Around and around and around I’ve searched for you ….

A favourite course for RWA (Race walking Auckland) is the inner circuit of the Auckland Domain. It is nominally 1.5 km. but is, in fact, 1.56 km. It is a good, though there are one or two slight inclines that can prove a little taxing. Here it is on map my run. The results of yesterday’s race indicate that if you can walk around 8 minute kilometres or under, then this is the club for you. It meets every Sunday at 8:30. Here is the schedule of coming events.

Climb every mountain

Well done Valerie Vili, a great Choice. Of course there will always be contention over these Halberg Sports awards, depending on what sport you are into. Mine is track and field and so I am delighted with Valerie getting the supreme Nu Zulun Sports Person award.

I was shocked to hear Valerie only gets a $40,000 grant. In these days when athletics is professional, it aint good enough.

Mind you there was a time when track and field was strictly amateur. Wes Santee, the great US miler in the early fifties got raked over the coals and almost lost his amateur status for accepting a $200 camera. In 1956, he did in fact lose his amateur status.

The iconic Roger Bannister, the first sub four minute miler, was working hard to become a doctor at the time of his 3:59.4 back in May 1954. There was no way in could put in the training of the modern middle distance runner.

Ten water bottles hanging on the wall....

I have a theory. The speed people walk (or run at) is inversely proportional to the probability they carry a water bottle. That is to say (in layperson’s terms), slower people are more likely to carry water.

The water bottle industry is big business since we were sold the lie some years back that we all needed at least eight glasses of water a day. What size glass was seldom pointed out. The 2 litre figure was occasionally mentioned.

Research has shown clearly that too much water could in fact be bad for you; in depletes the body of essential minerals and so forth. That is to say, to put not too finer point on it (in layperson’s terms), you pee them away. It is called "water intoxication". In non-layman's terms this is hyponatraemia (low salt levels).

Yet you see them everywhere, strolling down the road at a pace, that would not get a rat fit, clutching their water bottles. Again, I have a theory. They are a linus blanket, a source of comfort rather than liquid. Indeed many is the time I have walked close behind and seen not one sip taken in the course of the exercise.

There is of course the extreme variety of this species – those with a belt of small water bottles, looking not a lot dissimilar to Rambo.

The other myth is of course bottle water is purer than tap water. It is a myth perpetuated by the bottle water industry.

However, it is well established that a pint of water before bed after a night on the jungle juice can help ward off a hangover.

Bring back those crazy hazy lazy …

It was only a matter of time before such lines must appear on this blog. Summer ought to teach us not to take life or ourselves too seriously.

I joined Racewalking Auckland in the domain yesterday. It is nice to be in a group of people who are seen by some onlookers to be walking strangely. Many people take a leisurely walk or stroll to get fit. Sadly, the research suggests such activity does little for cardio-vascular fitness. To get fit, you have to put some effort in.

Race walking is an excellent exercise to gain such fitness. It is less damaging to the body than running – though I enjoy a run at least twice a week. And when you get used to how to walk, it is every bit as pleasurable as running.

Top race walkers move at incredible speed. The world record for 10 km is around 38 minutes – a time most runners cannot achieve.

And words are all I have to steal ….

A news reader this morning (on radio live) was going on about a spare fisherman. It seemed a strange concept until I realised she meant a spear fisherman. So what began apparently in Porirua has now spread to the news media. The vocoid glide as in beer has shifted to bear.

It is among the young and beautiful that you must listen out for this phenomenon.

I heard an Australian news caster (channel 9) talking about some far farters. That got my imagination running wild, until I realised the context was bush fires. It was all so very Kath and Kim.

Kim wants to be rich so the dialogue goes:

KIM: 'I wanna be effluent, mum, effluent!'
KATH: 'You are effluent, Kim!'

There's no business like show business ...

Increasingly, with the ratings war between channels, the role of the evening news is to entertain rather than simply inform. Certainly these are the self evident goals of the programmes that directly follow the news, Close Up and Campbell Live.

A promo for Campbell Live on January 23, 2009 ran “Teenage comedians, too young to drink and vote but paid to make you laugh”. It is hard to follow the logic.

