Every last Saturday of February, a must read for the weekend comes out: the letter to the Shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway by its CEO. For decades this was Warren Buffett’s letter, today it was the first such letter by Greg Abel [PDF, 91kB], the new CEO of the company, after Buffett stepped aside, remaining as chairman of the board.
To publish Abel’s letters they have created a new section in the rather rustic website of the conglomerate:
The new CEO chose the following words to open his first letter to the shareholders:
To My Fellow Berkshire Shareholders,
He then dedicated some lines of tribute to his predecessor and later to Charlie Munger.
The overarching theme of this year’s letter was to emphasize the culture and values of Berkshire, which he is fully committed to preserve, as he reflected by sharing this past comment:
Charlie’s comment on May 1, 2021, that “Greg will keep the culture” will forever resonate with me. It was a reminder that our culture is our most treasured asset, a call to maintain what defines Berkshire, and a challenge to ensure our culture continues.
Before discussing the performance of the different business in 2025 he chose to share a letter he sent earlier this year to the employees, which he commented by adding further context and details at some points.
I share below some excerpts that called my attention.
On integrity, recalling the past:
… we played a clip from Warren’s 1991 Salomon Brothers Congressional testimony: “Lose money for the firm, and I will be understanding; lose a shred of reputation for the firm, and I will be ruthless.”
We know integrity is not a quality you admire on a shelf; it is an active quality that must be earned, re-earned, and maintained daily.
On the group’s financial strength:
… financial strength by using debt sparingly and prudently.
On the line between being a responsible company (integrity) accountable for its actions and defending its shareholders;
Where responsibility does not exist, it will continue to seek judicial relief. Accountability, paired with principled opposition to unwarranted liability, is essential to preserving the regulatory compact that governs utilities.
On its main equity investments, four American companies (Apple, American Express, Coca-Cola, and Moody’s; combined market value of these investments $158.6bn) and five Japanese ones ($35bn):
Taking these positions together, at year-end they totaled $194 billion in market value, representing nearly two-thirds of our $297.8 billion equity securities portfolio, providing combined dividends of $2.5 billion and yielding 10% on their original cost basis of $24.5 billion.
I also like the explanation of how the fire at Precision Castparts was handled, when discussing operational excellence:
Finally, he closed the letter by sharing some details about the annual shareholders meeting next May 2nd, where he confirmed he will be on stage to answer questions from the audience. The exercise will be a more choral one, compared to the old days of Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger, though in the last years Greg Abel and Ajit Jain already joined Buffett on stage.
This year’s program will include a CEO’s update on Berkshire, and two Q&A sessions – one with Ajit and me, and a second featuring Katie Farmer (BNSF), Adam Johnson (NetJets and president of consumer products, service, and retailing), and me, where Katie and Adam will discuss the challenges and opportunities they see in their respective businesses.
A new era at Berkshire Hathaway is starting.
Greg Abel at the 2025 annual shareholders meeting and his signature of the letter.
Last Sunday, February 22nd, together with my friends Juan, Nacho and brother Jaime, we traveled to Castellón to take part in its marathon, with a bit less than 1,000 runners registered in the distance.
We picked Castellón to celebrate Juan’s 50th birthday and following our series of marathons abroad (to combine tourism with long distance running) that has taken some of us to run together in Paris, Berlin, Roma, Athens, Rotterdam, New York, Sevilla (x3), Madrid, Millau, Dublin (x2), Lisboa, Vienna, Krakow, Porto, Bucharest, Malaga, Alicante and now Castellón. We also counted with the presence of Balint, a Hungarian runner whom we had met before in Vienna (2018).
Nacho, Jaime, me and Juan.
To prepare for this marathon I should have followed the same 16-week training plan I had used in the past. However, since I had previously run the marathon in Alicante, by that date we were already in the 13 weeks prior to the one in Castellón. I only ran a couple of times in December and a bit more in January, so in the end I arrived at Castellón with292km in the legs in those 16 weeks, much less than I would have liked (barely half the training volume that I had cumulated before Alicante). I chose to skip the series training, as being overweight (96kg the day after the race), the series would hurt the Achilles tendon. I only did a couple of long runs in those 16 weeks: the 42km marathon in Alicante (November 30th) and a 20km run in early February. To make it even worse, just 8 days prior to the race day I had a small injury in the left calf (I suffered a similar one when preparing for Malaga in 2024), so during the last week I did not run but only did three sessions of elliptical riding.
