How beautiful ...

Went to Circus of the Sun last night - Cirque du soleil - Dralion.

Dralion signifies east (dragon) meeting west (lion). It’s what we call a portmanteau word.

It was a chance to escape into a world of the fit, flexible, fleet, agile and strong. It was supposedly a celebration of the human mapping the realm of the gods. Mind you the deep meanings and imagery escaped me. I wasn’t interested. Don’t get me wrong, I am into deeper meanings. However, this time it was enough for me (sitting only one row back) to behold the sheer athletic and gymnastic mastery of the performers.

Much of it was mesmerising and it seemed banal to engage some higher cognitive faculties and ask “but what does it mean?” It is a question that ought not be asked sometimes – the experience itself without labels, words, and interpretation is the best thing.

It was in the best platonic and neo-platonic sense the beholding of beauty of which Ficino spoke. Which was precisely what the real intention of the production was – an ascent into beauty. But beauty cannot be analysed and dissected – only engaged with by one fully present to the moment.

Picture by permission Clemens Pfeiffer, press photographer, A-1190 Wien

In an English country garden ...

The very mention of the Patterson Cup strikes fear into the heart of any cross-country runner. It is arguably the oldest cross country competition between two clubs in New Zealand. Calliope Harriers and Hamilton Harriers (now the Hamilton City Hawks) first competed against one another in 1930.

In 1932 the cup was presented for the event by W. E. Patterson, the then president of Calliope. The event has been consistently run through the last 79 years apart from a hiatus during three of the war years (1942-45). On odd numbered years, Calliope travel to Hamilton; on even numbered years, Hamilton make the trip to Auckland.

On a stunningly sunny Saturday at 10:45 am, we Calliopians crowded into two rented vans and headed for Hamilton. The race was at Hamilton Gardens near gate two. The course for men was five laps on a slightly undulating but mostly flat 1 km circuit. This blogger acquitted himself splendidly coming in third for Calliope in a personal best (since my comeback in 2005) in the 5000 metres.

I began conservatively, but by the end of lap one began to past some much younger fellows. Wretchedly, I missed the correct finishing chute at the end (a result of being a spent force) and accordingly my official time was recorded as 15 seconds slower than the actual time on my stopwatch (a PB by 37 seconds).

It was a terrific course. We retired to the Hamilton clubs rooms for the requisite sausage rolls, cakes and barbecue washed down by a beer. Another mandatory stop at the Rangiriri Hotel on the way back saw more chips and wedges put away with lashings of ginger beer (and other beers not so ginger).

On Sunday I turned up at the Takapuna Harriers beach steeplechase for more punishment. It was a 6 km race on Takapuna beach and fortunately there was only one "steeple" to negotiate. I once again performed well with a PB for 6 km.

Don’t you know that it’s worth every treasure on earth to be young at heart …

The World Masters Track and Field Champs start in Finland at the end of July. The age groups start at 35 and go up to … 100 in leaps of 5 years.

It is an opportunity for men and women 35 and above to defy the onslaughts of time.

My good friend Mike Parker (pictured here) will represent New Zealand in the Men’s (55-59 years) 5 km, 10 km and 20 km race walks. He has a darn good chance of medaling. Back in his heyday, he won the British Championship 4 times. I train with him most Tuesdays. Good luck Mike!

Looking at the times expected for some of the competitors, I can see I would not be last by a long chalk. However, neither would I be close to medalling.

What does age do to you perfomance?

here is a graph I did based on age-grade calculations which accurately models the process. It maps the situation for walking 10 km in 1 hour. It shows the percentage you would score for your age against the best in the world. A 20 year-old scores around 62.5% for a ten km walk in 1 hour; whereas a man for my more mature years would score around 76%.

Stary-eyed and vaguely discontented - the great hangover

He awoke with a splitting headache - it was a shocking hangover (Rivetting stuff !!)

Not true actually, I am a Liar Liar. I was using this entry to do a quick blogging 101 course with my new Iwrite class.

The course covered such things as:

1. How to make an entry.

2. How to create a link in your entry.

3. How to download a picture.

4. How to post a comment.

Scintillating stuff - however a great class with a wide range of expertize in this blogging matters.

And there let us wallow in glorious mud…

This weekend I travel to Hamilton for the Annual battle between the Calliope Harrier Club (stress on the 2nd syllable of Calliope please) and the Hamilton City Hawks in the Patterson Cup cross country event. We shall plough through the mud and rain to uphold this ‘time honoured event’. I actually last ran in it around forty years ago. Two mini vans have been hired, because a key ingredient in winning this event is rolling up with as many members as possible. Everyone gets at least a point – so walk if you want but finish! So roll up!

Speaking of rolls and role models, Logan Campbell, a Taekwondo practitioner, wants to open a brothel to help finance his Olympic campaign. I was interviewed on an Auckland street about my views. At the end of my semi-articulate rant, I suggested the whole notion of sports “stars” being role models was somewhat dubious.

