Category Archives: Weekend Warrior

3 Drinks You Should NEVER Drink… and one you should. #YOLO

1. Squeezits:

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I know these take you back to yesteryear but let’s be smart about this. Remember that sticky/tangy feeling on your tongue afteryou popped the top off one of these? Well - there’s a reason for it.

Ingredients: Contains 11% of Fruit Juice, Cherry(ies) Chucklin Juice (What on earth is this?):, Water, Corn Syrup High Fructose (note the re arranged to fool the simple-minded consumer), Pear(s) Juice From Concentrate, Malic Acid (yum), Citric Acid (yum), Potassium Sorbate (Preservative) , Red 40 (how fun- they put red in here- what color was it before), Flavor(s) Artificial (what are we speaking Spanish with the adjective after the noun?), Berry B. Wild Juice :, Water, Corn Syrup High Fructose (again), Pear(s) Juice From Concentrate, Citric Acid, Potassium Sorbate (Preservative) , Flavor(s) Artificial, Blue 1 (well thank god it wasn’t blue 2).

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2. Kool-aid - Ohh Yeaaaaa-

Now I know the big Koolaid guy is awesome and provided some solid entertainment for we kids of the 90s buttake a look at… well, whatever the hell is in it.

Ingredients: CITRIC ACID, MALTODEXTRIN, SALT, CONTAINS LESS THAN 2% OF ASCORBIC ACID (VITAMIN C), NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL FLAVOR, ARTIFICIAL COLOR, YELLOW 5, YELLOW 6, RED 40.

3. Tang:

In my flagrant attempt to find the ingredients of tang, I received entirely too much information and made the executive decision to NOTunknown-1enlighten you all with the boring details. The important point is this: if you don’t know what it is, it has a number on the end of it, if it takes more than 1 minute to list the ingredients…. it’s probably not great for you.

To support this theory, here are just a few of the Tang ingredients: Yellow 5, Yellow 6 (no I’m not kidding), Artificial Color, Natural Flavor, Orange Juice Solids, and Calcium Phosphate (which prevents caking).

Everyone, yourselves a favor and remember that wonderful but slightly altered quote by Mark Twain:

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you did drink than by the ones you did. So throw out the tang. Sail away from the Kool-Aid. Catch the trade winds while sipping your Vitalyte. Explore. Dream. Discover.

Or in the words of the modern renaissance man/woman: #YOLO… Drink Vitalyte.

The Waddler, Shuffler, Dinosaur, Gazelle & Shi-Shi Runners

Everyone runs differently. The goal is to relax, fall into a rhythm and finish the race in a respectable amount of time. Right? For some participants, yes. For others, not so much. I realized this during the last race I ran. It was a long one, so I had time to make some observations. And let me tell you, you can tell a lot about a runner’s motivations by their stride.

The Waddler: Is this person even moving? This one is the easiest to spot. There isn’t much else to say. You know exactly who I mean.

The Shuffler: Similar to The Waddler, except they can make impressive headway. So why the shuffle? Maybe they’re injured and have adopted this stride in effort to minimize impact. Maybe they don’t like the idea of having only one foot on the road at a time. Or maybe they really, really enjoy tap dancing. Who knows. All I know is this type of form reminds me of someone walking over hot coals: shoulders up and tight, bottom clinched, feet working out a little soft-shoe action. They just don’t look comfortable.

The Dinosaur & The Paddler: Like a T-Rex with its short arms hanging limply in front as it forges through the forest, The Dinosaur is on a mission. Usually a fast-moving breed, they could improve their time if they only worked their arms into the race. I considered naming this type of runner, The Paddler, then realized it deserved a separate, yet related category. The Paddler is what The Dinosaur wants to be. The Paddler may let his arms hang down, but unlike The Dinosaur, he slaps at the air and pulls it behind him. The Dinosaur gets dusted by The Paddler, left alone and wishing evolution was a speedier process.

The Gazelle: The most beautiful runner on the street. Carefree. They lope through the course with the boundless energy of any number of forest animals, but only the gazelle shares this runner’s grace. I’ve often wondered if they were taught this form, because you tend to see packs of The Gazelle at cross-country track meets. But after years of trying to mimic this stride and failing miserably, I now believe they were born this way.

Like a UFO blasting into space, The Gazelle appears as a flash in the corner of your eye and then is gone. The next time you’ll see him, he’ll coolly be sipping Vitalyte and downing a banana as you cross the finish line.

The Shi-Shi: There’s a whole lot of prissiness going on here. Usually dressed to the 9s. They look like they know what they’re doing but are too concerned about perspiration ruining their outfit to really go for it. Their stride usually has some lateral motion, some wicked hip swagger and possibly some chest protrusion. The Shi-Shi/Dinosaur hybrid is fairly common. I’ve seen many. Next to The Gazelle, they are the prettiest runners, albeit for totally different reasons.

