Yesterday I participated in the Balboa Challenge 2026. It was a fun adventure, we had to complete 10 activities. Half of them involved us getting wet, so it really felt like a little summer adventure. We got seriously lucky with the weather: full sun and a good 30 degrees.

The decision to join this challenge comes from my closest friends: the Spageritas. Our friendship started 2 years ago with this challenge, and after we were not able to participate last year, Max proposed to do it all together again. I am super grateful he took charge of it, since lately I have been focusing on other things. To participate in it, I also took a Saturday off from a very important training of the week: the Team Training at Los Feliz.

Unfortunately though, Sara was injured and Steffi was not in the right mood to participate. So we had to find some new brave people to join our adventure: Lars and Rike. They are a very cool couple we got to meet through Steffi and the day before the challenge they decided to join us. I was very happy that at the end both Steffi and Sara decided to still join and cheer for us.

The 10 challenges were:

• Indiana Jones (8 points)
• Spongebob Squarepants (8 liters)
• The Da Vinci Code (3.14 min)
• Mission Impossible (5 lines)
• Pirates of the Caribbean (9 laps)
• The Avengers (130, 80, 150, 190)
• Point Break (11 rings)
• Into the blue (9 laps)
• Ice Age (no clue)
• Bend it like Beckham (27)

I am not going to spoil most of the challenges, but it was a cool day. Everyone had their moment: Lars really was Beckham with a soft ball, Rike swam like a mermaid fishing rings out of the river, and Max basically carried us through every water activity. From my side I was happy that I could help a lot in The Avengers game which was literally deadlifting with a trap bar.

We finished 3rd and it not bad for a team assembled the day before. The Spageritas are back, and I have a feeling we won’t skip next year’s edition.