With that disastrous training behind I only expected to finish the race in a time between 4h15′ and 4h30′, with the final mark uncertain, and I would start with the 4h15′ pacers.
Weekly mileage (Alicante marathon at week 4)
The profile in Castellón is rather flat. The organization prepared a circuit composed of several long avenues in the city centre, then taking us by the seaside, 4km away from the centre, by the port of Grau around the half marathon, going North up to the aerodrome and back to the centre for the last 12km. All in all the circuit wasn’t very scenic or appealing, but the organization was good, with supply posts every 2-3 kilometers and several music bands and DJs (including a local one by the name Serrucho, of certain fame).
Race circuit
The temperature was a bit fresh in the morning (~8°C), the sky was clear and it would be a bit warmer towards the end of the race, though the temperature did not exceed 19°C. My strategy was to start at a pace just below 6min per km, with the group of 4h15′ (which also started a bit faster) to build up some margin, and then, whenever I started to feel the lack of preparation, manage the situation the best I could.
Before the race
The race started at 9:17am. Nacho had already departed with the 10k race. Juan and Balint went with the 4h pacers, I went with the 4h15′ group and Jaime a bit behind. We wished luck to each other and ran separately. I ran at comfortably until km 26; with the 4h15 pack until km 12 and around 100 meters ahead of them later. I didn’t feel and pain or injury. However, at the km 26 I felt that I couldn’t keep up with that pace any longer, hence I softened it. Later, from km 29, I needed to walk for some short stretches of ~100m here and there.
At around the km 33 I met Juan again and we ran at times together, or ahead one from the other. I also show a couple of times among the cheering crowd Nacho (who had finished his race long before) and Fran, another of Juan’s friends who came over for the weekend.
Running the last 3-4 kilometers
In the end, I clocked a net time of 4h26’19”, a time a bit worse than the best part of the bracket I had in mind, but as expected given the weight with which I arrived at the race and the incomplete training that I followed. This has been my 26th marathon completed, easy to say today but not so on April 30th 2000 when I started in the distance in Madrid.
With those 4h26’19”, I was again above the 4-hour mark and finished in the 783th place out of 891 finishers (12% percentile). That time makes it my 3rd worst marathon, though with a positive feeling of having completed another marathon, another year doing at least one marathon, less than 3 months after the previous one. I am now looking forward to the next one, hopefully with a better preparation and lower weight.
This was the 15th marathon organized in Castellón. The organization of the race was very good. They offered a wardrobe service at the gym of a school nearby, including toilets and showers. They included plenty of water supply posts (with bottles), isotonic drinks (paper cups), some food (bananas), and gels (up to three times). It was a good experience.
Juan, Jaime and meRace diploma
During the weekend we had the chance to meet and discuss with some other runners with over 100 or even over 400 marathons completed (we had seen some of them back in Alicante in November). This was already their 5th marathon in 2026 (!), as they are running over 20 per year.
Balint, Fran, Nacho, Jaime, “Gocho sombrilla”, Juan and me.“Gocho sombrilla”, Dani (a regular pacer), Juan, me and Jaime.
Back in 2015, I wrote a post about the all-time best long jumps and Carl Lewis as a jumper. This is a quick update to see how the situation has evolved in the last decade.
With the data of all-time men’s long jump I plotted the chart below with the best 2,823 jumps (jumps from 8.20m and longer) and their dates, highlighting the jumps made by Carl Lewis, Mike Powell, Bob Beamon, Larry Myricks and Ivan Pedroso (only taking into account “legal” jumps, i.e., those with tail winds of a maximum 2.0 m/s).
The first quick fact is that in the past 10 years there have been 587 just long jumps, added to the 2,236 that had been achieved earlier.
All-time men’s best long jump.
Carl Lewisretired in 1997. His last great competition was the Olympic Games of Atlanta in 1996 (where, by the way, he collected a gold medal with a 8.50m jump at age 35).
