Sport of Kings

Super well-run event at (yet another) beautiful An Tirian site. The weather being perfect helped too. :-) Many thanks and congrats to Ula and Khalja and Olin and all the rest of the autocrat team for putting on a huge event that seemed to go off flawlessly.

I'm guessing there was at least 500 attendees. Camping was spread out amongnst the many clumps of big trees, so it was hard to judge what the head count was. Again, for those of you that didn't catch it, Sport of Kings is a Thurs-Sunday heavy fighting focused collegium. Two class tracks: one armored and the second unarmored, "support" classes (for example, J/S taught classes on how to make a SCA sword and how to make a round sheild). People came from all over, including the West, Artimesia, and Atenvelt. Paul came up and taught, and Duke Sean from Artemisia came and, according to all reports, was the nicest guy to give you bruises in places that you've never gotten bruises before. ;-) They have this event every other year, and I'd encourage my fellow Westerners that have a heavy-fighting interest to attend the next one in 2011.

My first class was taught by the Viking Food Guy and it was on sports nutrition for heavy fighters with period foods. I think I got the most out of that class -- I'll be modifying breakfasts for when J/S fights in the future. I hope VFG publishes a pamphlet in the near future, because I think many of us have gotten this stuff wrong and fighters get set up for blood sugar crashes. :-/

For my second class, allow me to state up front that Graf Berek is one of the world's most patient and kind teachers. :-) We had 3 people in the Fighter Appreciation for Non fighters class, including one guy for whom this was his first event and he needed just about everything explained. Berek was great. :-) For me, he got me to break down what was going on. I did best when I just focused on one person and one thing that fighter was doing. I can't see the whole picture, but I did get better at seeing the parts.

I missed my horse barding class Saturday morning because getting out of bed was just *too* difficult. ;-) I did make my afternoon massage class, but that turned out to be focused on fighters doing thier own stretching. I did come away with the concept of getting more movement through gentle application of resistance, though, and that was helpful.

For me personally, the event had it's ups and downs, the latter of which I will not go into in this forum. But there were mostly ups. :-) Finally got to meet Banjo and his wife, along with thier just-over-a-year-old daughter and the older "run in and make an apperance before heading back out with freinds" son. ;-) Got to see Boverik, which was fun -- hopefully I'll get to see Gerhart again one of these days. And spent a little time with some of J/S's guys. But for the most part we just hung around our little camp and smoozed with folks, including my Western peeps Gillian, Leohulf, and Brian of G (Maguerite's husband). *Shockingly*, I started the event with very little sleep from the night before and never caught up, so I was running on empty for much of the event, I'm afraid. And I didn't get to smooze with Gillian as much as you'd think, because (again, shockingly) she volunteered to help cook dinner at the Virgin Countess Friday and Saturday. You can take the Pelican out of the Kingdom, but you can't keep her from working. ;-)

Shopping-wise, J/S spent and I didn't. We got another packing box from Milo, we complained to Heraldic Enterprizes that we *still* hadn't got the box we ordered at Estrella (they said we'd get in in at most 2 weeks -- we'll see...) and my sweetie bought me 2 new very cool books: In the Saddle: An exploration of the saddle through History, which has pics and info of recreations and restorations of Roman, Medieval, and 16th and 17th C saddles. and a cool book on Czech fashions in the 16th C (translated, originally by olga Sronkova, Fashions Through the Centuries, Renaissance, Baroque, and Rococo), which has color pics I've never seen before. :-)

As to my time with J/S, well, what can I say? I love him so much, and he loves me; he needs me and I need him. Sigh. I've been fighting funk ever since I left him at the airport. Next visit will be in late Sept., for the Madrone Emprise of the Black Lion.

And I'll close with a note to my An Tiran friends: Right before he left, Duke (Crown Prince?) Sean said that An Tiran fighters should travel out of kingdom more, because they are "the best fighters no one knows about". :-)

SoK Sports Nutrition Class Notes

Again, all of the following came from Refr Fiachson (aka Viking Food Guy ;-) ). Leon and Kara and anyone else, I can make copies of his handout and bring it to Leohtulf's practice sometime if you'd like. :-)

OK, here are my big take-aways:

SCA heavy fighting is anaerobic, rather than aerobic. We'll come back to this.

Taking a step back, during exercise the body first burns something called ATP. The body's cells store about 20 sec. of this stuff. After 20 the body has to make more ATP from glucose. The liver stors glycogen so it can be broken down into glucose. Your body can only stor enough glycogen for 1.5-6 hours of sustained exercise.

More insulin increases the chance of low blood sugar. Low blood sugar is bad. Simple carbohydrates stimulate insulin production. During exercise, your body burns carbs first, then fat, then protein.


I'll quote what I think is the most important point here: "The nature of fighting as practiced in the SCA usually invloves anaerobic exercise, meaning short bursts of activity rather than sustained effort over long periods of time...This means that you aren't likely to burn off your glucose/glycogen reserves ans start burning fat or protein. If insulin levels are too high, you will burn through your carbs too ffast and risk low blood sugar.

...What this means for food requirements is complex/low glycemic carbohydrates 2-3 hours before the start of fighting, so that blood glucose levels are sufficient, while keeping insulin levels low".

His main concern was that people eat too much in the way of refined carbs, such as white bread, and too much sugar. The best breakfast for a fighter would be 60-70 % low glycemic carbs (e.g. whole grains), 20 % protien, and 10% fat.

Frumenty would be a period answer to this. Frumentry is cracked what, bulger, or barely cooled in water or milk, then you add beaten egg. Another answer would be whole grain oatmeal (not the "quick" kind) with milk/cream and a touch of honey or fruit. Yogurt and whole grains with a little honey (as opposed to sugar) would work too.

The second big point was that most commercial sports drinks assume aerobic exercise rather than anerobic, which means they have too much sugar to meet the needs of SCA fighters and puts them at risk of low blood sugar crashes. Instead, VFG suggested drinks that replace fluids and some additional glucose he suggested secongemin (sp?) or oxymel, which is water boiled with vinegar and honey and cooled. He also suggested barely water with a bit of honey.

After one is done fighting, then it's OK to have some high glycymic foods like carrots, watery fruit, or white bread to get some extra glucose for recovery (and bananas, if one is not trying to be period).

VFG said that the main source of his info for sports nutrition came from Conditioning for Outdoor Fitness, by David Musnick and Mark Pierce. I urged him to come up with a pamphlett with period recipes that are suitable.

I also wonder if a pain perdue made with whole grain/low glycemic bread and honey would work...