Karen writes: Women are from Auckland, Men are from Mars

-
We got plenty of exercise yesterday, trotting back and forth over the 1.8km from the apartment to the conference center.   We also went to the end of conference dinner, an enjoyable meal which had a 'rock' theme, but most importantly there was a live band performing all the favourite dance covers and a whole lot of activity, some of it even dancing, went on (Kevin, who shall we send the photos too?).  Yes, truly the secret to good training has to be having plenty of variety....
demonstrating specialty lung training exercises
But what about the men from Mars?    Kate noticed them first during the day, big men wearing serious looking suits, incongruously wedging themselves into little conference seats among all the diabetes nurses.  Two larger than life gents, drifting implacably through the conference, and then they turned up again at the dinner.  We of course couldn’t resist asking who they were, actually we asked ‘what’ they were and admittedly they coped quite well with our suggestions that they were bouncers, barristers or ballerinas.  If that wasn't suspicious enough in itself, they admitted that they were men from Mars.   At this point, risking spoiling a good story,  I should say that it was Mars popularly known for confectionery, but what they were doing infiltrating a diabetes conference we are still not entirely sure.  

Actually, the deal was that these intrepid Americans were planning on introducing to the unsuspecting Australian market a cocoa based product with too many ‘poly…something…or other…enols’ in it to be easily understood after a glass of wine.   What interested us however was that it possibly had implications for endurance athletes to help with their recovery...hang on...chocolate based product…for recovery…YES!   So we shall watch this space, we aren’t entirely convinced of the veracity of their explanation for being there, and think that any confectionery company representative(s) making a foray into a diabetes conference would have to be either very brave, very foolish, from some secret undercover acronym obsessed organisation with a very poor talent for putting together a good cover story, or quite possibly, from Mars.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Still...swim, cycle, run...walk

-
Image
We've got some new staff at the organisation, which is now called " Diabetes Foundation Aotearoa ".  Sitting at the lunch table answering questions on the topic of endurance training and eventing, it reminds me of how long we've been doing the longer exercise efforts now, and that we take for granted how much we've learned over the years.   bike training isn't training without icecream Someone asked about nutrition in a long event and  I spouted off a bunch of words about the exact makeup of the breakfast that I've spent so many years messing around with, said something about a gel here and a banana there and a bumper bar somewhere else and a salt tablet when whatever and the importance of recovery nutrition...and then realised it sounded very much like I actually had it sorted.  I have to admit I don't really.  I'm not sure if anyone can ever say they have everything 100% nutrition or hydration wise for all conditions and circumstances,
Read more

Karen writes: Swimming pool blues

-
Image
I loathe the swimming pool.  With my severely cut down swim training I've been putting my effort into a few slow wetsuit swims in the sea, gently putting my dodgy shoulder under pressure to see how it copes with greater time in the water, not worrying about harder work just aiming to achieve the distance with a minimum of stress.  This week I just couldn't see how I could swim in the sea, the tide is way out in the mornings and evenings all week and it wont be possible to swim on the weekend. So I had to go to the Otara pool before work today.  Older daughter is off to school camp, tenting, so it was a bit muddly getting last minute items packed for her, is there enough sunscreen because its shaping up to be hot outside and what's the plan for the expected torrential rain?  Yep, good old Auckland smorgasbord weather, just pack everything.  Anyway, finally she was ready to go and I was too.  I had my togs under my clothes, wearing jandals, bag with undies/ towel/ toiletrie
Read more

Karen writes: Obstacles

-
Image
I went for a ride, of course that was not what the training plan said I should be doing, but it fitted.  Older daughter looked at my trademark pink legwarmers before I left, "are they new?" she says. "Nope".  "They're clean" she observed. I looked, they did look clean.  Why?  They were inside out. These poor things had been getting very grubby, more chain oil than clear space, but aha, here was a way to now double their reasonable lifespan. Anyway, with the old-new inside out pink legwarmers on, I took the easy route, headed off towards Clevedon and wandered round a bit there feeling uninspired. The most significant thing about this ride was something you only see when your training is mostly on country roads.  I came scooting around a corner on Monument Road and there was a significant obstacle.  Cows all over the road.  Ok I thought, they are just crossing I will wait for a car to push through and follow it. Well it turned out that from my low vant
Read more