The View from my Bicycle [COLUMN + GRAPHS + VASBYT RACE REPORT + IRONMAN RESULTS]

I'm not going to lie to you. After the half Ironman (now a MONTH ago - jeepers) I really didn't have a reason or an incentive to train. In 4 weeks I cycled 4 times. It's actually even shakier than that. A week after the half Ironman I did a tough 72km (on the Cyclelab route). After that I did just 2 spin sessions (something I never do) and a tough cycle race in the Free State. Take away the spin sessions and the race and I only went out and did a proper training session once. In 4 weeks. That's lousy.

But I can explain. See I'd achieved a longish term goal I'd set probably in December 2008. That was to go under 5 hours in the half Ironman. In the same week as that race it also dawned on me that the Ironman wasn't going to happen. Firstly because I felt I didn't want to deplete my bank balance by a hundred million dollars (and a few million extra for a late entry) and secondly because, with about 5-6 weeks to the Ironman I hadn't run more than 18km. The half Ironman proved at after 14km my legs cracked.

So it was a humility and reality check pulling out of the Ironman, but at the same time, left me without direction. I looked through the Nedbank running race diary and went online but couldn't find any imminent challenges or races. Ja, the Kremetart, but not a good reason to keep myself on the ball. Then there was a week of crap weather and I started letting it slip.

So I went into Vasbyt thinking I might do okay, especially after a decent ride in the Free State two weeks into 'retirement'. Surely I'd have some residual fitness left for VASBYT?

Short answer?

No.

Not after 75km. In fact I had a great race until 75km. The start was ridiculous. You do a horseshoe turn, a sharp u-turn - where you go down a narrow road, very tight run and then up a steep uphill.

After last year's race I was wise to the fact that the guys use the first 300 metres to break away, and they tried it again this year. Since there is no neutral zone it is easy to slip off the front because on the narrow tar trip that exits the starting ground if you have someone slow in front of you you can't get around them.

So I lost the 20 chancers who took off in the first go, but our group was good. Initially about half a dozen of us, we later sucked up a strong girls bunch, of which maybe 3 or 4 stayed with us. We also later sucked up a bunch of tandems.

I had looked at last year's stats and thought improving on those stats would be a snip. 33.7km/h average - bah. 154 average heart rate - must have been unfit. Plus I knew the course conditions, and knew about the initial tricks and climbs and the hard final 30km.

The graph below is from last year's VASBYT. Notice the high heart rate and steep climbs in the first third and the long steady climbs in the last third. Notice also how my heart rate falls off at the end (a sign of lack of fitness).


Cut to this year. Below is the first third again (after that my HRM only intermittently picked up speed and distance, but picked up heart rate and the graph is still fairly useful).
Notice the average heart rate is 153, maximum only 163 (last year 174). My legs were a bit stale from one of those few training sessions in the last 4 weeks - a spin session followed by a run. Look at the average for the first hour or so - 38km/h. Compared to the previous year: almost identical.



This is what I wrote last year:

On the very first hill I felt cold and tight and stiff, and the guys pulled away right away. A group of us chased them, but they slowly drifted away. Then at about 20km or so, if not sooner, two teams - guys in orange and guys in red, white and black - all with deep rims, all in good shape - cruised by us at high speed. I jumped on, and so did another guy in a white Eskom shirt. We motored. For a short while we all took turns working together - this is the beauty of cycling. It looked and felt like a team time trial, and those rims all parting the wind like blades.

Riding in this group I realised how hard the first bunch were going - the bunch that pulled away on the first climb. We sucked in the ladies bunch, and kept right on going. I think we only caught the bunch we'd lost in the 1st km at 50km - this was with very strong riders.

Last year we had the luxury of some very strong guys who basically shepherded us back to the leading group. So a lot of the speed and time was based on the work of others. This year, I did a lot of the work in our group, especially right in the beginning, and on a couple of climbs, flats and downhills. Also, we had a strong crosswind for a lot of the mid-downhill section where we left 2 thirds of our group behind. What was good was that I felt strong on the climbs despite essentially not doing any climbing for a month. VASBYT doesn't really climb a lot as Gauteng based roads go, but 690m is still not to be sniffed at. And a lot of that is right at the bitter end. Look at the graph below and notice how the green line starts to emerge in the last third.


