I'm very lucky and privileged to be currently living on the island of Borneo. The conditions are perfect for an outdoor life and once you allow for insect bites and high humidity you can really have a blast!
Every day has pretty much the same number of hours of sunshine and the weather is only hot, hot and wet or hotter but you can pretty much with the few exceptions plan to do something and nothing stops you.
I spent most of May in the gym doing compound moves like squats and deadlifts because in June I am taking part in a Highland Games type event. I am doing tug of war and it now looks more lightly caber tossing!
Saturday 21st June soon arrived after an terrible week in which sadly my Grandfather passed away. As you can imagine I was distracted and training was the last thing on my mind and it was not until just the day before that I resolved to compete and give it my best shot. I attended one tug of war training session where we trained against a few other teams, all seemed positive.
We went into the tug of war weigh-ins with confidence despite only being able to field 7 men from 8 due to the weight limit of 720kg, unbelievably almost all had lost weight this week, myself included. We weighed in 30kg below the other teams and with a pair less boots on the ground we were going to have our work cut out.
We drew the local fire brigade in our first match. We easily won the first pull, we were so close to winning the second, just a few centimetres short but something went, and the team were hauled back. By the third pull something was missing. One of our team was injured and taken to hospital with a twisted knee. We were out of the competition. Then we found we were in a draw with the best losers. We made our substitution and in a one pull tug of war we beat a Scottish team. Less than 10 minutes later we had to pull against a fresh German team, we put up a good effort but their freshness, extra boots and weight ultimately had the better of us. We were out.
I used the next few hours to try and rest, hydrate, feed and loosen up before my solo Caber Tossing event. A morning of maximum effort pulls is not the best preparation! I tried to apply a bit of sports science and opted to wear some compression running tights to try and keep my legs together. Now for those that do not know the rules of Caber, below is a brief outline of the rules;
1.) You have to toss a length of wood (caber) so that it rotates and lands facing away from you.
2.) You score if the end of the wood lands between 3 and 9 on a clock face with 12 being a perfect 100 points.
3.) You can have up to 3 goes at any weight of caber and move up if you have had a successful toss.
I began with the 8 caber, and scored 95. I moved up to the 9. I threw poorly the first two goes I do not think the caber was in the right position before I threw. I aced the third go.
Moving onto the 10, I took my time, I breathed and went for it, first go, maximum points. Someone else had also done this so I had to toss two more times. Sadly these two attempts
were not as good but they still earned me points. I was in 2nd. Someone later came and had a go
late on and this person managed two perfect tosses and moved into first place. I finished in 3rd position, yet knowing I aced the first toss.
Next year should be interesting. I now know nothing short of three perfect tosses will win the competition. I doubt there are man 70.3 finishers who could compete in such a strength power based event? Nevertheless a determined mindset is required for both. Currently, no further events are entered, with the arrival of baby number two fast approaching, my energies may be directed elsewhere, for now.
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| 3rd place with my medal |
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| Tossing the biggest Caber available |
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| Tug of war, in anchor position |
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| About to toss the Caber |
