intosport.com – the blog

September 19^th, 10:30am

Standing in the drizzle at the start line of the 2010 Spartan Race in Cambridge, not one of the intosport.com team looked up for the challenge.

The MC tried to gear us up with some Spartan battle cries, but our yells were half hearted at best.

Back in early July and our office weekly staff meeting was just winding up when someone piped up, “Has anyone heard of the Spartan Race?  We should do it as a team.”

This sounded like a great idea in sunny July- “Sign us up!” we yelled in unison.

So… the sun was nowhere to be seen and we had no idea what the course had in store for us.  Directly to our left stood Wolverine and Captain America- this lightened the mood, but only slightly.

The horn sounded and we were off.  The entire field set off at an alarmingly fast pace and the intosport.com team suddenly spread out- it was every Spartan for themselves.

Much of what took place over the next hour is a blur, but parts of that course will provide a talking point in the office for at least the next few weeks.  The worrying thing was, it seemed like we ran for miles before we even arrived at any obstacles.

Stitches and fatigue were beginning to set in when we were yelled at by a spear wielding man from 300 to jump into a stream.  Little did we know that wading down this cold muddy stream would be the easiest of all the obstacles.

What came to next is the stuff nightmares are made of…

A line of people filed into a small, wet and dark tunnel.  Not a problem we thought, it’ll only be a few metres long.

We were wrong.

While no one is quite sure exactly how long the tunnel was, we were in there for at least five minutes, ‘waddling’ along in the pitch black.  Our only respite was the man in front doing an impressive ‘Gollum’ from Lord of the Rings impression.  Suffice to say, it was a pretty traumatic five minutes.

Emerging into the light, we were greeted by the intosport.com camera offering some support- I think you will see from our comments how excited we were to see it!

The rest of the course involved barbed wire, cargo nets, jumping over fire (yes, fire) and a swim across an extremely cold lake.

And you know what?

It was brilliant.

We all agreed that once we got three quarters of the way round, and we couldn’t hurt any more, that it was an amazing experience.

James, our resident production expert, has put together this great video of our experiences (with suitably dramatic music!) for you to enjoy.  If you feel inspired, there are more Spartan Races happening across the UK and the US next year.

Will we be entering again?

Hmmmmm….We’ll have to see about that one.

The intosport.com team

Filed under: General by richw
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It’s difficult to know what to think to be honest! On the one hand it was could to see Murray’s losing streak end when he beat Andreas Seppi in the first round of the Rome Masters with a fine performance. On the other hand however, the loss just a few days later to David Ferrer extinguished the possibility of any momentum and served a reminded as to how difficult this clay season could be for Andy.

It was a great performance in the 1^st round, one that was very much needed. It seemed as if Murray had rediscovered some of his weaponry, in particular his backhand, and he used it to great affect as clinical winners were hit all around the court. It was a performance that said as much about Andy’s mental strength and determination as it did his ability and it’s this mental strength that will be needed to pull him out of this dip and back up to the top of his game.

That win delivered a much needed boost to Murray’s camp but unfortunately the high didn’t last long as in the next round David Ferrer, clay court specialist, was waiting. Even on his best form it was a match that Andy may always have difficulty in winning due to his preference for other playing surfaces so there’s no need for further despair. It just seems that Andy may need to struggle through this clay court season and get to Wimbledon with as much confidence intact as possible.

Filed under: General, Tennis by tomt
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Intosport.com would like to extend its congratulations to all those who this weekend took part in the London Marathon 2010. Everyone from the winning elite athletes to those in all kinds of strange fancy dress outfits should feel extremely proud of themselves and their achievements.

It was an incredible turn out on Sunday as approximately 36,000 people took their starting orders and set off from their respective start point. The race itself was won by Ethiopia’s Tsegaye Kebede finishing over a minute clear of Kenya’s Emmanuel Mutai as world champion Abel Kirui was fifth. The 27-year-old clocked an impressive two hours 13 minutes and 40 seconds and became only the third Ethiopian to win the London Marathon, speaking in a humble tone he said “I was a bit disappointed with the run actually, it is OK, it is a good start and hopefully I will go into the next one with a lot more confidence”.

In the women’s race it was Russia’s glory as Liliya Shobukhova and Inga Abitova came in 1^st and 2^nd respectively, with Shobukhova’s winning time clocked at two hours 21 minutes and 59 seconds. Unfortunately Britain’s Mara Yamauchi faded from contention around the half way mark and couldn’t better her previous year’s performance of 2^nd, eventually finishing in 10^th.

