Hookup, Find Sex or Meet Someone Hot Now
Reset Password
Reset Link Sent
Hookup, Find Sex or Meet Someone Hot Now
| Blogs > matt-battler > Captain Caveman finally speaks |
18th century stars of track & field
|
18th century stars of track & field Aside from the EU Referendum question, the biggest question of 2016 is: 'If you were at a dinner party and you were sat next to someone who was a vegan and did crossfit, what would they mention first?' I'm sure a lot of people will relate to this in a general sense as on many dating profiles, if someone does a stroke of exercise, they scream it from the rooftops - 'Hey I can grate a whole block of cheese without my hand falling off, what do you make of that eh?' Crossfit often crops up, as if it's some superior form of high intensity exercise compared to other gym work. The other popular nugget is Tough Mudder - this is particularly ridiculous as while doing a Tough Mudder race which involves wading through bogs and cesspools at various intervals is not pleasant, it's not a great test of athletic prowess as the whole-wading-through treacle aspect of is a massive leveller, so the mediocre can stay much closer to the best. Also your Tough Mudder pics show you at your worst, splattered in mud and slime and wearing skintight Gola leggings. You'd probably be better off posting Halloween pics to attract a mate. This is in stark contrast to the community of runners I want to play tribute to this week - the 18th century professional athletes who unlike today's 10K runners who post 100 pics on Facebook, have nearly been written out of history altogether. Readers of my blog will know that I'm a big Olympics fan, but I'm more of an all-sports fan and I'm fascinated by the obscure. The history books are not full of detail about sport through the ages and until recently all I knew about 18th pre-Industrial sport was that -racing and bare knuckle boxing were the most popular sports and team sports hadn't really got going in terms of mass-participation. This was to overlook athletics, hardly surprising as there had been a cover-up by the Victorians. In the 18th century the UK's running scene (you can't call it track and field as they didn't have tracks yet) was sizzling hot. Think Roger Bannister was the first person to run a sub-4 minute mile? Well he was probably the first amateur to run one. Records show that a man, known only by his surname - Weller - ran a mile on London's Banbury road in 3:58 in 1796. This is consistent with several hundred records unearthed with athletes going within a few seconds of the 4 minute barrier, or running 5-minute mile pace for 10, 11, 12 mile runs. These performances have been met with a lot of scepticism, however it's been pointed out that via the use of agricultural chains the distances would be accurate to within 1 cm, and the timepieces used were already accurate to within 5 seconds for every 24 hours, so pretty much spot on for a 4 minute race. Much care was taken with accuracy as MONEY was on the line - all the big races took place because of wagers. If the runner could beat a target time he could win 15 - 50 guineas - several months to a year's wages. In this carefree age all types ran - young, old, fit, unfit, men, women - there's even a record of a 15-year-old girl running a 5 minute mile. One of the more striking aspects of all this is that they ran NAKED, as a tribute to the Ancient Greeks at the original Olympics, a tradition upheld despite many of the races being scheduled in the middle of winter. So what happened next? In the 1850s the Victorians formed the Amateur Athletics Association. They set strict rules as to how records could be set and who could run. It turned into a middle-class sport. The working professional man (and woman) was excluded and standards declined. The records from the previous era, which were superior, were an embarrassment to the Victorians so they tried to write them out of history. I like to think of myself as a 'no thrills' athlete, I laugh at all the people wearing lycra and taking those special bottles with the recess handle so they can carry it while logging a half mile. Just put on shorts, a top, shoes and go and do it! However our 18th century forebears have me beat, running barefoot, tackle swinging in the breeze, picking their way down cobbled streets at speeds only matched by the best today is pretty insane if you think about it. Anyway I'm not someone who usually trades on their looks but there are plenty of running and cycling miles in my legs, it's probably the only good bit about me physically, so here's a pic of what my (clothed) sporting exploits have done to mine:  |
|||
|
Shouldn't that be no 'frills' athlete as opposed to no 'thrills'  That aside...nice legs, Matt, very nice legs indeed  I'm very happy to see you return the photo-favour  I'm a no-frills...well, I wouldn't call myself an athlete by any stretch of the imagination, but I like to keep fit, so a no-frills...exerciser Mostly walking, but I jog if I'm out with the 'other' Matt only because he prefers to jog than walk. Maybe he's trying to run away from me... I should look into that, haha. But I know the type of athlete you mean.I have a friend who is a larger lady with a moderate income who complains about how much gym membership costs. I keep telling her it costs nothing to walk, very little to swim at the local swimming pool, and zip to walk up and down her stairs in the house, do crunches and lots of other basic exercises. Plus, cutting down on the fast food she consumes will save money, so it's win-win. I keep telling her she doesn't need to go to a gym to lose weight, doesn't have to spend a fortune on outfits, shakes, bottled water, and she really doesn't have to do without her favourite foods, either. Everything in moderation and all that. [image] "I'm always disappointed when a liar's pants don't actually catch on fire..."
| ||
|
A few years ago I was in my local sports club bar when I bumped into the Rugby Club's president, who was an old Polish guy called Lezlak. Something rugby-related had just happened in Poland so I thought I'd mention it . . . Me: Hi there Les, I see Wales have just gone to Krakow to do a pre-season boot camp, what do you make of that huh? Lezlak: Oh marvellous, let's hope they fuck a load of Polish whores and come back with a bunch of diseases which will weaken them. Wouldn't that be great? This was NOT the response I was expecting. I'm happy to admit that I'm a 'no frills' and 'no thrills' athlete, I clearly cannot match the on-field entertainment and off-field drama of rugby so I won't go claiming. Without knowing it, the combination of walking and jogging you describe is particularly good for you as it replicates hunter-gatherer activity. For several million years we would walk and run several miles a day every day in pursuit of food so if you do this now you're doing what we're programmed to do, according to evolution. I know this is very predictable, coming from a Caveman but I couldn't resist it  As for your large friend . . . I'm on LinkedIn and you see a lot of cheesy American psychobabble on there, but occasionally a few of the phrases ring true, one that I saw was: 'If you really want to do things in life you find a way, if you don't want to do things in life you make excuses' - enough said!
|
Become a member to create a blog
