Tiago Costa

7 January 2013
by Tiago Costa
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Going tri, like in triathlon aiming for the Half Ironman distance

After a bunch of 10K’s, about 10 half-marathons and 3 marathons I find myself looking for a bigger challenge. I’m not sure about when I have decided to go for it but by the time I ran my last marathon I know I had already decided I would like to go a bit further.

I had been thinking about it for a while and since I have been focusing almost exclusively on running, the logic next step would be to attempt an ultra-marathon, which, for the sake of honesty, is not out of my plans, but another thing crossed my mind…

It all started by the beginning of May 2012 when I went for a walk at Parque das Nações here in Lisbon and I saw some people finishing some kind of run. It hit me that there must be something else to it when I noticed the finishing time was around 6 hours, which is a lot for most runs. I did my due diligence and I found out those people were finishing a triathlon event. After doing a little more research I also found there are several triathlon challenges that differ mainly on the distance one has to swim, bike and run… and what I saw was a bunch of people finishing a Ironman 70.3 (also know as Half Ironman).

I immediately started looking for information online and going for a triathlon seemed like a good idea, specially because I like to train hard but that way I would be given the chance to cross train, which is a good way to save my knees for when I’m older! So the Half Ironman is an event with 1.9Km swim, 90Km biking and 21Km running and it seemed to be enough of a challenge 😉

As soon as I finished the marathon in Porto I decided that was the right time to start training for the Half Ironman in Lisbon which is taking place in May meaning I had about 6 months to train, which is not too much bearing in mind I have not been swimming since my early teens and that I ride my mountain bike every now and then for just a couple of km for fun (or when I was hurt on my knee).

After deciding I was going for it and knowing it was feasible to get in shape in 6 months and challenged a friend of mine (hi JC!) who had just finished his first half marathon a couple weeks ago. Anyway, he was brave (or crazy) enough to take the challenge and so we have been training for the Half Ironman since then.

My experience with the undergoing training is that it is very good because you get the chance to cross train but it takes a lot more commitment to do it, when compared to training for the marathon for instance. You can easily skip 2 or 3 training days without major damage, but training for the triathlon you need to make sure you keep swimming, biking and running very frequently so off days are kind of a setback. Plus the logistics is much tougher because you need more time to train (anywhere between 6 and 12 hours per week), you need to go to the swimming pool and also to the sea for open water swim, you need to find a nice and hopefully safe road to ride long km, you need a road bike and perhaps a rack on your car to carry it around, so things get a bit trickier, specially compared to running where a pair of shorts and running shoes do the trick.

Anyway I could not be happier with this decision. So far training is going smoothly, apart from biking where we need to log many more km but we only recently got ourselves decent bikes. There is still lots of training hours to put in, specially on the bike and swimming but I think we will make it. Its is not always easy to manage the schedule with work, family, pets, friends and training, but with some commitment and some cutting back 1 or 2 hours of sleep every couple of days I believe it’s doable.

Just to finish I must say that it was also an inspiration meeting António Nascimento, some weeks ago, which is The Ultraman, having finished the UK / Wales Ultraman challenge which is a 3 day event of 320 miles of swimming, biking and running. It is really a challenge for extraordinary athletes not only because of the physical condition required but also because of the will power needed to endure such an outstanding effort. After looking at it the Half Ironman seems like some child’s game.

I will be posting more on our training for the Half Ironman because we have been learning a lot about it everyday. Stay tuned!

10 December 2012
by Tiago Costa
3 Comments

Kitesurfing in Cuba – Cayo Guillermo – Kitetrip Report

I’m writing this on board of a 747 departed from Havana and heading to Cayo Guillermo. We just understood the plane is yet to make a small stop to leave some passengers on the opposite direction I must add. In fact it just started its descent.