Close Up kicked off its 2009 campaign with an expose of a rest-home framed as a kind of detective narrative. With a display of appalling ethical standards they send someone (the producer) under false pretences (work experience) into the rest-home with a secret camera. In doing so they exhibited cavalier disregard for the clients whose home the rest-home was. Their claims, as a result of the “investigation," remain totally unsubstantiated and in one case utterly false but no doubt it was just the thing to help the ratings.

It was TV journalism at its very worst: unbalanced, unethical, and totally self-serving. In the name of defending the vulnerability of the elderly, they invaded the elderlys’ private and personal space even to the extent that the producer showered women under false pretences!

Ah, but why let the truth get in the way of a good news story!

You do something to me something that simply mystifies me ....

It sounded like a great speech. It was eloquently delivered. It combined the common touch (81.5% of the words where from the 1000 most common words in the English language). Yet there was something for the academic with 10% of words being academic or off the main common word list. Interestingly, in the foot steps of Churchill, almost 80 % of words were of Anglo-Saxon origin.

When you actually read the speech, it is clearly flowery, lacking in substantive content. But that’s alright. That’s what these types of speeches are designed to achieve – to inspire without actually saying anything practical. That comes later. And for that reason it was a great inauguration speech.

I like the man. I wish him the very best. But the messianic fervour that has sprung up around him worries me. It leads al least to two problems. One group who may indeed attribute messianic qualities to him; another group, who in reaction, might view him in quite the opposite way – the devil appearing as an angel of light. Both reactions would be very sad.

It is time for America to stand back and gain a realistic appraisal of the man. He is another frail human being with albeit some remarkable qualities. But like you and me, he dons his underwear in the morning, and uses 2 or 3 ply toilet roll.

Respect, admiration, even awe ought not to give way to worship.

Mr President may you continue to have that sense of humilty to execute your office with fairness to all and favour to none.

Walkin back to happiness...

Nu Zulun shuts down over what is called the silly season. The TV networks set the tone. Morning news disappears to be replaced by endless reruns of inane programmes that numb the mind and savage the soul.

The beauty of this, however, is being forced off one’s arse. After all, one may discover that TV viewing has ceased to be compulsory. So I thank the networks for their kind reminder of this. An alternative to arse-sitting is walking. Race walking – real race-walking, not only helps to give a more shapely arse, but also get those endorphins flying around in the brain. This are opiate-like peptides that make you feel good!

And so one springs outside into the sunlight uplands of where I live and stride down to the golden sands but minutes away.

This summer, I have finally begun to learn the fine art of laziness without guilt.

Have yourself a merry little Christmas

The silly season is upon us as they say. Though I don’t know who “they” are. The Christmas discourse is hegemonic. It is designed above all to position us and hail us as ‘consumers’ who will shop till they drop.

And so like the bride who wants a “perfect” wedding, many expect a perfect Christmas. How far that is from the reality of the majority of people for whom Christmas is a painful reminder of Christmases past and of loved ones no longer around. For some it is a time of unendurable loneliness. For others, it is a season of physical and emotional abuse.

Christmas is the training ground where people teach their children to become consumers. It is designed too ensure that that great god of the modern age – that god with impossible demands – is worshipped. That god of course is economic growth. The carpenter from Nazareth referred to it as mammon.

Indeed it can be said that the invention of the modern Christmas dates back to the mid nineteenth century and the birth of the market economy with its emphasis on economic growth.

Of course some keen folk will try to remind us of the “reason for the season”. It is astonishing just how far the modern Christmas is from the ideals of that man from Nazareth.

How then can we redeem Christmas? I think only by trying to remember that the external baubles, bangles and bright shiny beads can never be enough.

Walkin back to happiness ...

The secret to fast race walking is fast turnover, not stride length. I was looking at reruns of the Olympic 50km walk. The winner was doing 190 strides per minute. I suspect some others were over 200. Now that is really high turnover!

So the equation is S = L x F where S is the speed, L the stride length and F the stride frequency. Clearly the trade off is between L and F. Race walking coaches argue that gains in F are well worth losses in L. Overstriding is a prime mistake for novices.

I tried shorting the stride and increasing frequency the other night. It paid off. I reduced my 3 km time by 6 seconds – that is just the beginning.