Now, in February 2026, 28 years later, of the best 214 long jumps ever (all those at or above 8.50m), 55 of those jumps (a 25.7%) correspond to Carl Lewis. I’ll let you qualify the feat.
That was Carl Lewis the jumper.
Some more comments after looking at the chart:
Carl Lewis holds 127 of the 2,823 jumps (4.5%) at 8.20m and longer
Larry Myricks holds 230 of the 2,823 jumps (8.1%) at 8.20m and longer
Mike Powell 157 of the 2,823 jumps (5.6%) at 8.20m and longer
Ivan Pedroso 147 of the 2,823 jumps (5.2%) at 8.20m and longer
Other notable athletes in the event were Bob Beamon (with just 4 jumps over 8.20 but one of them 8.90m, achieved in Mexico City in 1968, world record for over 22 years), Robert Emmiyan (31 such jumps and 8.86m, the 4th best ever jump), Dwight Phillips (95 such jumps and a best of 8.74m), Erick Walder (53 jumps and 8.74m as best one), Irvin Saladino (62 and 8.73m), James Beckford (133 and 8.62m), Luvo Manyonga (83 and 8.65m), Miltiadis Tentoglou (73 and 8.65m)…
Now let’s look at those jumps of 8.60m or longer (best 79 jumps ever):
Only 16 athletes ever jumped that long
Carl Lewis holds 30 of the 79 jumps (38%) at 8.60m and longer
Ivan Pedroso holds 9 of the 79 jumps (11.4%) at 8.60m and longer
Mike Powell holds 7 of the 79 jumps (8.9%) at 8.60m and longer
Dwight Phillips, Larry Myricks and Luvo Manyonga hold each of them 5 of the 79 jumps (6.3%) at 8.60m and longer
The other 10 athletes hold 3 such jumps or less
To put into perspective the long jumps of the 1980s and 1990s:
The gold medal in the last World championship in Tokyo 2025 was won by Mattia Furlani with 8.39m
The gold medal in the last Olympic Games in Paris 2024 was won by Miltiadis Tentoglou with 8.48m
The best jumps in the last two years were: 8.46m in 2025 and 8.65m (twice), all by Tentoglou
I believe it would be interesting to share again the Tokyo World Championship long jump competition of 1991, when Mike Powell managed to set a new long jump world record (8.95m), 22 years after Bob Beamon had set the previous one in Mexico City (8.90). Find the explanation from the Wikipedia here. Despite losing it, Carl Lewis managed the following four jumps in that competition: 8.91 (wind aided, therefore it doesn’t count for world record and best ever jumps), 8.87, 8.84, 8.68 and 8.56. The first 3 jumps would have won any competition in history except 3, including the two world records referred. Unluckily for Lewis, these jumps got him only a silver medal.
See that competition here:
Finally, I find it interesting to see that since 1991 there hasn’t been any jump beyond 8.75m (20cm less than the record), only two jumps beyond 8.70.
I plotted the chart below showing the numbers of jumps at and given distance per decade, with the cut off reference year in 1991.
Long jumps beyond 8.20m per decade
I also compiled in this table the number of jumps beyond 8.20 per decade and the number of different athletes jumping beyond that distance.
We see that from the 1970s to the 1980s there was a great increase in the number of long jumps beyond 8.20 (x6) and also in the number of athletes (x3) achieving those jumps.
After the peak performance in the summer of 1991 with the new world record in the competition described above, in the rest of the 1990s the number of those long jumps continued to increase (+32%) as well as the number of athletes jumping beyond 8.20m (+38%), however the peak performance wasn’t there anymore. The floor was higher, but the tail of the curve was shorter.
In the following two decades, 2000s and 2010s, the trend reversed. The volume of jumps beyond 8.20m decreased to the 1980s level, though spread over more athletes and without the peak performances of the 1980s through 1991.
And that is explained because as mentioned above Carl Lewis holds 30 of the 79 jumps (38%) at 8.60m and longer, he was the driving force of the peak performances of the 1980s.
St. John’s College is the third oldest college in the United States, founded in 1696 as King William’s School in Maryland.
