Company Review: Candy Hero

Posted on January 12, 2012 by Steven

I first became aware of Candy Hero when I was doing a search for a UK supplier of Stay Alert energy gum. An order was put in. Unfortunately the order was wrong. I noticed that some of the packets of gum were a piece or two short and I duly contacted Candy Hero to let them know. Straight away replacements were dispatched with an apology and explanation that I wasn’t the only customer who had had this happen. Later on I would find that Candy Hero would have to rectify this issue themselves as the manufacturers wouldn’t compensate them. To me that says a lot about a company and its commitment to its customers.

From that initial order I’ve gone on to order quite a number of times and have always received orders quickly, well packaged and on one occasion the wrong item was put into the order. This was rectified with the correct item and I was told to keep the item which was wrong. Needless to say the kids were ecstatic at having more than they bargained for.

Nearly all the products I buy from Candy Hero are their caffeine orientated products. These come in very handy for early morning training sessions or prior to any race competitions I am doing. My favourites are Stay Alert Gum and the Pulsin Energy Bomb. Both I can easily consume or carry around with me if need be.

A normal run up to a race would be to eat 1 Pulsin Energy Bomb about 60 minutes prior to race start time then as we line up for the off to chew on a piece of Stay Alert Gum as this only takes 5-10 minutes to take effect which ties in very nicely with the slow release of caffeine from the guarana contained within the Pulsin Energy Bomb. An ideal combination which has served me well in 2011 and I’ll continue to use it in the 2012 race season.

The other benefit of both these products is that on very long runs were extra calories maybe be needed midway they can be easily carried in the back pocket of your running shorts. And once eaten the Pulsin Energy Bomb is very easily digested and does not sit in your stomach like a lead weight. With the Stay Alert Gum because its just chewed the caffeine hits your system very quickly via your mucus membranes and you get a bigger, quicker hit than you would from taking on a caffeine infused energy gel. Energy gels are notorious for causing stomach issues which is the last thing you need half way through a race.

So for all your caffeine based training and racing needs I would highly recommend Candy Hero not only for its range of products but most importantly its commitment to giving its customers the best, quickest service possible.

Candy Hero Discount code: SPARTAN-F3HA

Steven A Barlow, Co founder www.spartan-warriors.co.uk and founder of Spartan Runners “because we don’t just run” © 2012

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A time for reflection.

Posted on January 3, 2012 by Steven

With 2011 behind us I thought it was time to reflect on the past 12+ months of training with an eye on the coming 12 months as we step it up another gear to attain even higher levels of fitness and competitive experience.

I’ve been running in competitions since early 2010 but training started long before then in January 2009 when I posted a run alone a 1km undulating course where I live at 4.28 minutes and showed a severe lack of any conditioning and where I was starting from anaerobically. This very same run has been duplicated on numerous occasions reaching an all time personal best of just under 3.30 which was posted in November of 2011.

If we look at my 10km racing times over the last 14 months we have seen a reduction there at over three and a half minutes. You can see what can be achieved if people don’t expect everything to happen in the blink of an eye as seems to be what is reverberated within the exercise industry on a regular basis with its many “get fit for” whatever time of year it happens to be leading up to. Add that to an online and technology industry that bases itself around everything being either within 140 characters of written words or as fast as humanly possible. You have a huge section of the western worlds population which want everything yesterday and so the same is with their exercise regimes.

As the saying goes “Rome was not built within a day” so how can people expect to change their bodies within a month to reflect what they see looking back at them from a magazine, DVD or computer monitor?

Unfortunately they do and this is all down to, in my opinion, their mental, environmental and social conditioning. Now I don’t want to sound like a dinosaur harping on about a time long gone that was some sort of Nirvana when everything was much more simplewith only pen and paper to write with and all vegetables were seasonal and gyms were nothing more than a couple of barbells and a bench. That would be plain stupid. If everything stayed the same life would become extremely stagnant and boring and I wouldn’t have the opportunity to write these blog posts for people all around the world to stumble upon and read.

No what I’m hoping to convey is the need for patience. The exercise industry like any other retail industry needs to keep you coming back for more and in doing so it has to constantly be in the public eye. Regular readers of the forum and the blogs will know that I don’t write half as much as I could or some would say should. Yet for me I find nothing worse than signing into to my email account to find it rammed full with daily emails from fitness companies and sites I visit to see what’s happening within this vastly oversubscribed and overly complicated industry.

Its just not needed and only adds to the confusion that is already out there when it comes to picking and sticking to an exercise regime that is best suited to your own daily lifestyle and family commitments. You don’t need yet another W.O.D ( workout of the day) you don’t need yet another Youtube video showing a plethora of exercises. They will only add to the confusion and distraction of your goals ahead.

You are an intelligent individual. If you need to know anything new you will go out and look it up either via the internet or the bookstore. What you don’t need is to be bombarded with a never ending stream of industry promoting rhetoric.

