp watching the game, being thoroughly disappointed for the spectacle, but appreciating a superb performance. I do not see either team hammering the other here so I’m hopeful of that at the very least. I will not be having a cheeky bet on either side for this one, but there is one that I do like. I like the under 48 here. Neither of the teams are particularly strong at creating big plays of 20 yards or more. Special teams are well drilled and I do not see many big plays there. I don’t see that many turnovers by either quarterback or team. I do see both teams managing the clock, Seattle running plenty and Brady throwing plenty of short passes as he has all season, and eating up the clock.

Unders may not sound great for a Super Sunday, but that will not make it a bad game. It may not be the most high scoring or entertaining of games but it will be tense, physical and probably a survival of fittest/bravest. This is going to sound elitist, but there is nothing better in any sport, if there are two individuals or teams competing at the top. Iron sharpens iron as they say, and that’s what makes for a Super Sunday and Super Superbowl.

Resolving A New Year!

Another year, another set of resolutions, another increasingly rare blog post. Not only do I have to get back to scribbling some blog posts, I have a bunch of other things that I’m committed to doing in 2015. Following the usual principle, I figure if I write them down, it will shame me into doing them….  

1. Sleep
I’m frequently torn when it comes to sleep. That generally sounds a little bizarre but I’m caught between enjoying being awake that much but knowing I should really get more sleep. 2015 is the year of more sleep.  

2. My mum
A kick ass trip with my mum somewhere this year. Last year I took my dad to Brazil for the World Cup to watch his beloved Brazil team get whipped by Germany (sorry Dad!), I’ll somehow find a way to match that with my mum this year. Suggestions welcome!

3. Running
Ok, well we’ll start with a half – Larry Budd, you and I are on! Expect some Runkeeper movement! Consider it in the diary. I won’t make the silly promise of the Vegas marathon in November again, but it’s on the tentative list if Leeds goes well #justsayin  

4. Charity
Twelve months ago, I was on the receiving end of an impromptu New Year’s Eve shave, kindly administered by my remarkably tipsy (read: hammered) cousin Kev. The generosity did not end there. The family threw some cash into a hat to go to charity. I’ve still got that money sat at home and have done nothing with it. So this year, for any longish runs I manage to get my butt in gear for, I’ll fundraise for Ehlers-Danlos – a syndrome that has affected folks in the fam.

5. Cut the Carbon
So I may have been singularly responsible for the world’s carbon footprint last year. Time to cut that down and enjoy a bit more of the UK and North!  

6. Blog more
The statistics do not lie and if I look at the right side of this page, it’s steadily gone from 75 blog posts in 2010, to 30 in 2011, 24 in 2012, 7 in 2013 and finally 5 piffling blog posts in 2014. I’m a disgrace. I’m aiming for at least one per month to get back up to 12 for 2015.

7. Take my own advice
Funny how most of us are geniuses when we offer others advice. It’s generally solid advice and it’s generally what others would say to you. Yet somehow, we decide to completely ignore it instead of applying it to ourselves! No excuses Roberto, listen to your own advice!

Happy New One folks!

Back to the Future

I will show my age now. I’m 34 and eight months. I went to university in 1998 and even though it was sunny Liverpool, it wasn’t quite the school of life. It was the school of discovering booze, Everton FC, going to Cream once and despising the sweat dripping off the ceiling, and learning how to live and cope on my own.

In 1998, I did not have a laptop, nor a mobile phone. I only just had a lycos email address thanks to my sister introducing the concept to us on our dial-up connection when she went to Sunderland Uni. I didn’t have a phone for a good year or so and even when I did have one, my friends and I never relied on it. You were where you were, when you said you would be.

If you’d have told me back then that dongles, smartphones, selfies and webcams were the future, I’d likely have chuckled. I’d only just gotten a debit card, never mind any of the other gadgets which were to come on the scene.

I was involved in a workshop this week about some of the technological things I work on now, and some of the things I will be working on in 2-5 years. It was effectively taking me back to 1998 and telling me how the next five years of technology were going to pan out. The most striking visual for me was an advert from a type of Dixons, Comet, Currys, Best Buy shop. The value of the products were in the thousands. Virtually every one of the items and functionality currently sits in a smartphone or tablet. That is insane.

