GAA

In November 1884 the Gaelic Athletic Association was founded in Ireland. A country that was at that time still part of the United Kingdom. Its main focuses were on Irish sports, but music, dance and language are also high up on the list. The sports they champion are Gaelic Football, Hurling and Camogie. 

All the sports are played on a strictly amateur level, although the better players can get some advertisement money and/or sponsorships. Other than that: no pay! However, some of the football players do cross over to rugby, where they can go professional. 

Last Saturday I went to a football game in Newry. We could have seen both the games on that evening, but we left after the first one, which featured the under 20's. It was still great fun to watch though. If you are ever at a game where you don't understand a lot, ask the person in front, chances are they do! So, that's what I did. I asked the man in front of me, about the scoring, about the teams and about several other things. 

Now, the term football is quite a strange term for the sport we watched: the only time the ball ever touched the feet was when they were doing a keepie-uppie while running and when they tried to get the ball either in the goal or through the posts over the goal. Other than that: it was carried in their hands!

The names on the scoreboard were in Gaelic, which got me a bit confused as well (like it confused Yamini). Aontroim is indeed Co Antrim, but An Dun is not an island off the coast of Ireland, but a county called Down, both in the province of Ulster (which contains all of Northern Ireland and some counties in the Republic). 

Anyway, the game was great fun to watch and even the scoring was quite easy: between the goal posts over the goal: 1 point. In the goal: 3 points. However, instead of adding them all up immediately, they went for how many times they scored a certain way of scoring. At the end of the match, the points are totalled and a winner declared. In this case it was County Down who got a total of 29 points (they had 5 goals and 14 points, photo was taken a bit earlier), whereas County Antrim got a total of 22 points (3 goals and 13 points).

Of overs and wickets and such

A cricket pitch with a view

Having lived in the Netherlands most of my life and a stint in Norway as well, I have not come across cricket that often. In fact, never! Football (or soccer) yes. Cricket never. Even during my time in England a lifetime ago, I never came across it. 

A couple of days ago I had a bunch of school boys who were playing another school in a cricket tournament. I didn't watch it, even though I probably could have. Then yesterday, another group of school boys playing another school, but this time there wasn't even the possibility. 

Today I went to yet another school with the group from a couple of days ago and I felt it should be possible for me to catch some of the game. First of all, the sports grounds were fantastic! The school basically had the sports grounds in front of them and then: an uninterrupted view over the hills beyond! Not a bad place.

The weather was quite lovely as well: sunshine with a bit of a breeze and perfect to sit in a chair and watch a game of cricket. If only I understood what was going on!

I asked some of the boys on the bus to explain, and they did. I think. There was something about a rolling ball and four points and six points and knocking the wicket. I didn't really learn that much! However, some of what they said started making sense after a while and other things I figured out for myself. 

After the first half (I know it probably isn't called that, but that's what it felt like), my group had set a benchmark the other school had to beat. They didn't! Which meant my group had won. 

I understood it eventually. I think!

Cricket will never be my go-to-sport-to-watch, but it is quite nice. I think. With the sun shining and a light breeze and nice cup of tea...

En garde Mister!

The front of the school

It was an early Saturday morning for me, heading up to Belfast to pick up my load of children (and two adults). They were headed to Ireland and the Irish interschool fencing competition. The first person greeting me (good morning Sir) was a teacher who was quite shocked I was not a Sir, but a Madam. His colleague managed to keep the Sir in, just about.

I think this building was the dormitory building

The school we were heading to was out in the country side. Beautiful buildings and beautiful surroundings. Sports grounds that the average professional club would be jealous of and green as far as the eye could see. It was a boarding school for over 250 boys, but in the morning I never saw a single one!

The sports fields ran all the way up to the treeline

The boys I had with me though I did see. First I saw them running around with the other boys and some girls from three other schools. Jog, stop, run, stop, hit the floor, stop, jog, stop, jog etc. I got tired just watching them! That was however only the precursor of the actual event. All the boys and girls had started fencing last September and this was, for most anyway, to be their very first competition. I thought there was quite a discrepancy in size of children and some definitely looked older than the boys I had taken with me.