Do yourself a favour this year with your new years resolutions and training goals. Embrace technology, sit down and watch the television with the whole family each evening like we used to. Have the odd day(s) off the training and eating plan when you can enjoy the moment and think about the guilt later. And most importantly step away from the exercise industry and companies. If they are as good as they say they are then they’ll still be there when you need them not them needing you and encroaching into your day life with emails full of links to WOD and Youtube videos.

We all complain about the amount of advertisements that are on television and in magazines so make a stand in 2012 to not let the exercise industry come into your life every single day. As a line from a song from the 80′s says “the public wants what the public get”  lets spend 2012 changing that so that we only get what we want not what others tell us what we want. And just like me you will spend the next 12 months reaching your goals not the goals put on you by someone else.

Steven A Barlow, Co founder www.spartan-warriors.co.uk and founder of Spartan Runners “because we don’t just run” © 2011

 

 

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Winter Urbanathlon 2011

Posted on December 7, 2011 by Steven

Having recently completed a Spartan Sprint, as posted here, I thought that this years competitive running was over. Then I came across an advert for something I’d never seen before The Urbanathlon. With enthusiasm still high after the Spartan Sprint I signed up for their first ever winter event.

I can’t say I altered my training in the lead up to this race as I was already in a peaking phase and the only issue I had was one of peaking too soon and having nothing left for the race itself. This seemed to become evident on the Tuesday before the race when I had an horrendous workout which left me utterly drained and I hadn’t done very much. It was time to call it quits for the remainder of the week with only rehabilitation exercises and stretches being the order of the day as I tried to unwind and allow my body to catch up with itself.

The day of the race arrived and again preparation was not the best. Broken sleep from a sickly child. Tight calf’s and back. It was pouring with rain and the wind was howling. Then as I started to pack my kit away I found to my horror that I had pulled the sole off my runners and their it was flapping at me and I was about 2 hours away from setting off. Ah well, out with the gorilla glue and a hope for the best.

We arrived at the race about 90 minutes before the start of the race to sign in and went to have a look around at what was install. To be honest there wasn’t much to see and with the weather as it was all I wanted to do was keep covered up and go through an extended warming up session. Warming up was as normal with various strides and stretches and a gentle jog around the boating lake. During the warm up I started to consume my usual pre race caffeinated products that I purchase from Candy Hero (please use discount code SPARTAN-F3HA for money off any purchase).

About 15 minutes before the start there was a group warm up given by a Zumba coach. Not for me, so I continued to do my own thing until we lined up at the start.

Then we were off.

The race was to be 2 laps of a 2.5km course around a picturesque park in Manchester. Not long after we set off we came to the first obstacle and at that point, so close to the start, I thought we were going to be in for a tough race. Without going into a complete breakdown of each and every aspect of the course I’ll just give a general view of what was on offer. Compared to the Spartan Sprint the obstacles we based more around speed and agility with a lot of them being simple climbs or bounds over fences or cars. Obstacles hard enough to slow you up, make you think how your going to tackle it in the quickest safest way possible.

With the first lap completed I realised that I had set off to cautiously because I was expecting something similar to the Spartan Sprint and as I started the second lap I realised I needed to step on the gas a lot more. Lets just say the second lap was fun. I knew what was ahead and how I was going to clear them so I could really attack the course and claw back a few race positions on my way.

As I crossed the finishing line there was an initial reaction of “was that it?” and a feeling of being short changed. An hour of driving to do a race that took less than half that time. I just didn’t feel satisfied.

I collected my t-shirt (picked up the wrong size…doh) and wandered over the the area set aside to give racers a free rub down afterwards. ll that put a smile on my face as I ended up being done by three women who did a wonderful job on my tight calf’s and a nasty trigger point in my back. Then it was time to down some post race nutrients and re-hydrate before the drive home.

I spent quite some time thinking about how I had felt after initially crossing the finishing line and it dawned on me. I had set my expectations too high by judging one race by another and when it didn’t deliver my expectations it left a sour taste. But it wasn’t like that because as I came around after the race I was left with a sense of how much fun it had been to be able to just run as fast as possible with obstacles to tackle that were not going to leave you battered and bruised as some adventure races do.

It was fun, I loved it and cannot wait to do one again.

The organisers  had gotten the mix just right.

My only issue was that (and this is not aimed solely at the Urbanathlon but all races) is that there is very little for the spectators to do once the race starts and I feel that to make racing more appealing then this should be something to consider because there is nothing more off putting than seeing your racer set off then spend what feels like an eternity waiting for them to them come back over the finishing line.

All in all it was a great race and one I highly recommend not only for entry level adventure racers but even seasoned racers who fancy doing something simply for the fun of it.

Steven A Barlow, Co founder www.spartan-warriors.co.uk and founder of Spartan Runners “because we don’t just run” © 2011

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