A bit of an Introduction to one of our Weekend Warriors

Back to basics.

Wow, it’s been a month since I updated this properly. Why? Well things have been real slack here and yet as busy as hell at the same time. Unfortunately work and all the other things that ruin your social life are the things that have been busy, so the things worthy of a blog posting have been very rare indeed.

I planned a 40mile run for my 40th birthday back in Dec, but it was so freakin cold that day that I turned it into a 40k. God Bless the metric system ;-). Then 3 days later I went out for a nice gentle 7mile shake down run and pulled my calf, officially my first EVER running injury. I wasn’t happy about it, or the way it appeared. If I’m going to injure myself I want it to be a full pelt hammering to the finish line of a race in a head to head, not while jogging steadily along the Tarka Trail. I’ve also had a diagnosis on my ‘crunchy’ chest that appeared shortly after Ironman Florida, it appears that I’ve damaged my Xiphoid process, hmmmmm maybe 5hrs in the Tri Bars squashes it a bit.

Christmas and New Year came and went without any hassles or any training due to the calf pull. They were both great of course but everybody has them so I doubt very much you’d want to read about mine.

A couple of weeks ago I got asked to write something by way of a blog post for Bideford People and/or Barnstaple People . I’m guessing that the best way to start this would be to introduce myself and as it’s the start of a new year and hopefully the start of a successful Ironman Hawaii adventure. For those of you who know me you’d be better skipping the next bit ;-).

So here goes. I’m Iain, I’m a lorry driver and I live near Barnstaple in North Devon which is in the South West of the UK. Coping with my sometimes lacklustre sometimes manic lifestyle is the long long long suffering girlfriend Shelly and our 3 year old lunatic but loveable Springer Spaniel Rosie. I’ve been pootling along in Triathlon for 15 years or so and was running on and off for a few years before that. I can swim pretty well, I can run pretty well but my biking is a bit of a let down by comparison. Biking is my weakest discipline hence it’s the discipline I like the least need to train at the most but actually (of course) train at the least.

Ironman is the daddy of Triathlon and takes a full day to complete. Comprising of a 2.4mile swim, 112mile bike ride and a 26.2mile run. To make the distances a bit easier to understand imagine popping down to Barnstaple Leisure Centre and swimming 154 lengths. After the swim you might hop on your bike and ride to Clovelly and back, just three times should cover it. Once back at the Leisure Centre for the 3rd time you could leave your bike, slip on your trainers, jump on the Tarka Trail and run to Instow and back, twice. The Elite athletes (who do this sport for a living) will complete this little lot in in 8-9hrs and those towards the back of the field will take twice that amount of time.

In 2009 I raced Ironman Florida and after many messed up attempts I finally managed to put in a decent performance, finishing the event in 9h39m. This was not only a personal best time by over an hour but finishing 8th out of the 400 in my Age Group qualified me for the World Championships in Kona, Hawaii.

Doing these races doesn’t come cheap, the day after qualifying I had to hand over a full £360 just to enter the Hawaii race. My family as always have been a huge help though and with the amazing support of my Tri Club North Devon Tri helping out too (read about it here) I’m determined that come October 9th this year I will let no one down.

After a couple of minor niggles over the holiday period the big build for Kona starts now and I’m happy to have you along. The more the merrier. Please leave me comments/ideas/thoughts too so that I know you’re there.

If you’re a local (or not so local) business and you can think of a way we can mutually benefit each other then let me know. I’d love to be able to afford this adventure without becoming a drain on my family and friends, so if you can help and I can put a few hours in/get you some good publicity etc on the back of my training and my race then please get in touch :-)

Thanks for reading, here’s to a hugely successful 2010.

This Weekend Warrior Report is contributed by Iain
http://devoniain.blogspot.com/
Follow him on Twitter www.twitter.com/devoniain

Weekend Warrior Update

Life begins at 40 (so they say)

Ok where do I start? This week has been crazy, unbelievable and OTT in so many ways.

I’ll start with the Training Log as that’s pretty simple. After the Aquathlon on the 6th I had 3 days off and then it all just seemed to kick into gear. I cranked out 1h45m on my hybrid bike (the shopper) on Thursday, then did a 1hr run/1hr swim on Friday and a 1h45m bike /1hr run on Saturday. It all looked good going into the Club’s Christmas Party on Saturday night, but that’s where it stopped and I’ve done diddly squat since. I suspect that 4 days of nothing is hardly ideal preparation for the planned 40mile run this Sunday. It’ll be interesting to see if that actually happens.

So onto my Birthday!!! On Tuesday (15th) I hit the big 4-0! I know, it’s hard to believe I’m any older than 30 with my youthful looks and my amazing physique isn’t it? Well now that my tongue has been prized from my cheek I can get on with the tales of my Birthday goings on.