It was to be a relay competition. The first team to reach 45 had won. However, it wasn't as straightforward as all that as I soon found out. During the first fight(?) team A got 5 points and won the fight. Team B only got 3 points. During the second fight that meant that team A only needed 5 points to win, team B however would need 7! And if team B didn't catch up then, they would be chasing with a bigger and bigger margin, making it hard to win. 

Red light meant a hit and a point.

Anyway, both teams from 'my' school lost by only small margins, but they lost anyway and were now fencing for the consolation prizes. Because there were only four schools in this competition and the combined scores of both teams counted, they ended up taking third place overall. 

The way back was as unremarkable as the way in: borders are hard to see and the only thing really telling me I was back in Northern Ireland was the sign saying everything was now in miles again, Ireland having converted to kilometers about 15 years ago. A long day at work, but a good day nonetheless.

May 17th

I would have liked to wear this today, but alas...
I had to work

Congratulations. That's what I have been hearing all day. Happy birthday. Not mine. Norway's! 203 years ago, the nation now known as Norway started. After Denmark 'lost' Norway due to the side they took during the Napoleonic wars, it was given to Sweden. However, Norway felt it might be the time to do it themselves and wrote their first constitution. It took another century though before they finally became independent. 

Anyway, that fact is celebrated each year on May 17th and there are children's parades in the morning (got stuck in four different ones this morning), people's parades and the graduate's parades in the afternoon. Plus lots of other things. Here where I made my home, there is the rowing race. Old fashioned wooden boats, six rowers and a cox and off you go. 

In my first year here, aren't they the cutest?

I took part in my first year here in Norway, not really knowing what I had signed up for and after that I took over as organiser of our little band of rowers. Ie, I organise the training sessions. This year for some reason, I managed to get several other people interested in joining and all of a sudden we had two boats!

I thought it might be fun to row against each other, the rest didn't agree. Then we had to anyway and in the end we didn't. Team two was on first, but unfortunately the boat they were racing against, didn't get out of the way enough and it was hard getting away. They did in the end though and finished after a respectable 6 minutes and 53 seconds. 

During our last training session

After that it was our turn. Team one. We got away finely, but were playing catch-up with the boat we were racing. However, we had decided to take it slightly easy on the away stretch and then going full tilt on the home stretch. They rowed, I yelled, they rowed some more, I yelled some more and we slowly crept past the other boat. My voice went everywhere, but when we got over the line, we had beaten our direct opponents by one boat length. 

But that wasn't the most important to us, we wanted to beat our colleagues and we did with a time of 6.28. Only because they were hindered at the start, otherwise it would have been very close! However, even though we did beat our direct opponents (who were a mixed team as well), there was one more mixed team left and they eventually beat us by 14 seconds. So, team 1 ended in second place, while team 2 ended in fourth (out of five). 

Team 1 was green, team 2 was pink

We will have a great competition next year!

Brace yourselves!

Well, not really. But to start with the first thing, I found out my finishing time from yesterday's 5k run. It was 52 minutes and 54 seconds. Nearly nine and a half minutes faster than last year. There was another run I did last year, which had an even better time (51.50), but that is on different terrain. Ie flat. According to Norwegians. But it is a lot flatter and easier than last night's run, so no real comparison.

Today I also got some knee supports. I had been using a sleeve (thank you Yamini), but it was too small, despite being the largest they had. I just have extraordinarily large knees for some reason. Nothing (well, something, but only a small part) to do with my weight, because they were nearly this large when I was underweight! The knee support I got now is basically a bandage that I can wrap around as loose or as tight as I want and need. Fingers crossed.

While I was running (ahem) last night, my parents phoned. I didn't know until I got back home and immediately called back. It was my Mum. With fantastic news. The bits they took out of her had been sent to the laboratory and they all came back negative, ie: clean edges, which means NO CANCER! Yippee! Now it will just be recovery recovery recovery without this scare hanging over her. She was very appreciative of all your (virtual) hugs and well wishes and thanks you all. 

