26 October 2010
23 October 2010
Churchiness in Fuschl
Faced with thousands of former devotees quitting the catholic church each year, the Salzburg diocese is hitting back, reminding everyone what a fun bunch they are.
Posters with uplifting churchie slogans on blue sky and cloudy backgrounds have appeared in villages across the region. Fuschl even has angels stuck on strategic corners with key words such as 'joy' and 'happiness' painted underneath. Last weekend ladies dressed in blue anoraks handed out gummi bears and encouraged us to smile.
And yet still the overriding feeling you get from all this is one of guilt - see, the church DOES want you to be happy and smile, even though you are a sinful non-believer. Perhaps this is a cynical point of view and for someone who was never in the catholic church or ever particularly religious, I'm probably not the best to judge.
However, leaving aside recent international scandals, anecdotes from friends and family don't exactly fill you with a new-found desire to attend mass on a Sunday with the old folks.
The wife of a friend of ours who left had a rather unpleasant visit from the priests assistant who said he had "done a very bad thing!" In fact, the wife is to scared to leave in case of the impact that it might have on her kids not being able to take first communion. "They would be teased about it," she explains.
Another way of looking at it is that of my wife's, who recently posted on Facebook: "The efin bells just woke the baby AGAIN.
Free tip to the Austrian Catholic church - if you want to stop the mass exodus, forget the God Loves You posters and rethink the excessive ding dong sessions at random times in the afternoon."
Posters with uplifting churchie slogans on blue sky and cloudy backgrounds have appeared in villages across the region. Fuschl even has angels stuck on strategic corners with key words such as 'joy' and 'happiness' painted underneath. Last weekend ladies dressed in blue anoraks handed out gummi bears and encouraged us to smile.
And yet still the overriding feeling you get from all this is one of guilt - see, the church DOES want you to be happy and smile, even though you are a sinful non-believer. Perhaps this is a cynical point of view and for someone who was never in the catholic church or ever particularly religious, I'm probably not the best to judge.
However, leaving aside recent international scandals, anecdotes from friends and family don't exactly fill you with a new-found desire to attend mass on a Sunday with the old folks.
The wife of a friend of ours who left had a rather unpleasant visit from the priests assistant who said he had "done a very bad thing!" In fact, the wife is to scared to leave in case of the impact that it might have on her kids not being able to take first communion. "They would be teased about it," she explains.
Another way of looking at it is that of my wife's, who recently posted on Facebook: "The efin bells just woke the baby AGAIN.
Free tip to the Austrian Catholic church - if you want to stop the mass exodus, forget the God Loves You posters and rethink the excessive ding dong sessions at random times in the afternoon."
20 October 2010
18 October 2010
Why am I a cyclist?
Because running is freakin' painful.
The last year running has been the main focus of my need to exercise, primarily because it doesn't require as much time as cycling to get a good workout. Of course the desire to compete is just as strong as usual and so the 27km Wolfgangsee Lauf was the final goal for the season.
Training has been fun. The company's current photography intern is an ultra-marathon runner from Mexico, Marcos Ferra, and we have been out for plenty of lunch break jogs. The guy is awesome, he can just keep going and going and apparently spends much of his weekends on four hour training jaunts around the local hills.
So I had some confidence going into the Wolfgangsee Lauf. The course is interesting: 3km after the start in St. Wolfgang, there is a sharp incline over the Falkenstein. It rises 250m vertically and the descent afterwards is equally steep. From there it is an essentially flat half marathon back to St. Wolfgang.
Marcos took off like a rabbit after the starting gun, not to seen again until the finish. I forced myself to take it easy until at least the Falkenstein. Getting over it wasn't a problem, and I adopted Marcos' downhill technique to good effect, overtaking a lot of runners on the way down. But back at lake level things didn't go totally as I planned. My heart-rate was soaring and I just couldn't get it back to what I was comfortable with.
By St. Gilgen at the 10km mark my pulse was still banging away at 176-179bpm, about 10bpm over what I wanted. I realised this wasn't going to change, so just tried to get in the best rhythm possible and slog it out to the finish.
With 10km to go, I actually felt pretty good. I was able to stick 4min 40sec kilometres and despite the cold and rain, my legs weren't too sore. However, something happened over the next 20 minutes and I gradually got slower and slower. More runners were coming past and my kilometre time was down to 5min.
Mentally I was nearing breaking point. Why was I doing this stupid race? I'm a cyclist, not a runner. Suffering on bikes seems so much more agreeable than on foot.
Through Strobl with five clicks remaining and I just had to take a break, walking for 20 seconds before starting up running again. I saw my work colleague on a corner taking photos which motivated me to pick up the pace a little bit.
The final kilometres were difficult to say the least but emotionally satisfying. At the 500m mark, Red Bull X-Alps athlete Christian Amon - who had finished almost 20 minutes earlier - gave me a shout, and then it was a short descent into the town with hundreds of people cheering. What a boost that was!
I crossed the line in 2hr 13min 6sec, nearly two minutes up on my target of 2hr 15min, and a placing of 228 from 1100 starters. Marcos killed it with 2hr 3min 46sec and 131st position. We didn't hang around, jumping in the car and heading home for a shower and a magnificent shepherd's pie cooked by Katie.
Due to the ridiculous and permanent cycling tans, I opted for baggier longer shorts
Marcos in cruise mode...