We have now been traveling for about 30 hours since we left Lisbon’s airport yesterday morning. We have flied to Madrid and then to Cuba on a long 10 hour flight to meet a very dark Havana! We only had time for a 4 hour sleep before heading back to the airport again. We had a nice quick dinner and already saw lots of old Cuban cars.

On our short stay we have already noticed that Havana is kind of stuck in the 1950’s. We stayed at the Habana Libre hotel which must have been a luxury spot… 50 years ago 😉

Although it is not our first kite trip, traveling with 6 kites, 4 boards and the all the assorted gear (kite bars, harness, pump, yada yada yada) it’s proving to be a bit of a challenge (1st world problems anyway). Overweight bags, extra luggage fees and distributing gear on several bags is always a pain. Anyway if everything arrives to Cayo Guillermo, our final destination, it will be ok!

And it did, as I write this we are lounging by the pool again at the Habana Livre hotel waiting for our transfer to the airport to get back home.

We stayed at the Hotel Melia Cayo Guillermo which is nice but not more than that. I mean the beach is indeed fabulous, almost as good as the ones we found in the Maldives but the amenities still have a long way to go. I mean I was expecting a superior hotel, it would hardly be a 3 star back in Europe, even if the beach is jaw dropping the infra-structure and service is sub par. The resort feels like it is stuck some 20 or 30 years back in time and it needs some maintenance. The service is not so good (shattered glasses served at the table, bedsheets with holes in it…) and the employees are only willing to do their best if you leave them some CUC’s (which is the tourist’s currency in Cuba, which is converted directly from EUR or USD – although if you can choose take EUR to exchange because the conversion will be better). Apart from that the food is also not so good and since we were on a all inclusive package that sucks.

Kitesurf – Cayo Guillermo Cuba

Now, on to the great things, because we also had plenty of those 😉 we were there for almost 7 full days and we had wind everyday. During two half days the wind was weak like 6/8 knots, but then we had everything between 11/18 knots. I would say most days we had 12/14 knots meaning you should take a big kite (12m would be the best size for that spot) but you should also take a 7/9m, depending on your size, because sometimes it will blow those nice 18 knots on top of that turquoise waters and you will put it to good use!

The kite spot is huge and the place where we stayed is the less crowded one. Most of the times we had like 500m of beach shore only for ourselves which is pretty cool, specially for the beginners traveling with us. From Melia Cayo Guillermo you can easily ride about 2km to your left and about 5/6km to your right, when facing the ocean. The water is mostly flat or with very small waves. If you are looking for completely flat water you must ride to your right where you will find lots of “lagoons” with flat and waist deep water (good for beginners or freestyle). The spot is really really beautiful with white sands and crystal clear water – a good photo album is guaranteed. You will also be able to stand on foot on most places which is good in case you loose your board or something. The wind direction varies a bit but it always blows on shore – it seems to me the most frequent and stronger direction is NE. All the riders there seemed to be outsiders and the crowd is friendly. There were lots of people from Canada over there because they can fly for 3.5 hours directly from Toronto and Montreal to Cayo Coco making it very appealing.

Kitesurf – Cayo Guillermo Cuba

To sum it up it is quite a paradise for kiting, at least in November, it is not so perfect because the resorts are only average (the one where we stayed is supposed to be the best on in Cayo Guillermo) but not top notch, specially considering they charge a bit more then they should considering what they have to offer. So I really enjoyed kiting over there and I do recommend the spot but I would not consider going back soon until they improve the resort and service quality.

But, there is still some more to tell about this trip, we spent the last 36 hours of our trip in La Habana and of course if it is worth to write a little about it. I must start by saying that most people I know that have been there have all enjoyed the city, but, I still can’t figure that out. I mean, La Habana has generally the same problems we found at Cayo Guillermo (poor service and even worst infrastructures) but I guess that was to be kind of expected.

La Habana looks like it must have been something before “la revolucion” – some even say it was he Las Vegas of the east coast and I can believe that, because if most of the buildings were built around 1950 it really is something. But then everything got stuck, without any maintenance whatsoever, so apart from a couple of buildings, most are in very bad shape (broken windows, shattered walls and ceilings, dirt all over…) – it really is not my thing.