And that's basically it for today. Tomorrow I will be off to Kiev (Ukraine) for the third time this week. Eurovision time you know!!!

Running

During Monday's running training

There is this saying, don't run before you can walk. Well, I can walk, so running should be a possibility. I think. And lately I have been doing some running training as well. Twice a week (unless I have a visit from H), me and a friend will drive to a local area to do some running. On Monday it was bridge to bridge, but that turned out to be a bridge too far for me. I managed about a third and would walk the rest. But, I managed a bit more on each try. 

Today should have been another training, but today was Hydro rundt, a local 5k run. I did it last year in just over an hour, wheezing my way around the course. This year, I would have to be faster. My knee played up, which made my calf play up, but I did manage to run (downhill and not fast). I would say about a kilometer in total, but comparing that to last year's slug, I was quite happy. The time too made me happy: around 53 minutes, which means around 9 minutes faster than last year. 

Today's 5k run

Recently I have also been thinking about the upcoming triathlon. It's only four and a half weeks away and apart from the running, I haven't done much training. I feel it is too soon for me and my body. I don't want any injuries or having a terrible time doing it, so I have decided not to take part. There will be others later in the season that might fit better, especially if I can get some cycling and swimming training done during the summer. 

So, that's me being sporty. Or not so much. You pick!

I worry

I may have mentioned this triathlon thingy a few times (I will stop soon and will mention my holiday a lot. Or rather, Brom will), but today there was a very worrying development. Very worrying indeed. Scary even. Well, at least to me it is. 

This morning as I was driving my routes, I wanted to get out and (shock horror) jog! I wanted to run! I wanted to move faster than walking pace. The weather though was not on my side: a lot of rain and the route I take involves a stretch of road with very very deep puddles. Car, puddle, me: not a good combo. 

Tomorrow though, it's supposed to be nice. What's this world coming to if I want to go out and jog???

What's the time please?

On to lap 2

So, this triathlon then. This fit of madness that made me climb mountains and cycle up hills and swim in open water. And then yesterday I had to do it all. One after the other. And I was nervous. I was jittery. I certainly didn't feel ready.

Here is a list of people (and animals) who have replied to my triathlon post and have given me their thoughts in hours and minutes and sometimes seconds. Some on Facebook, since I was a dunce and didn't open the anonymous bit for their comments until Sunday morning. And the plan had been that only people commenting on my blog would be entered to win. So, in the end, I decided to give away two calendars. Just because. 

Fresh as a daisy (sort of)

Fun60                      3.08.30
Marie Smith            3.05.00

Yamini MacLean    2.59.59
Boes (or my sister) 2.58.00

Unknown IlR          2.57.45

Anvilcloud              2.57.00
Je vader (my dad)   2.55.00

Murphy & Stanley  2.51.47

Charliedownunder  2.51.00

Ed                           2.51.00

MT (via FB)           2.48.00

Pepperfly                2.47.00

Ginnie Marie          2.42.00

Janice Adcock        2.41.28

Mara (yes, me)       2.38.53

JTTS (via FB)        2.36.45

YHN (via FB)        2.29.00

IGD (via FB)          2.28.56

Well, I can tell you that with a lot of cheers I was the last one over the line, only about five minutes before the first of the elite athletes (who started two hours behind me) came over that very same line.

Nearly there!

And I did it in (drumroll please): 2 hours, 33 minutes and 45 seconds. Which means that of the FB repliers, JTTS (my partner in crime) was closest, only being three minutes off. Of the people who haven't seen me train and/or know me in real life Janice Adcock was closest, being nearly 8 minutes out.

Both of you will receive a calendar as soon as it's made which will be November time. Congratulations!

Photos by Unni and Lene

Triathlon

As you know, I have (in a fit of mental instability) agreed to get fit and swim/cycle/run a triathlon. And for the past three and a half months I have been training for it. I have climbed mountains to get my lung capacity to expand. I bought a good bike so I could cycle. I got myself some running shoes so I could even try and run (not there yet, will need some severe training for that). 

