Yesterday I travelled to Church Stretton for the Torq Trail Team Assessment Day. TorqFitness are a fitness consultancy with its main links to Mountain biking and Triathlon and they have elite teams in both areas.
They also supply sports nutrition such as gels, bars and recovery drinks etc.
Go to their website to see what they have on offer. I actually like the taste of their products and in January at the Bike Show at excel in london I sampled some of their products and chatted to some of the team and they sounded like a nice bunch of guys and girls who genuinely care about sports.
Shortly after the bike show I saw on facebook that they were interested in setting up a trail running team but unusually they wanted not just the elite runners but were inviting applicants from all aspects of the running community and wanted people that were passionate about trail running. This is quite a different approach to marketing running products compared to the normal getting elites to use the kit and rave about it to inspire us “normal” runners to buy the product. I believe its a great way to do things and will have as much impact as any other advertising campaign with real runners talking about and using the products and passing on their thoughts. An great concept driven by Simon and Julie from the marketting team.
I filled in an online application and sent it off not really expecting to get much of a response just being a middle of the road trail ultrarunner with average performances although I like to do big races. Part of the application process was to detail any blog you write etc so they can see who you are and what you do.
To my surprise I got a reply and a request for more info and an invitation to the assesment day in London which unfortunately was the day I was to race the Viking Way and so I thought I may not get a chance to go.
Luckily the team decided to do a second day and see more people so I signed up for the Church Stretton day.
Saturday Morning I got up and drove the 170ish rather boring miles to the Stretton Location and parked up and met the team and signed in, got my photo taken and chatted to a few runners. There were a few I knew from races and facebook etc, I mostly chatted with Sam Robson and Matt Dunn pretty awesome runners I knew from races such as Viking way and Thames Path 100 etc. It was good to have people I knew to break the ice and during the day I chatted to a few others who I will hopefully bump into during the racing season.
Julie and Simon introduced us to the days programme, There was to be a talk on Nutrition for sports and then a talk on running and motivation by Stuart Mills with a break in between and then a run on the trails locally. Some runners had been there since last night and were staying the next day and doing a longer run in the morning which I would love to have done but it just did not fit in with family arrangements this weekend and I needed to get back to pick up my daughter.
The first talk with the Torq expert was very interesting and I learned few things about nutrition that I did not know as well as responses to various questions posted by the group to dispell certain myths or to discuss recent fads or research on hydration or fuelling such as the High/Low carb arguments. I did not ask a question personally mainly because someone usually beat me to it and I was happy to listen to the different views and process the information myself later. It was a very informative session and certainly worth the time. I really like the simplicity or the Torq Units system that is used by Torq as an easy way to judge fuelling, making each bar, gel or drink carry essentially the same amount of energy it is easy to mix them depending on how you wish to fuel i.e. drink or eat your fuel depending on conditions etc. Nice and easy to understand without working lots out.
We had a short break and then went back into the talk from Stuart Mills, for those who dont know Stu he is a great trail runner winning things like the Lakeland 100 and competing in Last years IAU world champs in Ireland and he is also a sports science lecturer at Brighton Uni so knows the game from running and the academical side. Even with all his knowledge he still does things in an unorthodox way and bucks many trends on pacing, hydration and race training strategies which interests me. Read his blog here http://ultrastu.blogspot.co.uk/
I really enjoyed his talk and there were many offshoot discussions around various subjects with plenty of humour. I really enjoyed his talks on motivation and can directly relate to some of his comments about staying positive having a very big impact in performance. I was very surprised when this blog title ended up on one of his slides!!! Stu could have talked for hours and we would have listened but he had to cut it short so we could get out for a run. Julie explained that this was the end of the day and the run was just the finish to the day.
It had started raining now and a fog had descended so it was perfect british running weather and I was looking forward to it although there were a few moans about the rain I was happy to run in it. Off we went and immediatly it was clear it would be a good run, being from Essex I am not used to sustained hills and being a heavier runner I dont go up hills fast. It was uphill for about 2.5 miles and over muddy and stoney footpaths but I soon dropped off the main group a bit and powerwalked a few sections. I made up the distance most of the time on the flat or on a descent where I am quite confident. The run was 6.8 miles and very good fun over some good terrain and through small streams and snow. I really enjoyed it and was really glad I came to the day. It was good to meet other runners and catch up with old friends.
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| Stuart Mills |
I enjoyed the day and would love to be part of a team such as this as I really believe they care about the sport and its an interesting way to get their product out in a new area of sport and inspire. I am not sure how they pick the team and under what criteria as there were no one to one sessions so I can only assume they got most of their info from race results, blogs etc and the day was about meeting you to confirm you are who/what you say you are and see you in person and your interactions with others. It will be interesting to see who gets picked for the team and gets the wonderful opportunity to go to the training weekend. I wish any who get picked embrace the opportunity. I was really pleased to attend the day and the session was certainly valuable from my point of view and worth the long drive either side of the session.
My next race is now only 6 weeks away and so afew big weeks training coming up before tapering for the Grand Union Canal Run 145miler at the beginning of June. Really looking forward to aiming for a Sub 32 hour time.