Roadman, today I want to give you a six point plan to kickstart 2021
Roadman, today I want to give you a six point plan to kickstart 2021. Let's cure out of the intro! The big question is this. How do we use cycling as a tool to improve our health, our happiness and our longevity? That is the question and this podcast will give you the answers. My name is Anthony Walsh and welcome to the Roadman Podcast. Well man welcome back it's a new year it's a new it's not actually it's the same old roadman podcast but I am in fact bringing it to you from Cartagena Colombia today. So from Colombia happy new year I hope you had a great festive period and today I want to give you a six point plan to kick off the new year in style. The new year hasn't been the same sort of chaotic new year for me as it would be if I was back home where I'm running from training to work to family, to social engagements. I've had a little bit more time to chill, meditate it a lot more, taking a lot more me time and with that I started thinking I want to put together six, I started it with three and it is a grew to six, six tangible points that you can take into 2021. Just really nice habits they're going to ensure you're going to get the year off on a really solid footing and and that's what I want to share with you today. But before I do share that with you, let me remind you about patreon.com, because Patreon is how we fund the podcast. Back in 2020, that long, long time ago, and 2024 days ago, it was how we funded the podcast and it's still how we fund the podcast. It's user generosity and it's user donations over on Patreon. So if you're getting some value from the podcast, if you're learning some stuff, if you're getting some entertainment, much like you pay for your Netflix subscription your Spotify subscription, please consider going to patreon.com forward slash Anthony underscore watch. The link is in the boil and buying me just the price of a point of beer once a month because that's what makes this podcast sustainable. And the more you guys that get me the beer over there, the more sustainable this podcast is and the more I can ramp it up and do cool projects like this one right now because over the next week stay tuned because I'm going to be bringing you a bunch of Colombian content. And today although it's not explicitly Colombian team so to speak because it's just a six point real strategic stuff on how to improve the quality of your life going into 2021. The headspace that Colombia has given me has definitely allowed me to put this little list together. Before I dive in and actually tell you the list, I suppose I should tell you what I'm doing over here. So I'm in Colombia with friends and girlfriend, yes to celebrate the new year but also because Columbia is, it's one of the meccas in world cycling and I had an opportunity to come out and the timing lined up and I grasped that opportunity and it's an absolute dream to cycle out here and I can't wait to explore this country more and more. The small bit I've seen already, the scenery spectacular, the weather spectacular and the people are some of the nicest I've ever met. So I'm absolutely like a kid at Christmas here at a moment in Colombia. So I'm down in a seaside village called Cartagena and it's a real historic little village staying and possibly the noises house I've ever stayed in at the moment. So you'll forgive me if the acoustics aren't brilliant. It's a lot of stone, furnishings and and wood. Beautiful though. Cartagena is the base of the moment and then I'm moving up for a five-day cycle through coffee districts and culminates in the Alto the Lettras which I'll talk to you about tomorrow. It's the longest climb in the world 81 kilometers topping out at stupid altitudes and I'm going to tackle that in the next few days. So stay with me for that because that's going to be absolutely epic and tomorrow I'm going to break down exactly what involved gradient of the climb my preparation for it which has been patchy at best but I'll talk to you about all that tomorrow.
Now I want to give you these six points because they're really easy…
Right now I want to give you these six points because they're really easy things you can take and you can implement right now to make 2021 an absolute cracker. The first one if you've read Matt Walker's Why We Sleep, this is non-negotiable for you. Sleep eight errors every single night. I set the alarm for the moment I got a bed I set the alarm for eight hours and 20 minutes later I I give myself that 20 minutes to sleep. That's just every day for me. That's what I do. Nailing in that eight hours of sleep sure there's going to be times when you have something the next morning, your family engagements, but they need to be the odd occasion out and the exception rather than the real. When you read that book, it's just, it's non-negotiable having eight hours of sleep and I tweeted to you today about sleep and the importance of sleep and people coming back back in the comments saying, you know, four hours is grand. Four hours is absolutely not grand. Every minute we drop under that eight hour mark, it increases our risk of degenerative diseases like Alzheimer's dementia, increases our risk of cardiovascular disease and a wide raft of other stuff. It's a brilliant book and a great piece of research from Matt Walker. Point number two, and this should come easy to us because it's what we love doing. I encourage everybody to ride their bike at least three times and up to five times per week. Sleep bed, air is an ice, roger boy, tree to five times a week. Point number three, we've all sorted different dietary, doctrines and dietary philosophies, but what I like is principles, because principles, they gravitate above fads, they gravitate above doctrines. Eat a diet which is rich in season off fresh vegetables and lean proteins, whatever your source of proteins, whatever your source of veg, it doesn't matter if you're vegan, you can still get in this protein, you know your dias, and we maybe do a specific vegan podcast on protein sources, and but the important thing is eating the diet rich, natural seasonal veg, and those lean