I have had to deal with headaches caused by locked shoulders/neck due to my cycle training and in a lesser degree my swim training. I have had to deal with an ear infection which took me out of the whole training thing for two weeks. I have had to deal with a late two-day throw-up party, which made me loose weight, but also lost me some valuable training time. But all in all, I have been doing fine. I think. 

And now the triathlon is almost upon me. In two days I will make my way to the start line and make sure I don't stand in the front on the right before making my way into the water for 750 meters swimming (15 laps in an Olympic size swimming pool). After the swimming I will have to get my wet suit off and get on a bike. With jelly legs most likely. I will then continue to cycle 20 kilometers or nearly 12,5 miles. And when that is done, I will don my running shoes and with even more jelly-like legs proceed to walk/run 5 kilometers (just over 3 miles). If last Sunday is anything to go by, I will cross that finish line feeling like a jelly fish, but I WILL CROSS THAT FINISH LINE!!

On my Tri-Mara blog I have put a goal. Or actually three goals. Goal number one is to finish the thing. Goal number two is to do it in under three hours. And goal number three is to have fun. Do jelly fish have fun??

Anyway, here's my challenge to you. And no, it does not involve swimming, cycling or running for you. It is however a contest. What do you have to do you ask? Well, guess what my finishing time will be! The closest to my actual finishing time will win one of my (yet to be made) desk-top calendars. Now, to give you some help along the way:

Swimming: since Gizmo is afraid of going under water, I have not got an exact time for that, but I think I can do it in under thirty minutes.

Cycling: on a harder course (but without jelly legs), my best time is 1 hour, 12 minutes and a bit. 

Running: on a harder course (and with jelly legs), my best time is 51 minutes and 29 seconds. 

Changing: I had figured on changing my outfit between each sport, but apparently there is no place to do so, so if I don't want to give the spectators a trauma, I won't be doing that. I will wear my cycle gear throughout, also underneath my wet suit, which will take most time to get off. 

So. What do you think? What will my time be? As I said: the person closest to the actual time will win a desk-top calendar (Over Mara's shoulder). Good luck...

A little bit of this and a little bit of that, a little bit of sis and a bit of so

A lovely exception a few weeks ago

All my Dutch readers are by now of course humming, but for those of you are not Dutch, don't worry. It's not you, it's me! Anyway...

Summer in Norway. Those beautiful long summer days that last well into the evening and in some parts into the night and beyond. Long treks into the mountains. Fishing both in the sea and the many lakes. Before the summer I heard one of the weather people say it was going to be a warm(ish) summer. But wet. I wish that weather person had been wrong. Because boy, has it been wet and there is still no end in sight!

Which meant that yesterday's cycle training was not. Partly because of the weather: a lot of wind and a bit of rain. Partly because I felt my legs for some reason. But mainly because I didn't want to. I just didn't. And I felt I was completely entitled to just sit on the couch and watch others do sports. 

Not olympic. At all!

Like fencing. And archery. A bit of swimming, which confused me somewhat. And cycling. The women's road race. Where the Dutch girl Annemieke van Vleuten was in a winning position, before having such an ugly fall, there was no way she could win (she ended up in hospital). The girl in second position had the best name and I was rooting for her (Mara Abbott from the USA), all the way until another Dutch girl came flying past her in the last few meters and won. I must have screamed the house down! Well done Anna van der Breggen. Mara ended in the most horrid of places: fourth. 

Back to my training progress. Last week has been both good and bad. The swimming was great, I managed to swim without too many stops (lap one: twice, lap two: once). The walking a day later went fine as well, apart from the discomfort in my knees, especially my left. I know of course that having this bit of extra weight to lug about is not good for the knees, so today I bought me some knee protectors. Hopefully they do enough of a trick to help me be more comfortable. I also bought some wrist protectors. When cycling, my wrists really start to bother me after a while and I hope that the protectors will ease that as well. 

Other than that, nothing much. There you have it. 

Photo on Sunday 2016-23

The personal belongings of the athletes participating in the Haugesund Iron Man. Nearly 1700 bags. It took close to two hours to sort them and hang them up in numerical order. We were about 20 doing this!

