What Is Inside A Honey Stinger Variety Pack?

  I recently became a Honey Stinger Ambassador and wanted to stock up on some of their products.  I’ve been a fan of their organic honey waffles for quite a while, but haven’t tried some of their other items.  So when I saw Honey Stinger offered a 10 piece variety pack, I jumped on it.  Honey Stinger uses organic honey as their main ingredient for fuel and helps anyone who wants looking for that bit of energy for their outdoor enjoyment.

  The other day, my Honey Stinger package arrived and I was pretty stoked to check out its contents.  Opening the box, Honey Stinger packed my variety pack in a Cherry Almond Protein Bar box, but had markings indicating that this was indeed their variety pack.

10 items to try, test, and enjoy

Organic Waffles. Love the Wildflower Honey.

 The first group of Honey Stinger goodness were four waffles.  Two organic packs consisting of one pack lemon flavored and one pack vanilla flavored. The other two packs are gluten free and consist of one pack wildflower honey and one pack salted caramel flavored.  Most people find Honey Stinger's organic waffles to be good before or during a run. 

Next, I pulled out Honey Stinger's two bags of organic energy chews.  I received two in their variety box: Pink Lemonade and Fruit Smoothie.  These make for a perfect energy snack, either on the go or just to tide over hunger until a main meal.  I tried the Pink Lemonade and they were so delicious, I was disappointed I only got one pack.

I think Pink Lemonade will be my favorite energy chew

 After the energy chews, I grabbed their two packed-in snack bars.  One is almond butter, dark chocolate, and sea salt while the other consists of peanut butter, milk chocolate, and sea salt. These are advertised as a good snack to have.

Better than a granola bar

Up next, I snagged the energy bar. Don't let the picture fool you, the rocket chocolate energy bar looks a lot better in person.  This category of Honey Stinger products is great for during or after exercising.  

Better in real life

And the final one is the Honey Stinger Dark Chocolate Coconut Almond protein bar.  Protein bars are great for strength training and people recommend eating them during or after a workout.  I, for one, will pass this particular protein bar to my wife, since I am not a fan of coconut in my food.  But that is why a variety pack is good to get, for the variety and if there is something that is not to your liking, you can always give it to a friend, colleague, or a family member.

Injury Time

  I have a shoulder injury.  It’s from a rather silly incident: throwing a ball for my dog.  And since I’m no longer in the military, getting injuries looked at isn’t the same as being in the Army.  I should say that I’m rather fortunate that even though we run with some movement to our shoulders and we (are supposed to) swing our arms while moving forward, the pain in my shoulder doesn’t manifest itself during a run.

  So, whenever I had an injury in the Army, I usually got treated immediately, or more often, go to “sick call” the next morning.  For those who don’t know, sick call is when servicemembers go to get checked out by medical personnel, usually around 6 in the morning.   And more likely, a supervisor or higher-ranking person will tell an injured but reluctant patient to go to sick call.  Problems and ailments can range from ankle sprains all the way to colds, fevers, and the flu.  And once a physician’s assistant or a doctor sees you, you get something called a profile.  A profile says what the service member can or cannot do and for how long.  These profiles are followed and adhered to very strictly, lest someone gets in trouble.  I used to hate getting a profile that restricted my running, but the doc’s word is final.

  When I injured my shoulder, I didn’t call my civilian doctor, mostly because I’ve been leery about learning how healthcare from off-post medical professionals happened.  But after a couple of weeks, I went to the acute care clinic on base.  Yes, I couldn’t avoid getting seen by the military; it was within my comfort zone and they don’t turn people away unless it’s something they cannot handle or the issue is very, very trivial.  

  So, the doctor on duty checked out my shoulder, asked several questions, and prescribed me to physical therapy.  A few days later, I talked with the physical therapist, and while talking about my shoulder, I told him that it was amazing that I could still run with no issues.  Of course, I also told him that I can run and keep my right arm and shoulder pretty much still since I do run with a GoPro in my hand.  I’ve done two races so far with this shoulder injury and the only time it hurt was when I reached for a tree branch.  That pain was terrible, by the way.  

  Even though the shoulder isn’t currently a problem while running, it is a problem to get me out there to run.  I do wake up with some very bad pain some days, and it’s enough to knock me off my rhythm and routine for something I like to do. 

 

Double time and Dance: Why a Song About an Airplane is More Important Than Audiobooks and Podcasts

  For 25 years of my running life, whenever I ran, there was a song being heard aloud.  Sometimes, that song involved a cargo plane. Other times, a song about where everyone was at during the run could be heard.  These songs were cadences and very familiar to anyone who has been in the military for more than a couple of weeks.  Cadences are rhythmic and set to a beat that is roughly 180 beats per minute. That sounds fast, but it is really just a beat that strikes every time the left foot hit the ground. 

  Cadences keep the military in step because whenever you have a large mass of people moving in the same direction, the most efficient way to do so is to have them in step so as to not have random people trip over each other and create some Looney Tunes falling scenario.  With the double-time march, each person starts by leading with their left foot as they move forward.  When I ran in formation, we usually had three or four columns of troops, depending on how many people were available and how big the overall operation encompassed.

  The cadences themselves would sometimes entertain the runners, but more often than not, everyone would end up with a “C-130 rolling down the strip,” and be one of “Sixty-four paratoopers taking a one-way trip.”  A few times, an adventurous person would sing this cadence with gusto or change up the routine a bit.  

