In cross country and trail running it is an oft used tactic to surge to break up the field. This is done with relentless regularity and precision by East African runners. However, it’s not the attacking tool of a novice or the unprepared; you need to train hard and smartly to use surging to its best effect.

A surge is a planned and substantial pace increase at a predetermined point in a race; this juncture can be a location, a lap or a given elapsed time or as we sometimes see an incident such as a slip, a distraction. The goal of surging is to escape from the rest of the pack by creating a gap that the other runners are reluctant or unable to close. Once the gap has been established, the surging runner(s) look to return to a normal pace and rhythm.

Surging works as it disrupts the rhythm of competitors, it unsettles their race plans. Unprepared for a sudden acceleration,
opponents are forced out of their comfort zone and forced to cope with significantly increasing stress burdens and doubt.

The stress loads are not all one way. If you are aiming to offload a spike of acceleration you need to be completely ready for it mentally, tactically and physically.

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For thousands of years people have literally and figuratively searched for the ‘fountain of youth’, some place, method or elixir that will allow them to stay perpetually young.

Modern science has allowed us to all live longer but unfortunately a poor diet, lack of exercise and WAY too much stress mean that many of us don’t enjoy the great quality of life that we deserve.

I am a strong proponent of natural methods and a natural diet to optimise health. Because of this I think that we often can look at health conditions and our health in general in a far too allopathic way. We are often looking for treatments for problems when in reality all we get are treatments for symptoms.

The same can be said about ageing. Most of us want to find ways to reduce the visible signs of ageing without looking at the reasons why we are ’showing our age’ more than we’d like!

Of course time marches on regardless and we can never stay looking the same. BUT we can all strive to have optimal health at any age, and this will show through in the way we look.

The most important thing in looking young and more importantly feeling young is to eat a good, balanced diet and to exercise; sounds simple and boring doesn’t it? Tough; it’s like training - you need to be discipined. There are also some supplements and foods that may help stave off the effects of aging if your nutrition isn’t adequately meeting the needs of your body (and let’s face it most of our diets aren’t ‘perfect.’) (more…)

It’s been quite a while since I had to get myself a new pair of sunglasses so I fronted up large for this striking new pair of Explorers from Julbo.

I wanted something in the mountains without necessarily having to look like a stunt double for Sir Ed.

Thankfully, the Julbo folk have not succumbed to the whims of Hollywood and the Explorers are extremely well made and thought out; exhibiting substance as well as style.

JULBO offer a variety of quality lenses for just about any purpose; with polarized, photochromic and antifog treatment some of the options. With my model, the EXPLORER I have an alti spectron lens set which is anti flash and anti reflective. The clarity was simply unbelievably good. For my next pair - the multi sport variety I will run with an anti-fog coating with true photochromatic functionality to boot in the zebra lens.

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