It was about two thirds of the way up the biggest mother of a hill, that I suddenly ran out of steam. I mean I had been setting the pace and been busy right up front and then wham, I suddenly felt I couldn't keep up. Even slip streaming didn't help. I needed the hill to quit and there was still a long way to go. That's where I left the bunch and started limping home. Around about 70-75km. You go over a hill and then there's another monster. About five times I heard myself saying through gritted teeth YISSUS!

I was hoping to go under a time of 3:03 which was what I thought I needed to do. At 70km it looked like it was in the bag, but a few kilometres later I was hanging on for dear life. What made it all worse was I, for some crazy reason, hadn't had a single gu or energy gel. Instead I'd bought a roll of glucose sweets and had been eating 2 or 3 of these at the time the whole way. Unusually also I was riding with no GU2O since my girlfriend had thrown away the container (despite there being one last scoop left). So when I finished I was starry eyed with hypoglycemia. despite my worsening symptoms my sleep and fatigue numbed brain worked on the psychology that it wasn't worth 'wasting' a R15 sachet with 5km to go. Smart eh?

Since my Heart rate Monitor was on the blink, erratically picking up distance and speed probably due to a direct hit on icky bit of crumbling and convoluted tar, I asked passers-by how far. Amazingly everyone said something different. 37km to go/15km to go/5 -10km to go/20km to go. At the finish a guy told me we'd crossed the line at 3:00. We started in the same bunch apparently, but I later checked and my start time was 7:01. It was now 10:05. I tasted the bitterness of defeat. Despite the exertions of last year, fatso me from last year had cycled faster than leaner (and supposedly meaner) me. During the writing of this column it turns out that actually I'd been mistaken. I didn't do a 3:03. I did a 3:04:45 with a lot of help from a strong group that escorted us. This year, we were that strong group. And I'd done a 3:04 - virtually an identical time.

I do take comfort that I rode far more decently than last year.

When I reached 60km I said to the Eskom dude that I was fast approaching my endurance limit - that in the next few km I'd have to start gritting my teeth. Even I didn't have any idea how true that was. If you'd been watching from above in a helicopter it must have looked quite interesting, if not funny. I'd cruise down on the downhills ahead of the pack (this is the original spoedvark bunch fortified with the time-trial team) and so build momentum up the drags, which I was finding to be getting tougher and tougher. Then on the drags almost all the guys would slowly drift by me, but by the time we reached the top, I'd be at the back, but still in touch.

I don't know how many times it happened, but it happened a lot. I realised once again just how much heavier I am than these guys. I mean there's no way it's just a question of being more aero on the downhills.

At about 70km I just couldn't stay in touch, and then I went backwards badly, and quickly. Up until then my average was about 36km/h.

In the bar afterwards one of the guys I rode with said they had finished in 2:48. I told him I only had legs for about 70km, and that I'd fallen off on that long savage climb. I'd like to come to VASBYT with more sleep next year and legs for the FULL EVENT. Third time lucky.

Ironman

'I'm relieved, happy and extremely tired'

Two new champions were crowned at the fifth running of the Ironman South Africa in Port Elizabeth on Sunday when rookie Marino Vanhoenacker of Belgium and Lucie Zelenkova of the Czech Republic won the respective men's and women's titles.

Vanhoenacker, a veteran at 32 of nine Ironman races and with this his fifth victory, broke the course record of eight hours 18 minutes 23 seconds set last year by Briton Stephen Bayliss, with a new best time of 8:17:32.

I wonder what happened to Tissink?

1.19pm

Raynard Tissink is still not speaking to anybody about why he pulled out of the race, although organisers believe it is due to heat exhaustion. A number of professional athletes are walking because of the heat.

SA homeboy Raynard Tissink has withdrawn and taken off his number after stopping at an aid station.

After three races where he was unable to defend his 2005 title, Tissink, who was in third position after Brad Storm and Marino Vanhoenacker, has officially withdrawn from the race after stopping at an aid station. It is not clear what the problem was, but it was reported that he was drinking Coke.

Read about my Half Ironman 2009 here.
Read about my Ironman in 2006 here.