In 1937 Stringfellow Barr and Scott Buchanan implemented their big idea, the New Program, which the college still follows today.
At the heart of St. John’s is a liberal arts curriculum focused on reading and discussing many of the greatest books and most important questions in history. This is perhaps the most distinctive undergraduate curriculum of any college in America.
The program can be consulted on their website and it’s subject to some changes (mostly in the elective books which count with some more recent ones). The version I use is this one from some years ago:
St. John’s College Great Books Reading List.
As you can see, the undergraduate program reading list follows some chronological order in the selection of its books for the different years; Freshman, Sophomore, Junior and Senior. In all, the program requires reading over 160 great books in the curriculum and over 20 elective ones.
Scott Buchanan, an American philosopher and educator, met Mortimer J. Adler and Richard McKeon while working at the People’s Institute in New York in the 1920s. There they conceived the idea of setting up this kind of Great Books curriculum, which they pursued with different degrees of success in different institutions. Buchanan tried it at the University of Virginia, the University of Chicago and finally succeeded at St. John’s College. Adler worked on such an initiative together with Buchanan and Robert Maynard Hutchins at the University of Chicago.
Adler and Hutchins later worked to launch the Great Books of the Western World book series, originally published in 1952 by the Encyclopædia Britannica, with 52 volumes in the first edition and 60 in the 1990 edition. This collection eventually sold a million copies. In the presentation of the first edition, Hutchins said:
“This is more than a set of books, and more than a liberal education. Great Books of the Western World is an act of piety. Here are the sources of our being. Here is our heritage. This is the West. This is its meaning for mankind.“
The Great Books of the Western World (2nd edition, 1990) in 60 volumes. Credit: Rdsmith4.
This is a quick post to share the map below, in which the intensity of the color for each country represents this blog’s views in 2025.
Readers’ origin map provided by WordPress.
The blog received in 2025 over 20,800 views. The top 10 countries by the number of views were:
United States, 40.3%
Spain, 11.6%
United Kingdom, 8.5%
France, 6.5%
China, 2.7%
Canada, 2.6%
Germany, 2.3%
Singapore, 1.9%
India, 1.6%
Netherlands, 1.5%
The views from those countries make up for 79.4% of the total traffic.
The last time I made a similar check was in 2012, then the top 10 countries were: USA, Spain, UK, France, Germany, Canada, Netherlands, Australia, Ireland and India. The main changes since then have been the inclusion of China and Singapore in the 2025 top 10 (Australia and Ireland ranked 11th and 13th).
Maurits Cornelis Escher (1898-1972) was a Dutch graphic artist who made several works inspired by mathematics. During most of his life he was neglected but in the last decades he has become a popular artist.
I first came across his work in high school, in art class (in then 1⁰ BUP grade in Spain (~1994-95), equivalent to grade 9). The teacher shared with us some of Escher’s lithographs, among them the Möbius strip.
Möbius strip.
Fast forward to my university time, where in the second year (2000-01) we had a mathematics teacher, Bartolo Luque, who shared some other works from Escher, including his tessellations.
Tessellation.
Years later, this teacher, Luque, published a book on complex numbers (“Números complejos“, which I read in 2023) in which among other curiosities he shared how two Dutch mathematicians, Bart de Smit and Hendrik Lenstra, had approached yet another work by Escher, the Print gallery (Prentententoonstelling), using complex numbers analysis. Departing from complex variables, they applied 3 consecutive transformations: a logarithm (transforming the complex surface, except the origin, into a band), then a rotation and a dilatation, and finally an exponential function. You can find below the description of the steps from the book (in Spanish) and an article about this at the University of Leiden website. Further below I include a photo of the painting taken at the museum.
LogarithmRotation and dilatationExponentialThe Print Gallery.
Finally, in 2024 we visited Escher in the Palace museum in The Hague. It was a fantastic experience, that all the family loved. We could see those paintings that I had seen many years ago and let ourselves be captivated by the details of those works and the mental tricks that he prepared.
Escher in the Palace museum.