Old American Car – La Habana

Plus there is a lot of pollution because most of the cars used by the cubans are the old “hot rod” american type, huge, heavy and poorly maintained (even if they told me that most engines have been changed by diesel models) meaning they leave lots of smoke behind and use 12/20 liters of diesel per 100km! On a side note I was also told the cheaper gas costs about 1 USD per liter, which means it it cheaper than in Portugal (they import it from Venezuela).

Habana Club – El Ron de Cuba

So, there are some nice touristy spots worth checking out like Plaza Vieja, La Bodeguita del Medio, Floridita, El Capitolio, Paseo del Prado, Museo del Rum and Plaza de la Revolucion, there is also some nice cuban atmosphere at some places, but the rest is a mess (pollution, dirt, partially destroyed buildings, poor service to tourists, really pushy taxi drivers or tourist guides).

People told us that there is no hunger in Cuba but from what I saw people don’t really live well either. There is a lot of “propaganda” everywhere and they mostly blame the US for everything bad that happens there, even when I think the real reason is the political regime that does not encourage people to perform anything really well, keeping the country stuck, decade after decade.

On a final note I would not recommend traveling to Cuba unless you have any special interest in it (be it kiting, political research or something) or if you have already visited all the countries in your travelers list.

La Bodeguita del Medio – La Habana – Cuba

12 November 2012
by Tiago Costa
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Running Porto’s Marathon

Maratona do Porto

Two weeks ago I was fortunate enough to run Porto’s Marathon (28th October 2012)!

I had been training since August, or should I say since Copenhagen Marathon, because in fact I never did stop training and this Summer I was able to log more km than I usually do during the warmer months.

During the two weeks preceding the marathon my left knee was showing some not so good signs. There was no real pain but there was a discomfort every time I pushed a little harder, so I tried not so push so much and just lowered my expectations for race day. Besides that, the last week before the race was really stressful at the agency and I thought I didn’t had enough rest to make a great run.

Anyway I went to Porto aiming to finish the race anywhere between 3h30 and 3h45 and looking forward not put myself through any severe knee damage (as I did in Barcelona’s Marathon).

The day was pretty cold and windy for this time of the year and I remember chilling just before the start. The sun was shining which is always a good thing but still the day was pretty cold. I have not sweated much with the low temperature and all the wind.

The course starts with a steep hill climb to “Rotunda da Boavista” but then you just roll down towards the sea for a few km and that was good to bring up the pace a little bit. Anyway getting near the sea was only about 8km, so there was still a lot of tarmac to pound. The course then goes toward Matosinhos with a turn around point near Porto de Leixões. By that time we got a strong head wind, being more notorious when we reached the shore again. At that moment the people running a separate 15km Family Race went away to the finish line while the marathoners kept going to Ponte D. Luís where we would run through Afurada for the next turn around point. Then back again to Ponte D. Luís and on to Freixo, with the last turn around point. Around the 15th km I partnered with two other runners and we went together till the end. It was good for me they were a couple of seconds below my pace so I forced myself to keep up and that made me go through the last 7km somewhat faster than I would have done by my own.

It was a good thing that the knee didn’t give me any problem and if only the wind was lighter I think I could have reduced my time 2 or 3 minutes overall.

All that being said I finished with 3h20m11s (4m44s/km) and that’s a PB.

BTW, I have already chosen my next sports challenge and it’s going to be something a bit harder. Stay tuned 😉

Race stats:
10KM – 47m33s
21KM – 1h40m02s
30KM – 2h21m50s
Ranking: Overall #307; Age Group: #68

26 September 2012
by Tiago Costa
3 Comments

Huawei E1550 USB Stick on Mac OS X Mountain Lion

About 1 year ago I was having trouble to have Huawei E1550 USB Stick working on Mac OS X Lion. A couple of days I have upgraded to Max OS X Mountain Lion and even using Migration Assistant this configuration was lost from my laptop.