So, what happens if we fast forward to 2019? Well, if you read the news, we’ll likely all be blown to smitherines. I’m a little more hopeful than that. I hope that it only affects the people and football teams I dislike (yes, I did insert poor tasteless joke there – a little pre-Premier League giddiness).

Think a selfie is new and hip? What will it be in a year or two? Meet the drone. Dronies are the way forward. A camera that essentially flies close to you following a GPS signal and films your every move. Just imagine, a kind of selfie where your head doesn’t appear gigantic, or your short arms are not half way in the pic.

Imagine going to your local supermarket. You connect to a wifi or P2P connection which essentially guides you through the store and throws offers at you midway through the shop. Remember the vouchers you used to collect in the newspaper, or would print from websites? They’ll be zapped to you mobile phone mid-shop. The Beacon world.

You know how supermarkets encourage you to sign up to their membership card and then you start receiving vouchers in the mail weeks and months after based on what you have been purchasing? That is not even half the story. GPS signals are being tracked from your phone as you wander around the store to track the route you walk in store. Tracking your movements, and how visual prompts such as offers on the end of an aisle are leading you in a certain direction. Forget match-fixing or Big Brother, there’s so much more that goes on or exists than you could even imagine.

Well it is the way of the world and you and I had better get used to it. Whether that may be technology, general culture, or people, our lives will be fundamentally different for better or worse in 5 years’ time, or 16 years’ time, than any of us can possibly imagine. By all means take a different route around Tesco, Sainsburys, Walmart or Sobeys just to confuse the geeks, but there’s nothing wrong with embracing technological advances neither. I’d have never have been to the places I have been, seen the things I have seen or done the things I have done without the beauty of a webcam, camera, phone, laptop etc.

See, even old folks like me can embrace technology!

Read All About It

Have you watched or read the news recently? TV, Internet, Newspapers, Social Media…read all about it. In case you haven’t, let me give an overview. It just so happens that plane incidents, terrorism, mass murders, protests, wars, suicide bombers, match-fixers are all the rage in 2014.

When I was 12-years-old until the age of 16, I was a paperboy. Big sis did the afternoon round, I did the morning round. I was paid £5.20 for getting out of bed at 5.40am six days a week and an extra £3 for Sundays. I could sleep in on Sunday though, that was a 7am gig, but the papers were quadruple the size. The scars on my right shoulder are a testament to that. Strangely enough, there’s a significant correlation between people who read the Observer with its 27 supplements, and their houses having the smallest letterboxes known to mankind.

I was a speedy and reliable paperboy…..aside from the knee injury I picked up from football when my dad drove me round the round for a month, and the morning after the night I thought I would blow my hard earned cash on a two-for-one chocolate cake deal from Jack Fulton’s and demolished them in my bedroom unbeknown to my mum– subsequently redecorating my bedroom walls.

I loved nothing more than to sort the papers, fly around Crossgates on my BMX (failing tragically to jump curbs that could not be jumped) and read the papers. I started on page 3 (come on, I was a spotty teen boy, it’s what they do), moved to the back pages for the real sport, and then glanced at the front to see what was going on in the world. It usually wasn’t great, so the sport took prominence in my reading.

Fast forward twenty years (shit, I’m old), and I’ve grown out of page 3, still read the sport, but the front pages interest me less. In fact, I do not really read newspapers any more, and haven’t for years. I’ll go as far as saying they will not even exist in 5-10 years’ time. I watch the news, or log on to bbc.co.uk, and all I see is misery and unhappiness. It is grim, grim beyond belief. There are some days when I have a hectic life, a bit of travel and I don’t get the chance to read the news. I am not missing anything much.

After I have scoured my usual websites, I’ll have a look on Facebook. News of the people within my inner circle is of more interest to me much of the time than the Six O’Clock News. The only reason I am on Facebook is to connect and keep in touch with people I wouldn’t usually connect with on a regular basis without it. There are so many school friends, uni friends, former work colleagues, friends, even some family that are on there, and I can keep up to speed on their lives, and them on mine. There are pros and cons to the likes of Facebook, but there is nothing I enjoy more than to read about those people. I want to hear about theirr happiness, achievements, memorable moments. I’m less keen on the Big Brother chat, the whingeing about having a bad day, the bitching, the vague messages that cry out for the question ‘what’s wrong darling’.

