Flushed with the shock success of the East Wales Regional Athletics Championships, I set about putting an edge onto my fitness and speed, well that was the theory anyway. The next competition was not far away and consisted of a double header of the Midlands League followed by the BMAF Pentathlon the next day. I had some fitness but I was sure it wasn't enough to cope with that.
I can't say my response to this was entirely in line with what was required. The weekend following the EWRAC meeting I was supposed to go to Neath for a Welsh Senior League, instead I headed in the opposite direction, and visited my other passion, a distillery.
It was no ordinary trip to the Cotswolds Distillery in Stourton, it was to take part in what they termed 'An investors tour'. The Cotswolds Distillery were running a CrowdFunding campaign to raise capital to extend their already successful distillery and I was interested in what they had to say. Well, the tour was quite enlightening, there was a science to what they did as you'd expect, but also a little magic. Now I don't mean the intervention of Mr. Harry Potter, what I mean by that is the way they distill their Gin in the same environment that they brew and distill their whisky. This allows the vapours and yeasts to cross-fertilise each other in a very empirical way.
A quick lesson in whisky. You take barley and soak it in warm water to start it germinating, then you heat it to stop it sprouting and you have malted barley. Next you grind it into grist and dissolve it in hot water to extract the sugars and starches, that gives you a liquid called Wort. You add yeast to the Wort and brew a strong yucky beer. That is what is going on in the silver vessels in the photo above. On the right is one of their gin stills. At the end of the brewing the liquid, now named wash, is about 8%ABV and is fed into the wash still.
The spirit emerges at 20-25%ABV and goes to the second spirit still that produces the new spirit at 70ish% ABV. It's not Whisky at this point and is also a clear liquid, it now needs to be aged in oak casks for 3 years and a day. At the Cotswolds Distillery this gives the surrounding Cotswolds Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty a chance to add its influence.
It leads to a slightly flowery spirit, and that's just the whisky, the gins are something else, they are into fruit in a big way. As you probably guessed I was taken by their setup and yes, now I'm a share holder in a distillery. Anyway that all nicely fuelled the discussions in the distillery's little bar where we tried just about everything they make, by the end of the day I could barely remember being an athlete.
The following week reality re-asserted itself and I got back to some serious training with the approaching double header of the Midlands League and the BMAF Pentathlon Championships. The two weeks flew by and training progressed well in all areas except in the endurance work, where despite my efforts I couldn't cover two miles in much less than 20 minutes resulting me needing immediate CPR.
The Midlands League was in Burton, the heart of England's brewing industry, so not really considered a hidden citadel. I drove up with my daughter and arrived at the track without issue and setup ready to vault. Time ran by and people arrived from the other clubs, but not from Newport. With barely 10 minutes before the first event the coach rolled up, apparently they had driven past the track on the A38 no less than three times. It was not a good start and it turned into a pretty average day. On the upside, I cleared a couple of heights in the vault, on the downside I failed out in the high jump and the club were 6th. My daughter did seven events and got 2 PBs and was voted our athlete of the round - I'll never hear the last of it.
The next day I drove to Oxford for the BMAF Pentathlon and a step into the unknown. The outdoor pentathlon consists of the long jump, javelin, 200m, discus and 1500m, so the day would be a mixture of strong events and weak. At least it started with one of my best - or so I thought. Warm up for the long jump went well, my 28.20m run up seemed bang on the board. Round 1 then, in the interest of safety I moved back 10cm and went for it - No Jump! OK round 2, safety, went back 30cm (board+10cm), went for it again - No Jump!! Last round then, all or nothing, so back 50cm and I went for it. Missed the plasticine by a millimetre and broke my M55 PB with 4.69m having extended my run up by almost 1m. The javelin turned out to be slightly less dramatic, I went for safety on the first throw and hit the ground just over 21m. Round two was somewhat predictable as my right arm betrayed itself as being more suited to aerobatics than throwing. The final throw was at least near my target distance and almost bordered decency. Moving on to my best event, not my favourite due to the endurance required, I had high hopes of pulling back some of the deficit created by the javelin as the middle order places were very tight. The 200m had the potential to go badly wrong, time trials leading up to the event placed me over a second adrift, or it might not. I was drawn in lane one, so at least no one was going to sneak up on me, and being short the tight bend might suit.
