Posts Tagged ‘bobby behan’
A pre-able to tuesdays’ race report for XTERRA USA Champs, Ogden.
Melanie McQuaid, myself, Shonny Vanlandingham and Josiah Middaugh “teaching” The Art of XTERRA at the Paul Mitchell XTERRA University. Pics by Nils Nilsen
I dont have 3hrs to write a good race report right now, but I know monday everyone spends half the day on their Facebook and reading about the weekends race results before real work starts, so here is a quick little something something about the weekend.
I’m driving to Reno today (9hrs) so I can get back to training for Maui in 4 weeks.
I finished 2nd behind Nico Lebrun on this mountain goat course, but nailed my 7th XTERRA USA Series title. More about this tomorrow.
This is a quick peek at this whirlwind weekend.
Gavin Noble. Irish triathlete. Joker. Poet.
pic design by Nikola
I met Gavin Noble early this year in Stellenbosch, South Africa. We were both on training camps. I just started training and Gavin – one of Ireland’s Olympic triathlon hopefuls – was already lean and mean.
It is comical how wildly our training styles varied:
Gav swam 6km group swims at 5.15 am. I floated 30-40 mins on my own when the sun sat high.
Gavin sometimes ran 3 times a day, I sometimes ran 3 days in a row.
Gav wears pink tights in public, (in summer) I wore pink speedos in the 80s.
But despite our wildly different training approaches, we got on like a house on fire. Seems like a special South African / Irish thing. I have grown to love the Irish through our mutual friend Bobby Behan from whom I learnt a vast array of Irish sayings in a more or less Irish accent. “Fierce nice guy like you know.”
Well, Gav is quite a character too. He is also a team mate. Not in the usual sense. Blogging team mates. Check it out here: TriathlonTeam.org
Gavin’s blogging is quite something. He is also really passionate about suffering and quotes. Which he manages to blend together nicely. Here are a few from his site: GavinNoble.com
“When I’m training, I need four things, a room, a bed, and maybe two blankets, for when it gets cold”
I always loved to watch distance running. I am one of those people who think the sight of an athlete in full flow is a beautiful thing. I love ‘the chat’ about the old days – when 5 of your neighbours could run sub 30minutes for a 10k – back when ‘men were made of iron and ships were made of wood !’
This is my favourite Gavin blog:
Motivation for the Week: Chase the Mammoth
If you run without sacrifice, congratulations you just jogged.
Running hurts. It always has. Wolley Mammoths didnt just roll over on a plate and serve themselves up to Prehistoric Man with a portion of gravy chips (loveabitofgravychipsme) and a cola. They had to be caught – and supposidly catching a Wolley Mammoth was a bitch !
Guess what ?
Winning All African ITU title at Club Mykono 1998
Club Mykonons on the West coast of South Africa is 2 hrs north of Cape Town. It used to be a quiet, quaint rip off of the village Mykonos, Greece. The ocean always freezing- the swim was in the marina- for one of the turn buoys you had to go between the hulls of a huge catamaran. Once you go inland it gets very hot, glaringly bright, with the wind always pumping.
XTERRA Midwest. Battle Creek, Michigan
Winning smile & story time. During a week like this, so many things happen, its impossible to keep track of it all. I’ll try to give some perspective here.
My new race kit is officially here. It arrived from Hong Kong on Friday. My mate Gary Mandy hooked me up sweet with LUMA kit. I have a white kit, a black one and a red one (pictured) to chose from. And cycling gear
X mas came early!
TOP PRO MEN
1 ) Conrad Stoltz 2:03:16
2 ) Mike Vine 2:04:13
3 ) Josiah Middaugh 2:04:27
4 ) Dan Hugo 2:05:27
5 ) Nico Lebrun 2:06:00
6 ) Seth Wealing 2:06:31
7 ) Brian Smith 2:08:20
8 ) Branden Rakita 2:10:10
9 ) Craig Evans 2:10:20
10 ) Ryan Decook 2:13:09
The making of a video. For www.i-am-specialized.com
This video was made for the “triathlon” part of the i-am-specialized website.
The a href=”http://www.i-am-specialized.com/triathlon” target=”_blank”>i-am-specialized website is aimed at being the public’s way of following Specialized riders’ racing and stories online. It is a new site and will mostly aim at internet video content. Internet video is the new TV.
I am honoured to be the 1st triathlete to have a video on the site.
Terrenzo and Macca will have videos soon…
The shoot started with swimming.
Bobby Behan – our Marketing Manager (and a few other things) used to be a pro triathlete himself, (we lived and trained together in Stellenbosch in 2000) so he knew exactly what needed to go into this movie. He sat in the director chair for 2 days.
Aaron Vogel just realized his dream job by becoming Specialized’s first in-house videographer. He says it wasnt really his dream job- he couldnt dream of a job where he could ride bikes and make movies AND get paid for it!
Anyway, Bobby decided we’ll kick off with swimming. And posing. Lots and lots of posing. I hate posing, but it was one of the many things I learnt about acting that fateful day….
Posing to da max. Oh yes, on the speedo issue- I’m old school (ie started racing tri in the late 80s) so I wear a speedo. End of story. At least its not lime green or pink. Like it was in
this picture from 1992!
