The Ben Cousins Biathlon could turn out to be the ultimate hash run.
Ben Cousins is an Australian footballer. In February 2006, he was driving along a road in Perth with his girlfriend when he stumbled upon a police sobriety checkpoint. His reaction is the stuff of legend.
Cousins abandoned his vehicle and his girlfriend in the middle of the road, ran through backyards, jumped fences, and decided his best avenue of escape was to cross the Canning River. He swam halfway, thought better of it, and reversed course. Once again on dry land, he ran a considerable distance to the Blue Water Grill, where he denied his identity and demanded a phone call.
On the fifth anniversary of his bolt to freedom, racers will reenact his feat – an achievement much like that of Pheidippides. Organizers are searching for home owners who will allow runners to use their backyards for the fence-jumping portions.
“I saw the humour in some of the things he did,” said race organizer Damon Bull.
The breathless headline from ABC News reads:
Female Athletes Are Too Fit To Get Pregnant
Women in Sports Who Train Too Hard Urged to Freeze Their Eggs Before It’s Too Late
First we learn your uterus can fall out, and now we discover that if it stays in, it might not work!
My advice is to drop this story in the circular file. The article fails to mention that it’s also pretty difficult to conceive if you’re overweight, out-of-shape and feel miserable about yourself. So ladies, get out on the road and keep in your eggs in your basket, where they belong.
This puts any struggles we might have while running in perspective. The “La Ultra – The High” ultramarathon is a 138-mile race that traverses a Himalayan pass at 17,700 feet. The entire race is above 11,000 feet in altitude, and featured a small avalanche.
Only three people could be persuaded to run it, and only one finished – Mark Cockbain covered the distance in 48 hours and 50 minutes.
Why would runners do something this extreme?
“Part of it is the democratization of the marathon. When the marathon is ho-hum, people start to jump up to 50 kilometers or 50 miles and they enjoy the challenge,” said Bryon Powell of iRunFar.com.
Got my 5k in this morning on the treadmill and now we’re about to sail away from Bermuda for the day-and-a-half trip back to New York Harbor. But not before we went shopping in Hamilton, and that means a reader giveaway when we get back!
Though we couldn’t find anything to rival the ever-popular Popener, I’m sure you’ll be eager to do whatever is necessary to win these prizes. I’ll develop some sort of competition for one, and give the other away randomly. Stay tuned to this space for details and I’ll talk to you again on Monday when we get back home. Thanks for joining us (virtually) on our vacation.
Hopped the local bus this morning to Elbow Beach. It’s a public beach bordered on both sides by private resort beaches. There was some surf but it was manageable. The water temperature here is amazing. There just isn‘t any initial jolt when you enter the water. It‘s perfect.
I swam a bit, and noted the difference between working through the waves as opposed to calm water. But it was great fun and I come away from this trip with a much higher level of confidence.
We sail away at noon tomorrow, so there’s no more beach time. Back to running. I’d very much like to run in Bermuda, but the nearby areas don’t seem to be very runner-friendly. There are sidewalks in town, but not outside of it, and running in the road would be extremely dangerous. It looks like another workout on the Rubber Band of Doom.
The good news is that 
