Paul Arden | Sunday, 18 December 2022
Of all the things that matter in life, if you don’t keep your health it means nothing. That might be easy when you are 20 or 30, but to be fit when you are older takes work. If you want to go fly fishing, live outdoors, climb trees, leap across rivers and bound up waterfalls, then you need to be active every day. We train our casting to go fishing, we need to train our bodies too.
I usually train about 60-90 mins/day. Next year I have a half Ironman in May and a full Ironman in November. 60-90 mins is certainly not going to cut it this year! Genetics obviously plays a part but diet and exercise are the things that we can control. Running, cycling, swimming and lifting weights – these are my tools. And what a buzz!! I’m going to do a bit more yoga too because I believe that makes an edge.
I’m 52 tomorrow. I worked out a few years back that I’ll have passed 10,000 days fly fishing by this age. I have a strange goal in life that I would like to fish 20 or even 25,000 days. I also have this idea that after about 3000 days fishing in a specific genre then it’s time to move on and learn another one. I’m getting pretty close to that here in the jungle now. When I first came here the plan was to leave at 52 and start sailing around the world, saltwater fly fishing and visiting places I haven’t seen yet. Covid put that on hold for two years and so I’ve given myself four more years here. Then come what may we will go. It’s time to start a new chapter, besides at some point I’m going to be too old to sail and I want a good run at it.
Fuck it, only one life – you know what I’m saying? The first half has been pretty good :)))
Off to England on Friday for a month. Will have a week in Hungary at some point. Not sure where my warm clothes are but they are not here with me in Malaysia. This I know! If you see someone wearing shorts and a camouflage t-shirt at Heathrow this will be me.
If you have stayed at Belum Rainforest Resort or Belum Eco Resort then please do Ashly a huge favour and fill out her survey for her. It’s for her MBA research.
Have a great week! James is on Tuesday.
Cheers, Paul