  Cadence calling and cadence singing are a part of life in the military.  If you are running by yourself one day, you might mentally hear a running cadence in the back of your head and your feet adjust to the cadence rhythm.  I know my feet have… on multiple occasions.  I eventually hit a certain rank in the military where I could just do physical training on my own and my preferred choice of exercise is always running.  Weight training by myself? Uh, nooo. Plyometrics? I’ll pass. Run? Heck yeah!  If I wasn’t running with a select group of people, I would venture off and knock out six miles on my own, which probably scared some of my company commanders because in Texas, the temperatures creep up and we’ve heard reports of single runners getting hurt or even having a heart attack and no one was around.  But I would run and sometimes that mental C-130 would visit me.

  Which brings me up to my current running situation.  I usually run to music now. I slap my Zune into my right armband (because it still works and I love that thing), and I set out on workouts or 5k and 10k races with a preset playlist.  My running playlists have a tendency to be dance songs while I’m out there.  As much as I love genres like classic rock, old Motown, and current top 40, dance songs have a range of beats between 110 and 180 a minute.  Those beats help push me to go further and the slower dance songs help with a guy who has slowed down over the years. 

  I’ve had quite a few people tell me that I should listen to podcasts while running, but I just can’t.  For me, podcasts are reserved for non-exercise activities, to include driving.  But the biggest thing that stops me from doing podcasts and even audiobooks during a run is the lack of a beat.  I can’t run to someone conducting prose or explaining how the latest Intel processor will benefit a third world country’s school system.  But having Avicii and Carly Rae Jepsen going? Yea, that helps a lot more.

  Though, I have been known to start a race or two with the theme to Halo 3, or even the opening song to Chariots of Fire. 

  But that C-130 is always going to be with people like me.    

A Running Review of the Daybreak 10 mile race

GoPro Bike Riding and the Selfie Stick

This past Saturday I organized an event for the Columbia chapter of Team Red, White, and Blue.  Six of us took off on our bicycles for a ride on Timmerman Trail that came out to be an unplanned 13 mile journey.  I originally thought we would do either a four mile loop or an eight mile out-and-back trek.

  I'm known in the group for filming the local races and I sometimes record my bike rides.  However, this time I wanted to use the camera function of the GoPro Hero 6 and get some snapshots of our time out on the paved trail.  I set the GoPro on time lapse mode with a one second interval.  I didn't adjust anything of the the other settings, meaning that I left everything else in factory settings.  I used a two point expendable selfie stick and would occasionally adjust the stick to be anywhere from 25% to 50% longer than its default shortened size.  Throughout the journey, I ended up with over 5000 pictures to sift through and sort.

We start with the obligatory "beginning" picture.  There were only six of us, but I attribute that something I call Columbia's running problem.

  While Columbia, South Carolina isn't big enough by itself to be one of the top 100 most populous cities in the United States, there is no shortage of races to be found during running season or within a hundred mile radius. But usually, there's at least a race on Saturday in the capital, and I think on this particular day there were two in Columbia and at least one in one of the neighboring towns.

We left at the SCANA entrance for what I thought would be an easy ride.  We ended up splitting into two groups because half of us were entranced by a circling hawk over our heads.  Those not interested in eyeing a bird of prey who was seeking its food left.  The rest of us headed out about two minutes later.




  A little into the ride, I decided to play with the selfie stick.  My first attempt wasn't special but it was a start.


















 As time went on, I got more adventurous with using the selfie stick and picked up some good shots.

Checking out the back tire

The trees look taller from this view

As you can see from the first few pictures, the Timmerman Trail is a paved trail, meaning you can take a road bike on here with no issues.  I have a hybrid Cannondale and feel much more comfortable on that than a road bike. Besides, I like the idea of riding on a dirt trail as well.

You can see the people in my group were riding road bikes as I slowly chugged along.

The first couple of miles has a view like this.  We hug a smaller creek and even ride along the Congaree River for a bit, but in the short loop of the Timmerman Trail is a long view of trees and make riding much cooler, in both senses.

The picture on the left is a typical view from the GoPro while it rested along my handlebar.  Amazingly, I had no issues using the hand brakes on the bicycle while keeping the selfie stick across the handlebar.








I did play with having the selfie stick in front of my bicycle to get an interesting view.  These pictures are from different parts of the Timmerman Trail on our ride.

Eventually, we reached a point on the Timmerman Trail I haven't ridden on before due to the floods the Columbia area experienced two years ago.  A few weeks ago, maybe two months ago, the repairs were finally completely and the SCANA entrance was now connected to the West Columbia Riverfront Park and Amphitheater area.  This was good news and meant that runners, cyclists, and walkers could enjoy a longer trek.

 Hanging out at the Riverfront River and snagging a quick pic with the Congaree behind me.

This wooden terrace-work along the Congaree River is definitely new.  It is still fresh and doesn't look like it has any rain.
















On the way back, I wasn't trail bike. At least for long...

Towards the end of the trip, I managed to get a picture that made it look like I was going much faster than I really was.  In fact, I was going pretty slowly under the bridge because I have a tendency to wipe out in this area.










At the end, we all met up and started racking our bikes on our respective cars, but I managed to get a pic before everyone parted ways.

Of course, "Strava it or it didn't happen."

While I missed out on races like the Bunny Hop 5k, it was good to hang out with some friends and vary up my exercise routine.  We also introduced some of them to what I consider a hidden gem in Columbia with the Timmerman Trail.  Not many people come out and run out here, but I hope more come enjoy the scenery and sights soon.