With the advent of spring comes weekends filled with 5Ks, 10Ks and half-marathons. If you want to participate in such a race, check out this calendar of upcoming runs.
Below is a time line of how to prepare for a 10K race – it is a five week training schedule, so plan your race accordingly.
To view the timeline, click here.
April 18th. 3 p.m. Gladiator. Challenge.
Next week’s Gladiator Challenge, hosted by Campus Recreation, marks the fourth year since its inception. It costs $10 for each team of two to enter and the last day to enter is April 15. Students, faculty and staff are encouraged to participate.
Event courses:
1. Sumo Joust
2. Fitness Challenge
3. Tug-o-war
4. Obstacle Course
At last year’s challenge, about 80 students participated in the challenge. The prize was a t-shirt, which might not hold up to gladiator standards (I’m thinking golden chalices, $100,000 in cash, your opponent’s dignity), but you still earn the title of gladiator.
Aaron Hrozencik participated in last year’s challenge, and he discussed life as a gladiator with me.
Are you participating in the Gladiator Challenge this year?
No, I am abroad in Argentina. But I really wish I could.
What was the best part of the challenge and the most fun course?
Power Ball, it was like a mix of rugby and basketball.
Words of advice for future gladiators?
No Mercy
What is the most difficult part of the gladiator challenge?
Coming in second place, it was a huge disappointment.
Who was your teammate, what was your team name, and did you dress up?
Clarion´s World of Pain (inspired by the combination of the name Aaron and teammate’s name Claire Brandow). Of course I dressed up.
Do you have what it takes to be a gladiator? Or more importantly, do you have a cool, gladiator-inspired name, like Hellga or Justice?
During lunch at work today, one co-worker mentioned that he wants to control the amount of toxins he takes into his body. I agreed, saying I was trying to eat food items that were organic. He asked me what it meant to be organic and how I could know that my food was organic. Valid question, considering almost every supermarket, restaurant and Chapel Hill dining establishments boast organic ingredients.
After searching the United States Department of Agriculture Web site, I found what an organization means when it claims that its product is organic. And it is not as straightforward as one might hope.
Organic, as defined by the USDA, means foods have ingredients that have not been made through the use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, genetic engineering, growth hormones, irradiation or antibiotics. Basically, picture any scene from Little House on the Prairie.
According to the USDA, for a product to qualify as 100 percent organic, it must contain 100 percent organically produced ingredients – not including salt and water.
To say that a product is organic, 95 percent of the ingredients must be organically produced.
If 70 percent of a product has organically produced ingredients, it can be labeled as made with organic ingredients.
An organization even can say its product is made with some organic ingredients, if less than 70 percent of the product has organically produced ingredients, but the word organic must appear in the ingredient list.
The penalty for a company misrepresenting a product? A civil penalty of $11,000.
Do you have a headache yet? As soon as I read the varying definitions of organic, I wanted to rummage through my pantry and see what items I paid more for because I thought they were organic.
I found three organic products in my refrigerator, which means they contained 95 percent organically produced ingredients.
Organic Weetabix Cereal – organic whole wheat, organic barley malt extract, organic dehydrated cane juice, sea salt
Harris Teeter Organic Crunchy Peanut Butter -
basically, peanuts and salt, produced in a facility that also processes tree nuts and seeds
Stonyfield Farm Organic Fat Free Key Lime Yogurt – cultured pasteurized organic nonfat milk, naturally milled organic sugar, organic lime juice from concentrate, natural flavor, pectin, turmeric (for color), vitamin D3 and an exclusive blend of six live active cultures
So, I did not get the opportunity to play the role of the outraged consumer. Perhaps I would have felt differently if I had products made with organic ingredients.
Be a wary consumer. Even if it says it is organic, it might not be 100 percent – or even 70 percent – true. Check out the blog, Local Appetites, for a related article about the popularity of organic food.