Anyway I have found that you can still use the same drivers to make it work with Mountain Lion, in fact I just did it because I needed the stick to work. If you are having trouble please grab the drivers and follow the instructions here.

If you have any tips that might help others please leave a comment on this post and I will update it as it seems there are quite a lot of people looking for this out there.

24 September 2012
by Tiago Costa
1 Comment

Macbook Pro Upgrade: SSD & Mountain Lion

I am the proud owner of a Macbook Pro (late 2008 model) and with two OS upgrades (from Leopard to Snow Leopard and then to Lion) this laptop was not running as smooth as I would like it to be. This is the first Mac I bought to work and it has been my main computer for almost 4 years now.

When Apple released their new shining thing, the Retina MBP I immediately browsed the online store, only to realize that the configuration that could support another 4 years and justify the investment would be a 3k€ laptop, which is quite expensive (16 Gb RAM and 512 Gb SSD drive). Besides speed the laptop is most likely the same which left me thinking twice about shedding such a huge sum just for that – I’m not interested in Retina display because most of the time I work with an external screen.

That is when I started wondering about an upgrade for my current MBP. I could go from 4 to 6 Gb RAM (unfortunately this motherboard won’t take 8 Gb) and I could also look into a new SSD drive. From what I read on the internetz I could figure the SSD drive would really make a difference so at about 150€ I decided to give it a go, buying a 256 GB SSD (Samsung 830 Series).

Last Friday I came home thinking about a lost to the laptop weekend, but to my surprise Apple really makes this kind of procedure very easy and much less time consuming than Windows (I always feared laptop re-installs in Windows with all the trouble and without a proper full backup solution – I still remember those days when you had to re-install Windows, install each piece of software on top and then waste 2 days until everything is set just like in the old machine).

This is because I had never tried a clean install and installing everything again (applications and all the settings) on a Mac – but really, Mac OS Migration Assistant really is up to the job.

In my case, since I was also doing a drive upgrade I decided to go ahead with a clean install of Mountain Lion. For this I have followed the steps described here. So after a while I found myself preparing an 8Gb flash drive with Mountain Lion. After that I made sure that my time machine backup was fully updated and then it was time to grab the screwdriver. Opening the battery compartment you access the drive and I just removed the old Hitachi hard drive and slipped in the Samsung SSD.

Turning the laptop on, with the flash drive on the usb port and pressing the Option key will give you the menu that allows you to install Mountain Lion on the new drive. So after about 30 minutes the new OS is up and running. By then I could already figure that the new drive was really a lot faster, but that could still change when I filled the drive with all my apps, files and settings. So using Migration Assistant I was able to bring everything and I mean everything from apps, to files and all settings to the freshly installed version of ML. It took about 4 hours to copy everything from an external hard drive.

After that it took about 1 to 2 hours to import all messages into Mail.app – which is as easy as clicking a button reading “Import”. After that Spotlight also had some indexing to do, so I went for a run and left it going. When I returned it was finished and I had my “new” laptop, working just like the day before except that it is now a lot faster to launch applications and also to boot. It also seems to me this drive is more energy efficient because my tired battery that would usually power the laptop for about 1 hour, now seems to be near 2 hours.

So if you are wondering if you should buy a new MBP or upgrade your current one, you should consider upgrading to a new SSD, because with a 150€ price tag you can’t go wrong adding another 1 to 2 years to your current laptop.

Update [26th September]: I found out that the Migration Assistant missed the tranfer of my /private/etc/hosts files (where I happen to have lots of entries for projects without DNS record) and also my 3G USB Stick configuration – which I happen to have here.