So it’s my 40th and I’ve been to and heard of enough 40th parties to really just expect anything and be surprised by nothing in the weekend before. I couldn’t help wondering if my parents were going to show up at some point, it’s just the sort of thing they’d do. I even opted out of phoning them to discuss the football, just in case they didn’t answer and I ruined any surprise. As the day went on there was no sign, but then when we rocked up at the Tri Club’s Christmas Dinner that evening there they were sat at the end of a table with my nephew David. I genuinely had no idea (just my suspicious mind) and it was great to have them there, the only problem being that after they’d travelled all that way we didn’t actually spend that much time together as the whole ‘club thing’ was going on too. There was of course Birthday Cake too (my second one) which I’m still troughing my way through. Couple all that with my mixed bag of Birthday presents including the healthy (Nike Air Pegasus and a Garmin 310XT) and the not so healthy (cake, chocolate and TWO bottles of Drambuie).

The only downsides to my birthday were the fact that people kept wanting to celebrate it before the day (didn’t they realise I was in no rush to hit 40) and that on the day itself I had to work a 14hr shift. Ah well.

 

Tune back in tomorrow for the big tale of the weekend, the North Devon Tri Presentation Night. That really was something else.

This Weekend Warrior Report is contributed by Iain
http://devoniain.blogspot.com/
Follow him on Twitter www.twitter.com/devoniain

Weekend Warrior Report

Monday, December 07, 2009

The one that got away- Cow Chip

Six days after Ironman Arizona I found myself standing on the starting line of the Cow Chip Cross Country race in Trumbull.

Having won the race last year, I felt that I should go back and try to defend my win.

I was not 100%. I’d limped around Arizona for two days before I felt ready to even put 20 minutes of running in on Wednesday. I’d spun an hour on Friday and I was psyched for this, but I was also not really fully healed or ready.

When I went to sign up they told me they were expecting me to be there, but they’d put aside #1 for me, so I handed over my check (which Marty later ripped up) and pinned the number to my shirt- I’d forgotten my race belt.

My warm-up was limited to run out to the starting line and doing a few sprints. I ran into Charlie Hornak and we talked a little about the Branford Thanksgiving race. He’d had a decent race but was talking about building his speed. It seemed like we were out there early even though it was only about 10 of, then suddenly the mass of runners that had been avoiding the cold in the school cafeteria came out, followed by Marty on his bike.

Marty acknowledged a number of runners that were there- past winners and so on- and then we were off.

I didn’t take the lead early. I’d spotted a couple of kids/guys I thought might be a threat. I picked my line to the goal post (the race starts on the football field, just like my old high school days), got there and I was quickly in third. The course takes a right, then a left and by the time we got to the backstop, I knew I had to pull in front and take control of the race.

Which I did.

I felt- good isn’t the right word. I was running strong, but not really fast or anything. I was chasing Marty but then we went into the woods and I was leading a few people. The front pack had already thinned out and I felt good. I always feel good running through the woods. I feel like if I’m in front in the woods, you’re really going to have to work to take that away from me.

We broke out of the woods. Marty’s women’s cross country team was supposed to marshall the course. Only two showed up. I came out at a point where you go right early in the race, and go left late in the race.

I didn’t know which way to go.

Who’s fault is that ?

Mine. It’s my responsibility to know the course.

Bang, I was in third.

I settled in a second time. We broke out of the woods and I was third behind a guy I thought I could take late in the race and a guy I wasn’t sure about. We went around the front of the school, by the barn, into a short section of woods and back around again. I could not eliminate the distance and get back in front.

We wrapped around the middle of the course and headed towards the stream/wall. the two guys in front of me went around it. I went around it. We were all within a few seconds of each other. As we went up a short hill, two of us made our move. The guy in second moved up to first and I moved up to second.

We went under a pavilion of some sort and then we were headed back towards the woods. My goal was to stay close and make a move in the last 750 yards.

This was the wrong strategy. I didn’t lose any ground in the woods, but I also didn’t gain any, and after we broke out the backside of the woods, I did try to pick it up.

But in the end, it was too little too late.

When the winner crossed the line, I shut it down and lost another 3-4 seconds, but my calf was hurting.

I had not done my job. I could have, in my opinion, but I didn’t.

I warmed down with Charlie and an Australian guy who was also a previous race winner, then I hopped in the car right away and drove home so Margit would have some time to do some things.

This one had gotten away.

This Weekend Warrior Report is contributed by Alan MacDougal http://rochpunk.blogspot.com/
Follow him on Twitter www.twitter.com/cyberdyne
Tags: Arizona Ironman, Triathlete, vitalyte, Weekend Warrior
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