The palace itself is also a landmark. Built between 1760 and 1764 for Anthony Patras (a States General representative), it was later bought by the Hope family (financers of the European nobility), Napoleon on his travels through the Netherlands stayed there, and in 1896 it was bought by Queen Emma. The palace belonged to the Royal family until 1990 in which they sold it to the municipality of The Hague.
I leave below some other photos of different pieces of art found at the museum.
Esta es una breve entrada para compartir unos cálculos rápidos a partir de los anuarios “Datos y cifras” publicados por el Ministerio de Educación de España (aquí) y mostrar cómo la educación en colegios concertados no sólo no es una carga para la administración (por mucha demagogia que se haga al respecto) sino que supone un ahorro de más de 7.300 millones de euros al año (con los datos de 2023).
En el año 2023 se destinó a conciertos un 11,4% de un gasto en educaciónde 67.938m€; es decir, ~7.745m€ en conciertos.
Gasto en educación y en conciertos.
En el curso 2023-24 hubo 2,033 millones de estudiantes en escuelas concertadas, un 24,4% de un total de 8,338 millones de estudiantes en enseñanzas de Régimen General. Los estudiantes en escuelas concertadas se encuentran sobre todo en primaria (0,776 millones), en ESO (0,61 millones) e infantil (0,4 millones).
Alumnos en colegios concertados
Es decir la administración gasta ~3.800€ por alumno en educación concertada (resultado de dividir los ~7.745m€ en conciertos entre los 2,033 millones de estudiantes en colegios concertados).
Por otro lado, la administración gasta una media de ~7.400€ por alumno en colegios públicos de entre los que estudian en infantil, primaria y ESO (donde la proporción de alumnos en escuela concertada es mayor; el gasto medio por alumno en escuela pública en general es superior, pero es mayor sobre todo en formación profesional, donde el volumen de concertada es menor, así que es menos representativo).
Gasto por alumno en colegios públicos.
Por tanto, la administración se ahorra por cada alumno en colegios concertados ~3.600€, es decir, la diferencia entre lo que gastaría en ellos si fueran a colegios públicos (7.400€/alumno) y la cifra que dedica a los conciertos (3.800€/alumno).
Si ahora hacemos el cálculo global, obtenemos que 3.600€/alumno * 2,033m alumnos son los 7.300m€ de ahorro anual, con las cifras de 2023.
Colegios privados
Ahora voy a repetir el cálculo para la educación privada usando las mismas fuentes, dejando ya el resultado final: la educación privada ahorra a la administración más de 6.000 millones de euros al año.
En el curso 2023-24 hubo 734 mil estudiantes en colegios privados, un 8,8% del total 8,334 millones de estudiantes. El uso de colegios privados se dio sobre todo en Formación Profesional (0,239m), infantil (0,18m), bachillerato (0,117) y primaria (0,11m).
Alumnos en colegios privados
En el año 2023 el gasto medio por alumno entre todas las etapas en colegios públicos fue de 8.314€ (esta vez sí cojo la media total, dado que la proporción de alumnos en FP en colegios privados es más representativa).
Gasto por alumno en colegios públicos
Por tanto, la administración se ahorra 6.090 millones de euros gracias a la educación privada. Es decir el resultado de multiplicar 8.300€/alumno * 734.000 alumnos en colegios privados.
Es decir, gracias a la educación concertada (~7.300m€) y la educación privada (~6.090m€) la administración se ahorra ~13.400m€ al año.
Esto es un ~19,7% del gasto en educación del año 2023.
Además hay que tener en cuenta que las familias que envían a sus hijos a colegios concertados y privados siguen financiando con sus impuestos los colegios públicos, a pesar de no hacer uso de ellos, dado que en España no hay “cheque escolar”.
Por último, ¿a qué otra partida de gasto público se puede equiparar este ahorro de más de 13.400m€? Si miramos los presupuestos de 2023, es algo superior al presupuesto de Defensa (12.317m€), o algo inferior a la suma de Agricultura, pesca y alimentación (8.414m€) e Industria y energía (5.681m€) juntos.
A few weeks ago we visited with my parents in law the IJsbeelden Festival, the Dutch Ice Sculpture Festival, located in Flevoland. The festival consists of an indoor hall where ice sculptures carved by different international artists are displayed.