10 September 2012
by Tiago Costa
1 Comment

Modern civilization and the pursuit of happiness

I’ve just watched this “food for thought” speech from José Pepe Mujica at Rio+20 Conference held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in mid June 2012. He makes some points very clear like the unsustainable modern lifestyle where we need more and more consumption just to keep the economy going and where one is never satisfied and we always want to own more and more things.

One interesting remarks he makes: he asks if we would still be able to breath if all of India’s population owned as many cars and the Germans do.

What it here…

19 August 2012
by Tiago Costa
0 comments

Kite trip planning, best spots and tips for riders

Here in Portugal we have good winds starting in May and up to September, but then good windy days are scarce. Even if one can still catch some good days during the rest of the year, they are not as consistent and usually the bad weather brings gusty winds which are not so good. This will probably leave you without riding for 2 to 4 weeks, and stress starts to settle in 😉

That is why all kite addicts I know (me included) try to sneak a week or two (if you’re lucky) anywhere away from home in a windy and probably also warm place during the winter. I have been in Brazil twice for kiting and have also been in Sal island in Cape Vert.

Note: this is a long post, written as a memo to the gang so we can keep track of all the options we might want to explore. Use this information and your own risk and please make sure to use the comments to send in any corrections or inputs about spots you may know! Most of the spots covered here work during the northern hemisphere winter, which is what we were looking for.

Brazil
Speaking purely in terms of kiting the northern part of Brazil, starting in Fortaleza (Cumbuco) and going north is pure rider nirvana. The sea water is hot (25C), the weather is also hot (28/32C) and the winds seems to be unstoppable, picking up at 9 in the morning (you can ride with a big kite > 9m) and then really blasting your mind with some powerful but smooth 20/25 knots around mid day (and a smaller kite < 9m ). If you still want stronger winds just go north and you’ll find Prea ou Jericocoara where you can ride with 30/35 knots (gusty winds anyway not as smooth as Cumbuco). You can also chose either to ride flat water in the numerous lagoons you will find or ride the waves at the sea. If you’re looking purely into kiting, you will not regret flying to Fortaleza.

Sal – Cape Vert
In Cape Vert you also find very good conditions and you will take home postcard like photos, in clear blue waters. The sea water is also hot (24C) and the wind is consistent, although not as consistent and strong as in Brazil. You can ride the kitebeach, aka “shark’s bay”, Santa Maria on the south part of the island and if you are an experienced wave rider you can try Ponta Preta where the wind blows purely offshore but you will find the best swell (and probably find Mitu Monteiro working his magic). In Sal you can only ride at the sea, so this is not the best place for the freestyle fan boys, because the sea is always choppy. Go here for more details.

So now we have been thoroughly researching new places for a kite trip and I decided to post it here because me and the guys (hi there!) have already invested several hours searching for the best spots that would suit riders as well as non riders (as in girlfriends and wifes 🙂 Most of the times the spots are too windy for non riders to bear for a session’s time (2 to 5 hours?) and that is why we are looking for places where we can find a decent hotel near the kite spot so we can all be together most of the time.

So if you are trying to put together a kite trip for the end of the year (say December or even January) I think you will find this post very useful. I will try to gather here all the information, pros and cons we have found during our extensive research. I must say that the compilation of all this details would not be possible without the help of the rest of the gang. The conditions and prices for all this trips vary a lot, so you will find different options here.

The research was conducted using several sites:
– Wind Finder and Windguru (which give you wind probability for each month of the year based on the spot track record)
– Wind Resorts (offering lots of details of the best seasons and useful tourist information)
– Need2Kite (atlas type information and some community comments/ratings on spots around the world)
– Destination Kiteboarding (general spot information)
– Tropical Paradise Kitesurfing (idem).
No animals were hurt during the research project.