Every athlete that completed the Iron Man (and wasn't disqualified) got a medal. 

The winner: Norwegian Gustav Iden. He completed the course in just under 3h45m. 

Marbles

These three swimsuits I had already

Has anybody out there found some marbles? If so, could you please mail them to me? Because I think I lost them. Fully and completely!

No, I haven't bought a house. No, I haven't gotten married on the sly. No, I haven't gotten pierced in places where no human being should ever get pierced. Instead, I have signed up to get fit. 

Nice new pink running shoes

I hear you think right now: that is not a bad idea, getting fit. In fact, it is a very good idea. And I do agree with you there. And when I first heard about it, I thought, sounds good. And then I thought: madness. And then I started to wonder...

Let me start at the beginning. A few weeks ago there was the annual health test at work. Two lovely young ladies come in to take blood pressure, measure our blood sugar levels and cholesterol and to weigh us. As usual I was fine with everything except the weight (big surprise), coming in at a BMI of over 36. Which is not good. 

Animal print, wow!

The next day there was a notice on our notice board. The health people were looking for a man, a woman and a team to get fit. Follow the link. Which I did, because I want to get fit. They not only talked about getting fit, they talked about getting fit to do a triathlon at the end of the summer. 

A TRIATHLON!!

That is swimming, cycling and running. The last time I swam must be last century. I only ever cycled at a sedate pace and the last time I ran was when I needed the loo. Badly. 

Yep, it's a new bike!

At first I thought madness, but I kept thinking about it. And then I thought, if they think I can get fit enough before the end of August: show me! I will do my best as well. So I signed up. 

Signing up wasn't the only thing needed however, I needed to write a little something about myself and then I had to picked out of a long list of women wanting to get fit, including one of my own colleagues. 

But I got the call last week saying I got in. I was picked out of 20 women. I will get a talk with a physiotherapist to decide what sort of training plan would work best for me and my body. I will have one swimming session a week, one running session and one cycling session. Plus a lot more besides. 

Oswin agrees: safety first!

I will be doing the full triathlon, which will be 750 meters swimming in a lake, 20 kilometers cycling and then 5 kilometers running. If I have to come in crawling so be it, but I will be coming in!! 

Marbles, please??

It beggars belief!

The garden gnome at the back? That's me!!

As I wrote yesterday, it was the Norwegian national holiday yesterday and one part of the celebrations is the so called Kapproing (rowing race). The first year we came in second, something we thought was very good since it was our first time! Then last year we did even better and came in first. We were so proud of ourselves because we had done good.

I am never the most elegant getting out of a boat

So, our hopes were high for this year. Yes, we had one new guy on the team, but he was a good solid guy that could keep rowing for six minutes without any problem. All the others had been on the team at least once before so everybody knew the drill. A good start, hard rowing until a good turn and then hard rowing on the home strait. We even had the same boat!

The average age was 69 and you had to have had at least 2 heart surgeries to be on this team

Unfortunately the same boat was a little bit off this year. We had already changed one oar with the pink boat (it got broken last year by an overzealous rower) and we had found some oar holders that actually were good. Also from the pink boat. And then on Friday during our last training, we found that our oar holders had been stolen! Three of them were ruined. The oars could fly out at any point.

These (hunky) firemen didn't have any oar or timing trouble.
They beat everybody!

Today during the race, two of our rowers had severe trouble with the oars. They 'lost' their oars twice each and each time it happened the rower behind them and to a lesser degree the rower in front of them was hindered. Which caused timing problems: the left was out with the right for part of the race and in the end we made it in 06.44. A time that was 40 seconds slower than last year!

The mixed team winners

And the beggars of the title? Well, there are several beggars in town and they had been roped in by a church charity. They weren't that good, but they didn't have to fight the oars and finished before us! They won! In other words, they were better than we were!!

Next year we will have to make certain the oarholders are perfect. And the timing. And the oars. Because the rowers were perfect!

Photo on Sunday 2015-17

This photo was taken on last Thursday before we were going on our annual training. Training I hear the newer followers ask? Training for what?

