Georgia

I landed in Georgia this past Sunday afternoon and have been on the go ever since I landed. The typical working hours here are 10am until around 7pm. Each night this week, we've also been to dinner with customers and our local partners here in Tbilisi. A typical Georgian dinner involves a lot of great food (pesticides are illegal here, so everything is organic) and a lot of vodka. For each dinner a "Tamada" is appointed, and he's responsible for all the toasts for the night, and all proper toasts end with a shot of vodka, so depending on the tamada, it can turn into a rough night in a hurry.

There are a few places that we always seem to end up going to dinner - among them is what Kevin and I have nicknamed the "Winfield - Tbilisi". The Winfield is our local neighborhood bar back in Rochester and the Winfield - Tbilisi is our friend and local partner Ivane's local bar (he lives 30 feet from the door) and is a regular. Ivane is an extremely successful business owner and is involved in a lot of different industries in Tbilisi. He's also an an absolute party animal - this is extremely difficult to explain to people that haven't met him, but the best analogy I can make is that Lebron James was born to play basketball, Wayne Gretzky was born to play hockey, Lance Armstrong was born to ride a bike and Ivane was born to party like a rock star and wake up the next day on 2 hours sleep and function like a kick-ass business man (which he is as well). Pictured below is Temuri, Irakli Kevin and Alex after a dinner at the Winfield - Tbilisi.

We did have a little down time on Wednesday and Lasha (who works for our dealer) took us to a cave city outside of Tbilisi that was built in the 7th century BC. It was quite a unique place. Here's a picture of Kevin Lasha and I standing outside of the royal palace of the cave city.

I also managed to get in some decent workouts in the morning, usually between 45min to an hour on the treadmill. Not exactly the type of volume that is ideal, but better than nothing. Running on a treadmill for an hour is also a test of mental toughness, as it's probably the most mind-numbing workout I can think of.

This was a very productive trip for work, but also pretty exhausting. Right now, I'm back home, it took 28 hours to get home yesterday and my luggage is still in Istanbul (supposedly). I'm pretty beat, but the temperatures here in Rochester are cold and it's pumping me up for some quality training this weekend! We may even see a few flakes of snow later on today.