Boracay – Philippines
Wind: 4*
Season: December to April
Pros: consistent wind, white sand beaches, it’s always nice to travel to Asia
Cons: only one spot to kite and it seems like the kite beach is becoming very polluted. Expensive. Very long flights (up to 30h airborne)

Barbados
Wind: 4*
Season: December to February
Pros: white sand beaches, some different spots to kite, nice weather, fairly short flight
Cons: no hotels near the kite spots, it seems like it is more suited for experienced riders

Aruba
Wind: 4*
Season: February to July; decent wind in December according to wind stats
Pros: some different spots to kite, fairly short flight
Cons:

Turks & Caicos
Wind: 4*
Season: December to February
Pros: very remote place with excellent resorts and breath taking sights
Cons: very remote place 😉 and the pricey excellent resorts

Curacao
Wind: 3*
Season: February to June
Pros:
Cons: only one kite spot (?) – Joris Bay
Note: could not find much information. Probably not a strong kite spot.

Bahamas
Wind: 3*
Season: October to March
Pros: crystal clear water and white sand beaches. Snorkeling and diving.
Cons: no consistent wind. Probably one needs to fly out of Nassau into another island. Expensive.

Cabarete – Dominican Republic
Wind: 4*
Season: May to September
Pros: easy in and out
Cons: for the purpose of this research there are few windy days during winter in Europe
Tip: lots of information here

La Ventana – Mexico
Wind: 4*
Season: November to March
Pros:
Cons:

Cozumel – Mexico
Wind: 3*
Season: March to May
Pros: seems like a really nice place to kite and relax at the beach, fairly acessible
Cons: short kite season
Tip: more information here

St. Martin
Wind: 3*
Season:
Pros: looks like a nice place but couldn’t find much information. Offers some different kite spots
Cons: it is probably not easily accessible.
Tip: Orient Bay seems to be to top spot (map).

Los Roques – Venezuela
Wind: 3*
Season: December to August
Pros:
Cons: couldn’t find nice place to stay near the kite spot

Margarita / El Yaque – Venezuela
Wind: 3*
Season: January to June
Pros:
Cons: couldn’t find many hotels to choose from (in fact found only one)

Jamaica
Wind: 2*
Tip: it seems it is not very consistent for kitesurfing – details here

This research is not yet finished but I felt like sharing the things we found out right away.
I will keep updating this post as we research new kite spots around the world!

Other spots requiring further research

Madagascar
Wind: ?
I still didn’t find the time to investigate, but here is a nice place to stay – http://www.babaomby.com/lodge/tarifs/

Grenadines – Union Island
Wind: ?
It seems like you should fly in from Barbados (there are direct flights from London to Bridgetown) but then you still have to fly out Union Island.
More details here
http://www.inmotionkitesurfing.com/2012/the-grenadines-kite-spot-guide
and here
http://www.kitesurfcat.com/

11 July 2012
by Tiago Costa
0 comments

Intuitive design via @lukew

There is yet another excellent post from @lukew from where I have extracted some insights:

An intuitive design is invisible. Good design is invisible. It is like air conditioning –you don’t notice it until something is wrong.

A design is intuitive when the knowledge gap is really small. In other words, it’s easy for people to bridge from current knowledge to target knowledge.

Redesigns can increase the gap between current and target knowledge. People know how to use things and we switch things up on them.

We always want tool time to be lower. Amazon One-click eliminates tool time entirely. Walgreens scanning app for prescription renewals is another exmaple.

The “gap” between current knowledge and target knowledge is where design happens.

If you’re into interface design and UX read it all here.

10 July 2012
by Tiago Costa
0 comments

New business at an agency near you

I’ve just come across this post about new business. From my experience it is a very real and 3D picture (well, maybe it’s only 2D because no Client is being heard here 😉 of the challenged involved in new business tasks on the agency side.

I can related myself to a few of the experiences described over here. Just have a look at it, even if you are on the Client side because I believe there is lots of room for improvement both ways.

Read it here.

BTW, agencies are one the few types of businesses I can remember that will build something completely tailor made to one Client just to check whether he will be interested in buying. Try that with a home builder or even a furniture maker and you’ll see if he would be willing to satisfy your demand.