There was also heart brake for another of our British athletes as David Weir was denied a fifth successive London Marathon win when a succession of punctures prevented him from turning his dominance of the race into a victory. It was left to Canadian Josh Cassidy to take the title and win his first London Marathon.

As always it wasn’t just the elite athletes that were achieving greatness as people from all different walks of life participated in the days events. Princess Beatrice became the first Royal to compete in the race after running in a group of 34 who set a new record for the highest number of interlinked runners to finish. Virgin boss Richard Branson completed the course dressed as a butterfly, whilst Emmerdale actor Tony Audenshaw was the fastest celebrity.

Other records set this year included account manager David Ross, 42, from Sutton becoming the fastest-ever cartoon character when he finished dressed as Fred Flintstone. Police officer Jill Christie wore a Superwoman outfit and took the record for quickest female superhero and financial analyst Ben Afforselles from Kent, was the fastest leprechaun.

The Icelandic ash cloud had threatened to disrupt the race and many of the elite athletes only arrived after boarding a specially chartered flight from Madrid on Thursday. However the event ended up going ahead without any problems and ended on a good note when a competitor named Luke proposed to his girlfriend Yvette live on the BBC during his post race interview, congratulations to the happy couple!

We’ll be posting our intosport.com London Marathon video soon, so stay tuned for more!

Filed under: General by tomt
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A couple of things to round up from recent goings on, Rafael Nadal produced some blistering form to blow all the competition away in Monte Carlo and claim his sixth consecutive title in the principality. Unbelievably though the stand out fact from his crushing defeat of Fernando Verdasco was that this was Nadal’s first title in 11 months! After being bombarded with injury and poor form it has taken almost a year for the Spaniard to rediscover the formula for winning. That’s something that puts Andy Murray’s recent slump into perspective, although tennis in this country could cease to exist if it takes that long for the Scot to return to his best.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TyvTSyVAis

The All England Club has announced that this year the winners of both the Men’s and Women’s titles at Wimbledon will receive £1m each. This apparently is due to the decreased strength of the pound and the rise in tennis’s global marketing value. Now I’m all for equality etc etc etc and I think it’s a good thing that the Women’s champion gets as much as the Men’s champion, however I think it is worth pointing out that now in terms of how much they get paid per game or per hour on court, the Women’s champion actually gets paid a lot more than the Men’s, just pointing it out that’s all.

Also we found this video on youtube of tennis player lookalikes….some really good ones, only meant in jest

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXLqDrCW2fw

Filed under: Tennis by tomt
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The last few weeks were supposed to be full of opportunity to blog about Andy Murray’s ventures towards titles in both Miami and Monte Carlo however what actually transpired was a suggestion that Murray maybe facing the first crisis in his career. Admittedly he has had dips in form before now, as have all pro tennis players, but the manner in which he was dumped out of the first round of the Miami Masters (a title he was defending having won it last year) and the absolute mauling he received in Monte Carlo a few days ago seem to be indicating problems that run deeper than just a rough patch.

In both cases it seemed that Murray was simply unable to pull himself out of an abyss of self doubt and error and what’s more worrying he seemed to give up with out much a fight. The crowd in Monaco certainly sensed his lack of effort and the boos and jeers rang out around the stadium, voicing their displeasure at seeing a player renowned for his fight and spirit, displaying as much back bone as infantile jelly fish.

Two terrible performances without doubt, but should the panic sirens be sounding just yet? Well not really but they’re on stand by, Murray was awful in both matches but it doesn’t really constitute a serious slump, remembering also that one of the matches was his first of the clay court season, a surface that Murray finds notoriously difficult, and was against a player who specialises playing on the red stuff. It’s also very easy with all the hoopla going on about the Davis Cup defeat and the LTA etc etc etc to over react and jump to extreme conclusions.

However this is where Team Murray needs to earn their money! For a while now Murray has bettered pessimistic British expectations but with that first Grand Slam victory still alluding him he might just be starting to doubt himself so it may take some external help and encouragement to get him back on his feet and in winning ways again!

Lastly good luck to Leon Smith, the new GB Davis Cup captain, hopefully he’ll bring a fresh approach to the team and start producing some positive results for us all!

Filed under: General by tomt
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