The festival opens just for three months in winter (this winter from December 13th, 2025 to Match 8th, 2026). The hall is cooled at -10ºC to keep the sculptures frozen during the festival. Once it’s finished the ice melts down and the water goes back to the lake.
Each year the theme of the festival is different. This winter’s theme is: “Let’s go to the movies: Ice Sculptures from the Silver Screen“. Hence, one of the highlights of the visit was to discover the movie, the scene and characters before reading them, bringing us memories of those cinema classics.
I share some of the pictures we took.
Mary PoppinsIndiana JonesHome aloneGhostbustersHarry PotterBack to the FutureJurassic WorldBarbie
Final comment, if you plan to visit it bring very warm clothes (hats, scarf, (skiing) gloves) as after a few minutes walking in those low temperatures you’ll start to freeze.
For some years of the past decade (2013 to 2017), I wrote a small series of yearly posts comparing the compensation of Airbus and Boeing CEOs (1). This series started out of conversation with colleagues and I kept it updated to have a record of the evolution and for quick reference in other conversations. I then stopped the series. This post is just an update with the information for the 2024 fiscal year.
Many things happened in the industry in those 7 years (2017 to 2024), but if we focus just on the CEOs from both companies: Tom Enders was replaced by Guillaume Faury at the helm of Airbus; at Boeing, Dennis Muilenburg was replaced by David Calhoun who then left the place for Robert Kelly Ortberg.
As both Boeing and Airbus are public companies, the information about their CEOs compensation is public and can be found in the annual report and proxy statement from each one. I just share the information and sources below for comparison and future reference.
Faury had his base salary frozen in relation to 2024 at 1.485M€ (which is lower than Enders’ one at 1.5 M€ in 2017). Variable pay decreased in 13% to 1.69M€, post-employment benefit costs increased, as did share-based remuneration and social charges. In comparison to 2017, the main changes are the following two: 1) that there are no “Termination benefits” in 2024 while in 2017 Enders had announced his departure in 2019, thus the concept included 2.9M€, and 2) the exponential increase of social charges, 1.5M€ in 2024 vs 12k€ in 2017. Thus, the overall compensation at 7.99M€ increased vs 2023 but is below 2017 level (9.1 M€).
Boeing CEO, Robert Kelly Ortberg’s 2024 compensation (2025 proxy statement here, page 71):
Boeing’s CEO Robert Kelly Ortberg 2024 compensation.
Robert Kelly Ortberg had a base salary of 0.5M$, one bonus of 1.25M$ and 16M$ in stock based awards. The 2024 total compensation was 18.39M$, very similar to 2017 levels, but…
In the table you can also find the compensation for David Calhoun, and this is because Ortberg took over as CEO only in August of 2024. I will therefore add for comparison purposes the same table for Boeing 2023 fiscal year (2024 proxy here, page 72) when only Calhoun served as CEO.
Boeing’s CEO David Calhoun 2023 compensation.
David Calhoun had a base salary of 1.4M$, 30M$ in stock based awards and another 1.1M$ component. The 2023 total compensation was 32.77M$, 77% higher than 2017 levels, or +14M$.
Comparison. It is interesting to note that while the base salary is nearly the same in both companies, ~ 1.5 m€, the much higher stock based incentive schemes at Boeing push up the total remuneration for the CEO to about four times (x4.1) the one in Airbus.
Time to look back and reflect on how the year which is about to end developed. Brief recap of my 2025. (*)
The main experience that we enjoyed together in this 2025 was the road trip we did to Italy during the summer holidays. We spent three weeks driving along the Cote d’Azur, Modena, Bologna, Roma, Orvieto, Assissi, Napoli, Pompei, Sorrento, Aquila, Attri, Loreto, Urbino, San Marino, Ravenna, Venezia, Padova, Verona, Milano… It was a trip full of museums, churches, cathedrals and basilicas (the 2025 jubilee in the Catholic Church and the Jubilee of Youth during our visit brought many young people with their chants and dances, it also enabled us to learn many things), beautiful landscapes, architecture, Roman ruins, bathing in different beaches (including an excursion and sleeping at a boat in the Port Hercule of Monaco), delicious food, lots of sun, a bit of running, and having fun with the kids.