Well, training for the annual rowing race to mark the celebrations of May 17th, the most important national holiday (not counting the religious ones) in Norway. Two years ago we came in second. Last year we came in first. I wonder how we will do today! Oh, and I don't row. I steer. And yell!!

Row row row!

This year's team in perfect unison

As you may remember, last year I was the cox in a rowing boat on May 17th, Constitution Day in Norway. We had trouble with some buoy and lost a fair bit of time. In the end we came in second. Which out of five and it being our first time ever, was quite good!

But, being quite good is not good enough of course. So, this year we decided to enter once again. One person had left Haugesund, one person was recovering from surgery and one person decided it would be nicer to have a bit of time to oneself. We had to find three new ones! Which we did. Plus some spares, just in case! And we trained and we trained and we trained. But never in the team that was due to race. Always with a spare substituting someone or other and never with a full boat. 

On Thursday however, we finally managed it. After a week of training, we finally got everybody in the boat that was due to race. We practiced starting, we practiced turning. We rowed. Well, they rowed and I steered the boat. 

The cups

Last year's time was 6'23. This year's time was (drumroll please) 6'02. No buoy trouble, no unbuttoning of shirts half way through, just plain old go go go, or row row row! Would our time be good enough however, after all, last year's winner clocked 5'41. 

Well, last year's winner either wasn't there or rowed slower than we did, because (another drumroll please) we came in first!! We got to bring home the big cup!! Yeah us!!!

My weekend continued

The alpine ski slope (again)

The last time I touched a ski had probably been April 1992. I had been skiing all winter, starting as a novice and finally becoming quite okay. I mean, not black slope okay, but most of the other colours okay. However, that was 1992: a lifetime ago! And I knew I wasn't really feeling comfortable with going skiing again. Not at my age and especially, not with my physical condition. Besides, I am a bit of a scaredy cat and the thought that I might fall down while coming down the baby slope...

There was however another type of skiing. A type of skiing that is hugely popular here in Norway. A type of skiing I watch on television, since it is part of my favourite sport (biathlon). It is of course cross country skiing. Hardly any slopes involved, nor great speeds. It would be perfect I thought and it was actually put on my bucket list for 2015. 

But this weekend away saw me forward that bucket a bit. Since my colleague Mr Bear had taken three pairs of skis and four pairs of shoes with him, he was going to teach me! So, after the first drinks were in, we had snooped around the lodge, Ms Dietrich, Mr Bear and I made it back to the bus to get the skis on. There was however only one pair of shoes that fit both me and Ms Dietrich. In the end she declined, I got them and I was soon posing for photos holding the skis!

However, holding them in my hand, does not make me a skier! I had to put them on. Which required a bit of target practice with the shoes, since the toe of the shoe has a slot that has to fit in a slot on the ski. I did manage it though and off we went zooming down the moun  ta  i    n! Of course, I wasn't zooming, nor did we go down any mountain. Instead we stayed in the trail and just made our way forwards. And I must say, I got the hang of it. Even sliding a bit on occasion.

After about twenty minutes and three stops, we turned around and made our way back. There was a slight incline/decline visible then and I could feel it as well. Mr Bear then made the decision to take the skis up to the lodge. Which meant going downhill a bit. Holding all four poles at once we skied down. It was great! Until I fell. 

A selfie when we half-way!

Now, I am not a small skinny girl. By any stretch of the imagination. And when I fall over on my back (like I did, with skis attached), I have to roll onto my stomach and then get onto my knees and stand up. However, with skis attached, the rolling over, getting on the knees and standing up bit, is impossible. I was in absolute fits of laughter! In the end however, Mr Bear just heaved me up. Well, it took him a couple of tries because of my laughing so hard, but he managed it. On we went. Until the next fall. He heaved me up again. But by the third fall, I had had enough: the skis were coming off! No need to cause a hernia in somebody else!

Mr Bear holding my skis as well, I kept the poles.

We were away for about an hour and a half and I had great fun. And cross country skiing is definitely something I will be doing again!