Add to this my new spikes that were specifically designed to go round corners and we could be OK, though I'm not sure about the straight. Anyway, my start was just legal - on the 'B' of the bang as my mate Colin Jackson would say - and I hit the accelerator like I was being chased by a Velociraptor. To my surprise I hit the straight in the lead and despite being caught by said Velociraptor with 50m to go I hung on for a half decent win in 27.00. Slightly worryingly the world now seemed to be revolving in a clockwise direction, and I was sure I hadn't touched any single malts, I needed a lie down. Unfortunately, unlike the Olympics, we all had to walk (or trudge in my case) back to the start to collect our kit, where were the kit carriers when you need them?
I did manage some sort of recovery for the discus, which was fortunate as I may have thrown it anywhere considering spinning in my state of disarray could of ended up in hilarity. Well, I threw a M55 PB surprisingly, after a safe one then a crap one. I think I was up to 4th at this point, but we all know what was coming next. The 1500m was never going to go well with me being fresh, so knackered before I started was a bad omen. Sure enough after only 300m I felt the presence of the fridge on my back. By a lap later I was sure it was one of those giant American jobs that dispensed ice, but the bear carrying it wouldn't let me have any. At the 1000m mark things were drifting in and out of focus and I have to thank Andy Rushbrooke for running with me until the last 300m as I would probably have got lost. It wasn't the worst 1500 I've 'run' but it was darn close: 7:05.90 which dropped me to 6th. My daughter hasn't stopped laughing since, the 'but I did 4 other events' excuse didn't hold any whisky as she had done more and run over a minute faster.
My total of 2446 was 50 points short of my target, which was a shame as 3 of my events had exceeded expectations, whereas the 1500 had exceeded expectations in the opposite way. Still it was a club record as was the discus (not sure how that happened).
I resolved to up the mileage, well actually to do some mileage would be more accurate. So after 2 days rest, it was over the fields for some 200's to start with and lo and behold my old mate the bear had found his way home from Oxford. Half way through the set and my other old friend, the stupid Dalmatian also re-appeared and that was the end off that, I wasn't going to risk it again. The following weeks were going to be hard, hurdles were introduced the week after the pentathlon, after a decent vault session at NIAC. I was feeling quite good about sliding over a 3.10m bungee bar, when a certain Mrs. Bradshaw turned up to train. They soon had a proper bar at 4m, and off a short run up using something that looked like a piece of scaffolding for a pole she just flew over with feet to spare. It was easy to see why Hollie is the UK no. 1 and I'm not. Two days later I pulled my hamstring trying to run 2 miles just to underline this fact, what will happen next?
I can't say my response to this was entirely in line with what was required. The weekend following the EWRAC meeting I was supposed to go to Neath for a Welsh Senior League, instead I headed in the opposite direction, and visited my other passion, a distillery.
 |
| Steel washbacks next to the copper Gin still |
A quick lesson in whisky. You take barley and soak it in warm water to start it germinating, then you heat it to stop it sprouting and you have malted barley. Next you grind it into grist and dissolve it in hot water to extract the sugars and starches, that gives you a liquid called Wort. You add yeast to the Wort and brew a strong yucky beer. That is what is going on in the silver vessels in the photo above. On the right is one of their gin stills. At the end of the brewing the liquid, now named wash, is about 8%ABV and is fed into the wash still.
 |
| The Cotswolds single malt at the launch last year. |
It leads to a slightly flowery spirit, and that's just the whisky, the gins are something else, they are into fruit in a big way. As you probably guessed I was taken by their setup and yes, now I'm a share holder in a distillery. Anyway that all nicely fuelled the discussions in the distillery's little bar where we tried just about everything they make, by the end of the day I could barely remember being an athlete.