Traveling in Italy.
Family. Andrea is now 12 years old and David, 9.
Andrea did very well in grade 6 and has also started grade 7 well, with very good marks. She especially enjoys Science, Maths and researching for her History assignments. She continues to take Spanish lessons, to play piano and volleyball in the village team. A highlight of her school year was the musical they put together in the school, Peter Pan.
Andrea in 2025
David now loves most of all football, playing it in the school, with the village team or in video games. He is also a very good student in his grade 4, where he enjoys Math and French. He is very helpful at home and he is now in his third year of Spanish lessons. They both spent several weeks alone with my parents in Madrid during school holidays, which they loved.
David in 2025
Running: My objectives for 2025 were to avoid injuries and to complete at least another marathon, and I managed to achieve both. I kept a good habit of running without pushing too much to avoid injuries, including adapting the marathon training plan I followed in the Autumn. I ran over 1,200km in 2025, not as much as I would have liked but at the level of 2024. Finally, on November 30th I completed my 25th marathon in Alicante.
Following a mantra I try keep to the letter (when in good health), “the running shoes, always in the suitcase”, the year 2025 caught me running in: Torrelodones, Galapagar, La Grau-du-Roi, Cannes, Tuscany, Marcelli, San Marino, Padova, Monaco, Tournefeuille, Châteauroux, Péronne, Wijchen, Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Alicante, Elche and San Sebastián, plus the tens of times I trained in my village, in Blagnac and Toulouse.
Running in places.
Skiing. In 2025 we went again with the family for a week to our favourite resort at Vars, in the Southern Alps. This year again we could enjoy much time skiing with the kids out of their skiing lessons. They are more daring and at ease especially skiing off tracks, and sometimes it’s difficult to keep pace with them. This year Andrea got her 3ème étoile medal and David his 2ème one (levels from the French ESF).
Flying. This year I managed to fly more than in 2024. I did some training flights and some others with the kids, including a nice flight excursion we did along the Lot and Dordogne valleys. In October I also had to renew my French language radio competence (FCL 055) and in November I renewed the licence by experience after flying with the instructor (SEP (single-engine piston) qualification).
In all, this year I have flown 13 flight hours, 12 flights and 30 landings. This takes my total experience to 228 flight hours and 369 landings since I started taking lessons back in 2011. Hopefully in 2026 we can take part in some excursions abroad.
Flying in 2025
Travelling. Apart from the unforgettable trip to Italy, in this 2025 either alone or with the family we continued to visit some new and old places: Aix-en-Provence, Vars, Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Arles, Nîmes, Burgos, Bourges, Fontainebleau, Montargis, Paris, Amboise, Brugge, Dunkerque, Pierrefonds, Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Chengdu, Elche, Alicante, Wijchen, Rijswijk, Saint-Quentin, La Rochelle, Bordeaux, San Sebastián…
Reading. In this 2025, I managed to read a bit more than last year, in all 17 books, mostly in Spanish with the rest split in English and French (2 books in each language). I’m also happy to have read other 5 books of the Great Books curriculum for the bachelor in arts of Saint John’s College, a list I have been using as a reference for years. For the detailed list of books, see the post I wrote about my 2025 reading list with a brief description of each one.
Other cultural activities:
Bullfighting. This year again, together with Luismi, we went to Nîmes to attend its Feria de Pentecôte, in particular a corrida (same wording in French) with the following bullfighters: Morante de La Puebla (who had an incredible 2025 and retired in October; in Nîmes he did a good job but wasn’t lucky with the bulls), Talavante and the young Marco Pérez, the latter two were awarded 2 ears and exited through the puerta grande.
Later, in July we went with the family to a concurso de recortadores at Las Navas del Marqués (Ávila), a contest in which 12 men went into the arena one by one to dodge the bull when running towards them in impressive ways, including jumping over it. The winner was Paquito Murillo, who had been Spanish champion of that variety in the past.
I also renewed my membership to the foundation Toro de Lidia to keep supporting the art.
Theatre. We started the year with a great musical in Madrid, Grease (thanks to a wonderful invitation from my sister Beatriz!) and the Pantomime show in Pibrac where they played Rapunzel (which was hilarious). At the end of the school year we also attended the great show put up by the kids of the school with Peter Pan.