proteins. It's not super complicated. It's taking things out of the ground. It's eating stuff that bacteria likes to consume. Like if you can take a burger, leave it on your shelf for four or five weeks, and even bacteria won't eat their shit. That's not food, that's food substitute. That's the type of stuff. Like I have friends that live on diets, like Buzz Aldrin, hook up to the moon. Like pot noodles is not food. If you can leave something in your press or you can take it to space for four months and it won't go off, and you just need the boiler kettle and mix water with it. That's not food, that's food substitute. I'm breaking it down real easy because diet, it can become like a religious doctrine and people are so passionate about it. But I think few will disagree that if you eat a diet which is rich in veg and lean protein, you're off to a good, good footing. And a lot of these, and a lot of what I talk about in the podcast, I like to think it's a bit of a Mr. Miyagi wax on, wax off, it's not always entirely clear, especially in the bite size podcast, I am recommending some of this stuff, but trust that it is embedded in research somewhere. And a lot of these things are commonalities we see in blue zones and blue zones are those areas around the world like Okinawa and Japan, Sardinia and Italy. These are the areas where I have the highest concentration of centurions, people that live beyond the 100 years of age. This next one is drawn specifically from that surrounding yourself with positive people. people are just so toxic and it's so easy to find negativity in the world at the moment and if you surround yourself with those negative people that's what you'll become. So point four is to surround yourself with positive people. Point five again it's drawn straight from that blue zone's philosophy and the commonalities in these blue zones areas. It's socializing two to three times per week. Depending on the country you're listening to this podcast socializing may be super easy because Covid is no longer a problem in areas like China.
Could be super easy because vaccines have been rolled out in your…
Could be super easy because vaccines have been rolled out in your area or it could be more challenging like it is in Ireland at the moment where they're hitting level five restrictions with Covid. Regardless, you can find creative solutions to socialising, be it a socially distant coffee with a friend outside, whether it's zoom calls or whether it's training outside in the open area with a friend. Socialised two to three times a week. It's important. Do this stuff like your life depends on the guys and girls because your life does depend on it. This stuff is so inextricably linked to happiness, mental health, clarity, productivity. It's non-negotiable. These are things that just absolutely have to happen. If you don't have time to do this because your schedule is too busy, you need to really reevaluate your schedule and look at the direction you're going with everything for 2021. And the last point I want to hammer home to you for our 6.2021 Kickstarter plan, it's Hydrate. Hydrate, Hydrate, Hydrate. So many people are walking around dehydrated. All we are is a big sack of water, so you need to be constantly hydrating and topping up that big sack of water. A nice little hacker trick to remind you to constantly hydrate is get yourself a a nice bottle, a reusable bottle. Benefit one, you're cutting down on plastics and benefit two. When you have it in your hand, you have it in your bag, it just becomes a constant reminder of the importance of hydration that you should be constantly sipping, constantly drinking, looking to exceed tree leaders every single day. Folks, I think that's a pretty robust six point plan to kick start 2021. And even if you're catching this podcast in the middle of 2021 from the future hello to future you this is this is going to be time tested you could pull this podcast out 10 years from now and these six things they won't have changed with the latest fad there won't be a new research paper that's come out and says you shouldn't surround yourself with positive people that you should just hang out with toxic dickheads that's not going to happen you can take these you can curve them extra extra like Moses in stone on tablets on your wall and live by this doctrine. Roadman, I'm in Colombia until the 12th of January. I absolutely cannot wait to explore more of this beautiful, beautiful country. Stay tuned tomorrow where I'm gonna be breaking down. Definitely the most difficult climb I have ever ascended. The ultra, the letras. I'm gonna talk to you about gradients. I'm gonna talk to you about altitudes, temperature, traffic considerations, fueling strategies, pacing, my preparation, and a lot, lot more. So join me for that. Row men are gonna talk to you then. Before you go anywhere, our first ever Row man summit had aired back in December. I brought together 30 experts and they shared with me their secrets on how to boil hack your physiology, how to melt away body fat and smash your cycling goals, whatever that was. Since airing that back in December, I've just been inundated with my Instagram, DM's, Twitter direct messages, we're requests to get access to this material. had it locked up in the vault. But I've decided to open access to this material for you, the podcast listeners at the Roadman Podcast. So to get access to this, it's a one-time payment of €47 and you're gonna have all the interviews, all those secrets forever. You're gonna have the videos and the MP-Trays. In there, I've got interviews, world-tore mechanics, nutritionists, sports psychologists, boig-fit experts, and some of the legends at the sport like Tyler Hamilton and Pete Sten. over 30 hours of content in this members area that I've created for you guys. So if you wanna get access to that, the way to do it, it's to head on over to this URL, www.roadmansomit.com forward slash 2021. I'll give you that again. It's www.roadmansomit.com forward slash 2021. That's numerical. The link to that is in the bio. Check it out, learn it, take it in, because this is short to set you on the right path for 2021.