The following week reality re-asserted itself and I got back to some serious training with the approaching double header of the Midlands League and the BMAF Pentathlon Championships. The two weeks flew by and training progressed well in all areas except in the endurance work, where despite my efforts I couldn't cover two miles in much less than 20 minutes resulting me needing immediate CPR.
The Midlands League was in Burton, the heart of England's brewing industry, so not really considered a hidden citadel. I drove up with my daughter and arrived at the track without issue and setup ready to vault. Time ran by and people arrived from the other clubs, but not from Newport. With barely 10 minutes before the first event the coach rolled up, apparently they had driven past the track on the A38 no less than three times. It was not a good start and it turned into a pretty average day. On the upside, I cleared a couple of heights in the vault, on the downside I failed out in the high jump and the club were 6th. My daughter did seven events and got 2 PBs and was voted our athlete of the round - I'll never hear the last of it.
The next day I drove to Oxford for the BMAF Pentathlon and a step into the unknown. The outdoor pentathlon consists of the long jump, javelin, 200m, discus and 1500m, so the day would be a mixture of strong events and weak. At least it started with one of my best - or so I thought. Warm up for the long jump went well, my 28.20m run up seemed bang on the board. Round 1 then, in the interest of safety I moved back 10cm and went for it - No Jump! OK round 2, safety, went back 30cm (board+10cm), went for it again - No Jump!! Last round then, all or nothing, so back 50cm and I went for it. Missed the plasticine by a millimetre and broke my M55 PB with 4.69m having extended my run up by almost 1m. The javelin turned out to be slightly less dramatic, I went for safety on the first throw and hit the ground just over 21m. Round two was somewhat predictable as my right arm betrayed itself as being more suited to aerobatics than throwing. The final throw was at least near my target distance and almost bordered decency. Moving on to my best event, not my favourite due to the endurance required, I had high hopes of pulling back some of the deficit created by the javelin as the middle order places were very tight. The 200m had the potential to go badly wrong, time trials leading up to the event placed me over a second adrift, or it might not. I was drawn in lane one, so at least no one was going to sneak up on me, and being short the tight bend might suit.
 |
| New spikes for going round corners or are they just skew wiff |
I did manage some sort of recovery for the discus, which was fortunate as I may have thrown it anywhere considering spinning in my state of disarray could of ended up in hilarity. Well, I threw a M55 PB surprisingly, after a safe one then a crap one. I think I was up to 4th at this point, but we all know what was coming next. The 1500m was never going to go well with me being fresh, so knackered before I started was a bad omen. Sure enough after only 300m I felt the presence of the fridge on my back. By a lap later I was sure it was one of those giant American jobs that dispensed ice, but the bear carrying it wouldn't let me have any. At the 1000m mark things were drifting in and out of focus and I have to thank Andy Rushbrooke for running with me until the last 300m as I would probably have got lost. It wasn't the worst 1500 I've 'run' but it was darn close: 7:05.90 which dropped me to 6th. My daughter hasn't stopped laughing since, the 'but I did 4 other events' excuse didn't hold any whisky as she had done more and run over a minute faster.
 |
| The M55 Pentathlon result. |
I resolved to up the mileage, well actually to do some mileage would be more accurate. So after 2 days rest, it was over the fields for some 200's to start with and lo and behold my old mate the bear had found his way home from Oxford. Half way through the set and my other old friend, the stupid Dalmatian also re-appeared and that was the end off that, I wasn't going to risk it again. The following weeks were going to be hard, hurdles were introduced the week after the pentathlon, after a decent vault session at NIAC. I was feeling quite good about sliding over a 3.10m bungee bar, when a certain Mrs. Bradshaw turned up to train. They soon had a proper bar at 4m, and off a short run up using something that looked like a piece of scaffolding for a pole she just flew over with feet to spare. It was easy to see why Hollie is the UK no. 1 and I'm not. Two days later I pulled my hamstring trying to run 2 miles just to underline this fact, what will happen next?
No comments:
Post a Comment