One day later and my legs are wrecked and my knees incredibly stiff. I'm sure the jolting on asphalt combined with belting down a steep hill has contributed to the feeling, but whatever the cause, it's ten times worse than after any bike race. The idea of doing a marathon next year is now on hold after this run. It will hurt, and I will wish I was cycling instead.
Meanwhile, less than 24hours after we finished, Marcos, the crazy fool, went for a run, jogging 12km round Fuschlsee.
The last year running has been the main focus of my need to exercise, primarily because it doesn't require as much time as cycling to get a good workout. Of course the desire to compete is just as strong as usual and so the 27km Wolfgangsee Lauf was the final goal for the season.
Training has been fun. The company's current photography intern is an ultra-marathon runner from Mexico, Marcos Ferra, and we have been out for plenty of lunch break jogs. The guy is awesome, he can just keep going and going and apparently spends much of his weekends on four hour training jaunts around the local hills.
So I had some confidence going into the Wolfgangsee Lauf. The course is interesting: 3km after the start in St. Wolfgang, there is a sharp incline over the Falkenstein. It rises 250m vertically and the descent afterwards is equally steep. From there it is an essentially flat half marathon back to St. Wolfgang.
Marcos took off like a rabbit after the starting gun, not to seen again until the finish. I forced myself to take it easy until at least the Falkenstein. Getting over it wasn't a problem, and I adopted Marcos' downhill technique to good effect, overtaking a lot of runners on the way down. But back at lake level things didn't go totally as I planned. My heart-rate was soaring and I just couldn't get it back to what I was comfortable with.
By St. Gilgen at the 10km mark my pulse was still banging away at 176-179bpm, about 10bpm over what I wanted. I realised this wasn't going to change, so just tried to get in the best rhythm possible and slog it out to the finish.
With 10km to go, I actually felt pretty good. I was able to stick 4min 40sec kilometres and despite the cold and rain, my legs weren't too sore. However, something happened over the next 20 minutes and I gradually got slower and slower. More runners were coming past and my kilometre time was down to 5min.
Mentally I was nearing breaking point. Why was I doing this stupid race? I'm a cyclist, not a runner. Suffering on bikes seems so much more agreeable than on foot.
Through Strobl with five clicks remaining and I just had to take a break, walking for 20 seconds before starting up running again. I saw my work colleague on a corner taking photos which motivated me to pick up the pace a little bit.
The final kilometres were difficult to say the least but emotionally satisfying. At the 500m mark, Red Bull X-Alps athlete Christian Amon - who had finished almost 20 minutes earlier - gave me a shout, and then it was a short descent into the town with hundreds of people cheering. What a boost that was!
I crossed the line in 2hr 13min 6sec, nearly two minutes up on my target of 2hr 15min, and a placing of 228 from 1100 starters. Marcos killed it with 2hr 3min 46sec and 131st position. We didn't hang around, jumping in the car and heading home for a shower and a magnificent shepherd's pie cooked by Katie.
One day later and my legs are wrecked and my knees incredibly stiff. I'm sure the jolting on asphalt combined with belting down a steep hill has contributed to the feeling, but whatever the cause, it's ten times worse than after any bike race. The idea of doing a marathon next year is now on hold after this run. It will hurt, and I will wish I was cycling instead.
Meanwhile, less than 24hours after we finished, Marcos, the crazy fool, went for a run, jogging 12km round Fuschlsee.
12 October 2010
Battle Cranks Update
Press release: done and blasted to as many cycling-type people as I can find.
Website: updated and looking frickin cool. Simple Wordpress CMS based site, effective and stylish. www.battlecranks.com.
Posters and stuff: coming along. Bill has done some sweet layouts.
We have prizes now, trophies are being made and the entries are starting to come in. There have been a few people signing up who I don't actually know, which is pretty darn exciting.
So for anyone interested, register here and check the Facebook event page here.
1 October 2010
Battle Cranks
My first foray into event organising is coming together. Battle Cranks will be Austria's first ever bicycle roller racing event and it should be a blast. The race takes place at Fuschl's Hotel Mohrenwirt on November 27 and it's totally free.
Website is launched and we have some sponsors coming in now too. Everyone I've spoken to is interested, but whether that interest turns into actual participants, I am not sure. Also a challenge is explaining to Austrians what it is - nobody, not even cyclists, know what roller racing entails. We came up with the German phrase "Rennrad-Rollenrennen" which covers it pretty well but is a bit of a mouthful. Guess we'll see if the locals 'get it'.
A big thanks must go to Rollapaluza, the London company credited with bringing back roller racing in the UK and who are coming to Austria on a shoestring to help us make this happen.
It's going to be a great night. Check out www.battlecranks.com, register at http://tinyurl.com/battlecranks and the Facebook event page is here.
Massive props to Bill for the graphics, the whole CI is freaking wicked.
Website is launched and we have some sponsors coming in now too. Everyone I've spoken to is interested, but whether that interest turns into actual participants, I am not sure. Also a challenge is explaining to Austrians what it is - nobody, not even cyclists, know what roller racing entails. We came up with the German phrase "Rennrad-Rollenrennen" which covers it pretty well but is a bit of a mouthful. Guess we'll see if the locals 'get it'.
A big thanks must go to Rollapaluza, the London company credited with bringing back roller racing in the UK and who are coming to Austria on a shoestring to help us make this happen.
It's going to be a great night. Check out www.battlecranks.com, register at http://tinyurl.com/battlecranks and the Facebook event page is here.
Massive props to Bill for the graphics, the whole CI is freaking wicked.
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