About a week or ago, maybe a week and a half Alex reminded me that this weekend was VASBYT. While my weight has dipped below 80kg for the first time in a LONG time, I left my training volumes too late for the Ironman. I only hit double figures in January, although I had a great 16 hour week in Feb, and tapered nicely after that. I was very happy with how quickly my body improved in strength as I started losing weight - in swimming, running and with some nice results, in cycling. The problem you can see is the low mileage of the last 3 weeks. In fact this week I would have done only 4 hours were it not for the 4 hours I did on Saturday (3 hours of racing plus running and swimming an hour. So I'd like to pick those numbers up.


I do take heart that these numbers (above) while not fantastic are still way up, at least double from same time last year (below).



In 2008 I was averaging a paltry and pathetic 4:11 a week. This year it's up to 8:38 average with the current week slightly above that. I mean to keep it this way. The week ahead I'd like to get to 10 and try to keep it there (at an average of 10 hours a week).

Today my brother did the Ironman in a credible 1:01 swim, a 5:51 bike and a 4:15 run for an overall time of just under 11:07. Nively done CJ. I'd like to be able to compete with that next year. I've run at 3:51 marathon, but would still need to do a lot of work. Would be nice to go a 10:45 or even just under 11. So that's my early goal for 2010, but first there is the half Ironman in East London in January, the half Ironman here in early March next year, this year's duathlon season and then next year's triathlon season. I will probably go for a good time in the OFM. 94.7 is a bit iffy. Hated it last year so will see how I feel closer to the time.

VASBYT was a good race in the sense that it was a warning - relax much more dude and all your hard work is going to slip out the door. Want that to happen? No. But then I have been running a lot, and still want to channel a lot of my training that way. I realise though that I need to keep cycling in the picture, and through winter that's easier said than done. What I need to do, and you is take heed from the picture below. Good luck.

Ironman: Anything is possible

The Ironman is a 3.8km Swim, a 180km Cycle and a 42.2km Run. There’s one in P.E. in March. Think you can do it?

After catching a cold just a week before my first Ironman (in Korea, on the island of Jeju) in 2003, I was so determined I went ahead and raced anyway. By 100km on the bike, I was finished, and on top of that, my ear was bleeding.
I stayed up many nights after the race, unable to believe all those hours of training had ended when I had quit the race. It turned out to be a valuable lesson.

The next year I was back, fitter than before. Then, this happened: I went cycling on an extremely hot and humid day and after losing my money for food and water out of my cycling jersey (with 75km left to go), I limped home, suffering from multiple effects: dehydration, hyperglycemia (lack of glucose), sunstroke, hyperthermia (overheating) and hyponatraemia (low blood sodium). Over the next few days exhaustion set in. This was intensely frustrating! I had no flu systems. Just a slightly elevated heart rate. If I walked up a few flights of stairs I was finished. I’d already paid for flights and hotel accommodation, so I went to the Ironman anyway. So did a typhoon, which washed out the swim, but the competitors toughed it out in a duathlon consisting of a 180km cycle and a 42.2km run.

Twice in a row I’d been frustrated. Could I make it third time lucky? It is a heck of an investment - of time, money and effort, to attempt an Ironman. More than anything though, is it requires deep reservoirs of will to propel oneself not only through hours and hours of training (over several months), but on the day itself.
To motivate myself, and hold myself accountable to my goal, I set up a training blog in late October 2004 (www.3xluck.blogspot.com). I wrote down every workout, complete with distances, times, average heart rates. It didn’t matter that no one read about my workouts – it was just important that I did them and reported them. And over time more and more people took an interest, and the support started rolling in.

After training and racing in Korea, South Africa proved to be a pleasure.
Here are a few rules of thumb:
- try to do each of the three sports, 3 times a week (9 workouts in total, a week)
- mix up the workouts, so you do 1 strength/hill exercise (for swimming that’s using a pullbuoy or doing gym work), 1 speed workout, and 1 distance workout
- try not to train when tired. Rather train too little than to much
- eat plenty of fruit and vegetables, and take it easy on protein. An Ironman man sound like someone who eats steaks, but actually, to get fit and fast you need to be light and strong, not bulky
- on very long workouts, make sure you replace lost salt (this goes for the race too). Supplements like GU2O can be mixed into water bottles.
- Invest in decent equipment (buy stable marathon shoes for running, a lightweight bicycle or racing wheels, and a wetsuit (From Orca or Ironmanwetsuits) for swimming
- In each of the three disciplines, try to train with a group (even if these athletes are not triathletes). Swim with swimmers, cycle with cyclists, run with runners.
- Make sure you go the distance in each sport before race day, about 4 weeks before
- Go into the race well rested. It’s better to be over rested for a long day like Ironman, than over trained.