And it is dubious. Why should a sports star be required by some default mechanism to be a role model? I see no logical connection. Indeed, it seems that on the whole, sports stars don’t make great role models especially if they are Australian rugby league players.

Recent history has been littered with the stories of sportsmen (it is invariably the men) who have fallen from grace usually under the influence of alcohol.

Of course I am a sports star of sorts. I have medals to prove it. I certainly am no role model. Watching me huffing and puffing around Lake Pupuke and then some kids yells out: “I want to be like that man when I grow up”.

Indeed, Jogging is an ugly sight at the best of times.

Fly me to the moon …

Bet that song is getting a lot of air time today. I was very aptly in a seventh form (year 13) physics class when the announcement came over the airwaves. Later that day or the next we watched the flickering images on our black and white TV. I was at Northcote College winding up for the mid-year exams.

It was a good year. In early March, I broke the school senior one mile record. A record I still hold as things went metric shortly afterwards. I was president of the Northcote College debating society which met in the school hall on Friday evenings because numbers, which were well over 100 on the nights of big debates, forced us out of the music room we had inhabited in previous years.

I was also the school senior public speaking champion as I had been the previous year, and once again took part in the school drama production. I earned a school blues for sport and a gold award for contributions to the cultural side of things. Finally, I gained a university bursary.

Yet that great possibility of space travel we dreamt of on that day in 1969 has simply not been fulfilled. We seem to have lost that sense of destiny and swapped a universal adventure for the titillation of a trinket at the local shopping mall. The images from forty years ago simply serve to remind us that as a planet we have horribly lost our way.

That's why the lady is a champ.....

Just be darn careful who you call obese when you swing your BMI around boy!

One so-called measure of obesity is BMI or Body-Mass-Index. This is discovered by calculating weight (kg) divided by height squared (m^2)

Valerie Vili, Nu Zulun’s Olympic gold medal winning shot putter, is 6-4 and 267 lbs.

In metrics that is 1.93 m and 121.1 kg
Now do the calculation folks
(121.1) divided by (1.93)^2 = 32.5 (check it on this calculator for feet and pounds)

Now according to the BMI ratings, Valerie Vili is obese! Over 30 is obese.

Folks, I have seen Valerie working out at the track – and one thing she is not – obese. The woman is a superb athlete in every sense of the word. The weight she carries is just about all muscle. She is agile, fast, extremely strong, and fit.

I suspect with this shot, even the Chinese would like to claim her as one of their own!

It immoral, its illegal or it makes you fat …

Nu Zulun– 3rd in the OECD (30 country) obesity steaks (oops – a bit Freudian). The chips are really down for Nu Zulun’s health outlook. It appears the obesity has been mushrooming in the country. Indeed, obesity wise we appear to really be in the soup.

Mind you I don’t believe the half-baked statistics. I take them with a grain of salt insofar as the reporting of some countries is not worth a hill of beans.

However, to bring this level of obesity down is going to be no piece of cake.

Enough already!

26.5% of Nu Zulun adults obese. Break this down by ethnicity.
41.7% of Maori adults
63.7% of Pasifika adults

Some are calling for a tax on junk food. The first thing tackled should be air travel! I weigh in at an enormous 69 kg and with my 20 kg of luggage, things are up to uuum er (get that calculator out) 89kg. Obese Tony weighs in at 147 kg and with his 20 kg of luggage (where’s that calculator – somewhere hidden among folds of flesh) things are up to 167. Yet we both pay the same for our ticket.

Now folks, that ain’t fair.

My head was down, my heart was turning a round ...

I can’t tell you just how many emails I get telling me I am so famous I should go on their who’s who. Strathmore’s who’s who was the latest today. Now there is of course such a thing. However it was not Strathmore’s that emailed me. It was some phisher hiding, lurking, prowling ….wanting me to login to their fake login page.

Trouble is my colleague in the office seems to be very bit as famous as me – he gets them too. So far my ego has remained intact and I have not succumbed to these phishing exploits.

Yet there are souls who fall for these who’s who scams. The appeal to vanity is a strong one especially if the one appealed to has a rather fragile sense of self. In spite of warnings people are still prepared to yield up sensitive information and even passwords for the stroking of their ego.

But I am famous. My name featured in the NZ Herald sports section this week. I was in the winning team at the Harry Kerr Centennial 50 km walk relay (5 x 10 km) held at Mount Smart Stadium on a somewhat wet and windy July 5th. I had the third leg and walked with all the finesse and speed of a custard tart. It was not one of my better performances. The wind was howling down the back straight and the Mount Smart track is not kind at the best of times. The photo shows me about to overtake the opposition.

I was the slowest in my team - however had there been five of me, we would have still won by a good margin.

For winning the Harry Kerr Centennial Relay, we each received a bronze replica the the original medal Harry Kerr won at the 1908 London Olympic games. We also got a large certificate which is modelled on the original diploma awarded to Harry Kerr at those Olympics. The race was held in conjunction with the the Race Walking New Zealand 5 x 10,000m Track Walk Relay Championship 2009. So we all got an additional gold medal for being first in that event. So 2009 has been a medal winning year for me.