This last week, I’ve read about amazing educational achievements, seen pictures of ridiculously cute new-borns and some not so-new-borns, shared birthday fun with people, supported a Man Utd fan in his jovial abuse of Liverpool, organised a couple of catch-ups with people who live 4000km or more away from me, seen fabulous holiday pics, read about all the parents whose kids are moving on to big school (time flies)….I could go on. I’ve enjoyed reading and seeing it all. It has far more influence and feeling on me and my life than the Six O’Clock News which is frankly miserable. That is not meant to trivialise or ignore what is going on in the world right now, but everybody needs some positivity in their lives.

So, I’m calling it now. I want to hear about your positive happy stories. I won’t judge, I won’t think you’re showing off, or being a jackass. I’ll skim over the trivial whinging stuff. If I want to suffer a bit of misery and downtime, I’ll start reading the papers and watching the news again. It’s the positive stuff that gives me my energy, and I’ll always read all about that.

The Final Countdown

Day 3 started early as we departed Varginha heading back to Sao Paulo. Another 300km in the book which was the last driving leg of the trip. 1200km driven in 48 hours after a lengthy flight was going some, but it was nice to reach SP and settle for a few days.

The Dutch and the Argie match was the exact opposite to the game the night before. Solid and strong defending, some fairly uninspired attacking play, and it all boiled down to a penalty shootout. One of the great things about football is some of the ironic moments that occur. Romero, the Argentine goalkeeper was brought to Europe by the Dutch manager Van Gaal when he was at AZ, and spent a lot of time with him focusing on how to save penalties. That certainly came back to haunt him.

I was sad for the Dutch, but happy for the Argentines. The fans were great and the atmosphere for much of the game was fantastic. They are sure to bring their A-game to Rio for the final. They were as close to English club fans as I can think of in terms of their creativity when it comes to creating songs. There were some crackers! I think it makes for a fascinating final, but one I fully expect the Germans to win. Even putting the semi against Brazil aside, I think they have far too much strength and ability in all units of the team to beat Argentina.

The atmosphere emphasised my desire to do a Boca x River match at La Bombonera sometime soon. It is one of those bucket list events which will have to be done at some point.

The football is officially over now for us as we passed on the final given the flights were crazy expensive to get out of Rio. Both me and my dad are too old for 4 flights just to get home at reasonable expense. Not to worry, less than a month until the season starts again!

Speaking of the new season, this is one of my favourites times of year. Transfer time where every club has some optimism that at some point, they will sign their very own Leo Messi. It will build to a crescendo until August 31^st, and you’ll very likely be disappointed when you end up with your very own Kevin Kilbane. It keeps everybody occupied however until the season begins!

The last time I visited Brazil was 1999. The one thing I can recall was the food being pretty good – great meat, a lot of barbequed stuff, black beans, rice, veggies…..plenty of good wholesome tasty food. I have the same feeling from this trip. We’ve had some sensational fruit – the oranges blow my mind! Yesterday was Picanha day – a huge chunk of steak with rice and onion. I could have eaten two of them. Tonight is Feijoada time – a fabulous black bean dish, which I am seriously looking forward to.

I’ve been known to travel to one or two places in my time, and the food is not always to my liking. I recall struggling somewhat when I visited China last year. After 178 dumplings in 4 days, all I craved was a piece of toast! Typically I will eat anything. This is one place where I would not have an issue with the food if you told me my flight tomorrow was cancelled and I had to live here for the rest of my days. Essentially days 4 and 5 will consist of food, drink and wandering around Sao Paulo. Of course there has been a Caipirinha or two mixed in also, and there will be one or two more tonight. I’ve had some shocking ones in Europe but they certainly have the knack over here as you would expect.

We’re based in the financial district of Sao Paulo. It is a pleasant area, seems quite safe. A lot of people have asked me if it feels dangerous as so many hear from reports in the news. It is absolutely fine where we are, zero issues and generally a good vibe. I am sure there are some shady areas but which city doesn’t? No complaints here.

Tomorrow we fly home and we will miss the 3^rd place match. Cannot say I am disappointed. Aside from a third place match in the Olympics where a Bronze medal is up for grabs, nobody cares about third or fourth. It is almost as worthless as a friendly, in fact, possibly even more so. The final however should be an intriguing one, and touch wood and flights being on time, I’ll be perched at a BBQ in Leeds tuning it for it!