Other shows: we went with the family a few times to the cinema, with Formula 1 being the movie we liked the most. We also went to a concert of the string quartet Mascarade. We also went a couple of times to see matches from the Toulouse FC at the stadium, against Montpelier and Metz. Those were great fun especially for the kids. What we want to do in 2026 is to rather see the rugby team with the family and possibly more music concerts.
Museums. This year again we took benefit of every trip to visit as many museums and castles as we could (some of them were visited for a second or third time): Arles theater and amphitheater, Saint Remy Provence St Paul Mausole (where Van Gogh was interned), Palais Jacques Coeur and Cathédrale in Bourges, Château Fontainebleau, Panthéon, Notre Dame, Musée du Louvre and Les Invalides in Paris, Sainte-Marie-Majeure in Marseille, Abbazia di San Fruttuoso, Museo Enzo Ferrari Modena, Museo Ferrari Maranello, Basilica di San Petronio and Basilica di San Domenico in Bologna, Archiginnasio di Bologna, Lamborghini Museo in Sant’Agata Bolognese, Casa Museo Luciano Pavarotti, Basilica di San Francesco in Assisi, Abbazia di San Pietro in Perugia, Duomo di Orvieto, Villa d’Este in Tivoli, Pantheon, Chiesa di Sant’Ignazio di Loyola, Santa Maria sopra Minerva, Chiesa di Sant’Agnese in Agone, Musei Vaticani, St. Peter’s Basilica, Basilica di San Giovanni in Laterano and Scala Santa, Basilica di San Clemente al Laterano, Terme di Caracalla, Colosseum, Roman Forum and Palatine Hill, Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore, Basilica di San Paolo fuori le mura, Catacombe di San Callisto, Napoli Sotterranea, Duomo di Napoli, Pompeii, Abbazia di Montecassino, Basilica di Santa Maria di Collemaggio in L’Aquila, Duomo di Atri, Santuario della Santa Casa in Loreto, Palazzo Ducale in Urbino, the towers Cesta and Guaita in San Marino, the Basilica de San Vitale, Galla Placidia, the Orthodox Baptistery, Sant’Apollinare Nuovo and the Basilica de St Francesco in Ravenna, the Basilica di San Marco, Correr Museum and the Palazzo Ducale in Venice, Château du Clos Lucé in Amboise (where Da Vinci lived his last years), Stadhuis and the Basilica of the Holy Blood in Brugge, Aviodrome museum, Museum Dunkerque 1940 Operation Dynamo, Château de Pierrefonds, Great Wall of China in Mutianyu, the Palacio de Altamira and Torre de la Basílica de Santa Maria in Elche, Aachen Rathaus, Netherlands ice sculptures Festival, Wonder van Empel, Château de Compiègne, Basilique Saint-Martin de Tours, Cathédrale Saint-André de Bordeaux.
Blogging. This is the 16th year since I started the blog in February 2010. This year I wrote just 9 blog posts, in line with the past years since 2020. It helps me to structure some ideas in some posts, to dig into some topics other times, and as a personal repository to which I come back every now and then. The blog received just over 20,800 visits, a bit more than in 2024 (in line with the past few years) and over 533,000 views since 2010.
Work. No changes in the scope of the work this year (A330neo product marketing since January 2023), neither in the team, so it was a stable year in that front.
Since 2023 the markets keep being quite active, and in 2025 we had a good year for the A330neo in terms of aircraft orders.
This year I had the opportunity to join a great demo tour where we rented the aircraft from an airline and we visited different pages to showcase the A330neo with colleagues from Airbus and Rolls-Royce to varied groups of customers or institutional representatives. That was a very intense week but full of new experiences. These included the first time I flew an airline’s A330neo! (I had only flown before the Airbus A330neo flight test aircraft).
Working on the A330neo.
Now it’s time to rest, celebrate with the family and hope for the best in 2026. For the moment we have just a few days in Madrid to enjoy with family and friends and a planned skiing week in Vars; hopefully that will be just the beginning of another memorable year.
The Blog by Javier 