Rodney Julien finishes ahead of Nikosi Mc Leish at City of Port of Spain 4 K
Rodney Julien, was second placed finisher to Nikosi Mc Leish the current CariFin Champion from RBTT Bank, in the 2007 CariFin Cross Country held on Sunday July 8th at Sevilla golf course. However, Julien turned the table on Mc Leish, at City of Port of Spain 4 K on Sunday August 19, 2007.
Let’s not forget that McLeish the current RBTT Bank 5K and CariFin champ, and Julien had won the first 2 races of the CariFin Urban Challenge: the 1-Lap Savannah and Green Mile. McLeish was absent, recovering from injury, and on his return for the 3rd event – the Mini Cross Country, he triumphed over Julien. McLeish had also finished ahead of Julien in all other road events they have participated in for this year. This duo has been racing for approximately 3 years and Julien had bettered McLeish at one race (10K).
With a participation figure of 115 at the very unusual start time of 1.00 pm, the race started at Woodford Square, Port of Spain. In the mid-day heat and humidity, a better prepared and hungrier Rodney Julien finished the 4 K course in a relatively decent time of 11.44 in 8th place and Nikosi Mc Leish in 12.02 in 11th place.
McLeish started ahead, but Julien didn’t take long to catch-up with him in the rather short 4K distance. Julien passed
McLeish quite easily with Mc Leish unable to respond in kind, leaving Julien to savor that sweet feeling of satisfaction of a victory over McLeish for the first time this year.
The overall winner was Curtis Cox, a four-time CariFin winner, who recorded a time of 10.04.
I have one question about the time and distance of this race… when I entered the time and distance in Cool Running pace calculator, I got the pace to be 2.31 and when it was factored to calculate a time for a distance of 5K, the result was a time of 12.35 for a 5K! Well that’s the kind of speed you will expect from a Haile Gebre Selassie. It therefore stands to reason that I should question the distance of that course.
The organizing committee of CariFin 2007 would like to thank the participating institutions, sponsors, volunteers and participants for making CariFin 2007 possible. We are pleased once more to provide the financial services sector with a top class sporting and fitness activities.
This year many new stars have made their appearance on the scene, and many an inspiring story were told through our athlete of the month series. We kept everyone inform through our e-news letter, blog, through pictures on our Flickr account and our electronic timing is hosted at Odessey.com and our videos at youtube.com. Before and after every event we did press releases and had the highest level of press coverage over the years. Again we say thank you all for making CariFin 2007 the success it is.
To ease your mind we are not going off the scene and wait for next year, already we have put in motion our promotion on facebook.com and we continue blogging, producing our e-news letter, and adding podcasting to the mix, continuing to be the voice for sports and fitness within the financial services sector.
Carifin Cross Country and Family Day took place at Sevilla Golf Course in Couva on Sunday July 08, 2007. CariFin is about spreading Fun, Fitness & Friendship within the Financial Services Sector encouraging friendly rivalry and team spirit.
It was a cool morning on Saturday August 11, 2007 when I set out on one of my favorite running courses. The Chaguaramas to Macarepe run. I reached the turn around point by the beach in about 27 minutes and ended the run at the starting point in 54 minutes.
Preserve Muscle Sugar for Speed and Endurance
Girl-on-track How fast you can move and how long you can exercise intensely depends on the amount of sugar (glycogen) stored in your muscles. The same rule applies in all sports: when muscles run out of their stored sugar supply, they require more oxygen and you have to slow down.
Fluid is less important than muscle sugar because dehydration will not cause you to slow down until your blood volume is reduced. As you lose fluid from sweating, interstitial fluid stored around cells is released into the blood to maintain blood volume. When you compete in sports at a very high intensity, your muscles run out for stored sugar long before your blood volume is reduced, and you slow down from lack of muscle sugar before you slow down from reduced blood volume (Sports Medicine, April- May 2007).
Fuel for muscles comes from sugar and fat stored in muscles, sugar and fat in the bloodstream and, to a lesser degree, protein. When you start to exercise intensely, more than 50 percent of your energy comes from sugar stored in muscles. Two hours later, most of the sugar stored in muscles is used up and less than 10 percent of energy comes from that source. If you do not supply extra sugar during exercise so that your muscles will use less of their stored sugar, muscles run out of glycogen and your performance will suffer.
This post is written by Dr. Gabe Mirkin, M.D. and used with permission. Dr. Mirkin is board certified in Sports Medicine and has practiced for over 40 years. He has completed more than 40 marathons and was a talk show host of a nationally-syndicated radio program for about 25 years. For more articles by Dr. Mirkin, click here.
CariFin 2007 Speech
Delivered by Aprile Akim
Country Manager
Grace Kennedy Trinidad Limited
At CariFin 2007 - Prize Distribution Function
On Thursday 02, 2007
The CariFin Cross Country and Family Day is primarily geared to promote health and fitness in individuals within the financial sector, while, at the same time developing camaraderie and networking among participating organizations. From its inception in 1991 to the present, the prime objective has been to put into effect the positive benefits derived from a healthy lifestyle, not just from the participants’ standpoint, i.e. health and general well-being, but also from the organization stand point in terms of the positive effects that that are transferred into the work environment.
Activities which were fun-filled, family oriented and sometimes somewhat challenging were organized with this prime objective in mind. There was something for everyone, from the official opening to the novelty games, and later to the keenly contested walking and running events, culminating in the high point of the day – the Ms. Carifin 2007 competition.
There was strong participation from CEO’s and senior managers too. Teams started to arrive from as early as 10.30 that morning, some of them with close to 100 staff and family members. We witnessed such excitement and attention to detail with regard to decorating the team tents.
This was Grace Kennedy’s first time participating in CariFin, and the one thing that stood out throughout the day was that everyone, from the adults to the little ones all seemed to be having fun; there was a lot to do, there was full participation and the excitement was absolutely contagious.
In our view, Carifin offered many specific benefits such as:
• The promotion of improved physical and mental health to participants
• A way of supporting our efforts in encouraging staff to be committed to a healthy work/life balance
• An avenue to re-enforce a sense of pride and belonging among employees thereby boosting staff morale and providing a common focus
• An opportunity to foster Intra-institution team development and a competitive spirit
• And an opportunity for personal development through continued involvement in amateur clubs
It is against this back drop that we are here today to honour all those who performed outstandingly at CariFin 2007. To all those who participated and fought well, we congratulate you and hope that you will continue to work toward your goals as you prepare for CariFin 2008.
I would particularly like to congratulate Mr. Nikosi Mc Leish of RBTT Bank for winning the male cross country event as well Natalie Suite of the UTC for copping the women’s title for a second time. I also wish to recognize GraceKennedy’s own John Donaldson and Aqiyla Gomez who after entering for the first time placed sixth and seventh in their respective categories.
And finally, as the Olympic Creed reads:
”The most important thing ………………. is not to win but to take part, ……the most important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle. The essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well."
