Defn: a human male displaying evidence of devolution - exhibits distinctive "caveman-like" tendencies. This man often dribbles in public places; cannot drink a beverage without spilling it on himself, the floor or someone else; may also run into objects like lampposts & bushes; has a definite "sloopish & short legged" running style that is slow and low to the ground, often resulting in the dragging of knuckles.

These throwback neanderthals, along with their questionable diet, should clearly be avoided.

Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Tossing the Gumboot

As noted in this blog - I was born and raised in New Zealand.  There are a few things that were part of life growing up.  2 of note were Rugby and Gumboots.

New Zealand is hosting the Rugby World Cup, here is a link for the official website - for those interested.  It kicks off next Friday (Sept 9th).  20 international teams competing including Australia, South Africa, USA, Canada, England, Ireland, France, Argentina, Japan, Fiji, Tonga.

I am going to follow it online as it is seemingly a fairly big deal back in NZ and I am curious to see how things go, although I have no idea how any team will do.  I played in High School and then for a couple of years afterwards - got knocked out a few times, had a great time.  I was probably more fit during that time than I have ever been, including training for a marathon.  Although it was a different kind of fitness to play rugby than to run races.

Here is what I think is the official video preview.


I mentioned at the beginning of this post: Gumboots.  Everyone I knew when I was growing up had gumboots.  We wore them at home on the farm, to school, to birthday parties, to the beach, up the Mountains - we wore them everywhere.

A fun activity became "gumboot tossing", in fact, there is a town in New Zealand, Taihape (pronounced "tie happy" for those who need to try), has a Gumboot Day - which has among other events that day - a gumboot throwing contest.

Here's a brief video of that....


The thing with throwing gumboots - if you were like me - was that I never really knew where it was going to go or land when I threw it. So, to the point of this post, aside from injecting a little bit of "kiwi" into the blog - tossing the gumboot for me is like what am I going to do for running now that I have finished "my races" for the year. I don't have much of any ideas aside from still wanting to run, mostly just for fun and because it is good for me.

I have no races planned in the near or distant future and I am okay with that. The busy ness of kids school and everything that goes with that, along with soccer for the kids - and everything that goes along with that - will keep me busy. But I am looking forward to finding and making time to get out and run.

One more video - involves running (sort of). Enjoy - but don't watch if offended by the "f" word.

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