In the run up to my third attempt I got a Strep Throat around about this time last year (Febraury 24). The Ironman was on the 20th of March.
I had no idea, in the week leading up to the race, how weakened I had become. But I believed in myself the whole day, the whole way. If anyone had asked me, at any point in the race if I knew I was going to finish I would have said, “I’ve no idea.” But inwardly, I knew, anything is possible. I did a reasonable cycle (6 hours exactly) and had to dig deep on the run. I finished in 12:41. A long day but a powerful experience. It is amazing the power that resides in our bodies and minds.

You can enter by logging on to www.ironmansouthafrica.com

E is for Argus

My starting time is at 7am, and I'm in Group E. Last year I was in Group C, and I have to admit, they were too strong for me. I'm very happy with E, although I have some work to do still to earn that place. Several visits to Northcliff are definitely on the cards.

I was very aware that spending 5 days in Botswana was not going to help my training (for the Ironman and the Argus), particularly the beer swilling and constant braaiing and biltong gnawing. So I was surprised after my 2km swim last night to find my weight still below 85kg.

I went to gym first thing this morning with Alex. It was quite funny. We started with 10 pullups, I did my usual 10, buit he could barely manage 4 or 6. But he got me back. We did dips in the very last exercise, and he did 6 or 8. Don't think I could manage 1.

Iron Man (MARVEL MOVIE TRAILER)

Iron Man - The best video clips are right here
This looks good!

Beach Scenes

“The sea does not reward those who are too anxious, too greedy, or too impatient. One should lie empty, open, choiceless as a beach - waiting for a gift from the sea.” - Anne Morrow Lindbergh

“The three great elemental sounds in nature are the sound of rain, the sound of wind in a primeval wood, and the sound of outer ocean on a beach” - Henry Beston

“Among the many thousands of things that I have never been able to understand, one in particular stands out. That is the question of who was the first person who stood by a pile of sand and said, "You know, I bet if we took some of this and mixed it with a little potash and heated it, we could make a material that would be solid and yet transparent. We could call it glass." Call me obtuse, but you could stand me on a beach till the end of time and never would it occur to me to try to make it into windows.” - Bill Bryson

NVDL: Bill, what probably happened - and something tells me you must have already thought of this (it just sounds cool the way you put it) - is that people discovered glass in deserts and on beaches and eventually realised: Hey, lightning did this. So if you add heat to sand you get this stuff. Not such a long walk in the park now was it? And there was a movie with a character who did stuff along those lines in Sweet Home Alabama.

Iceman to crack North Pole Swim

First polar swimmer will negotiate cracks in the ice cap to reach the North Pole

Forget the rigors of Everest, or big wave surfing in Hawaii. This is an extreme sport beyond the capability of mere mortals. In fact, it is fair to suggest that South African Lewis Pugh’s attempt to swim* for 15 minutes (and about 1000m) in Arctic water as cold as -1.6 C is humanly impossible.

Fresh water freezes at around 0 C, so Pugh’s attempt (in salt water) is not merely in freezing conditions, but below freezing. The South African aims to draw the world’s attention to global warming through a 1km swim at the North Pole – a feat that ought in the natural scheme of things to be impossible anyway, except global warming has created vast cracks across even the North Pole ice sheets, and these cracks have gotten bigger every year.

But Pugh, an ex-maritime lawyer, is no ordinary mortal. Not only has he demonstrated incredible toughness as a swimmer (in 2006 he swam the length of the Thames river in England (320km), over 21 days), but scientists and doctors have discovered Pugh has an extraordinary ability to maintain an elevated core body temperature in cold water for a lot longer than other human beings. This talent will be vital at the North Pole. Pugh, gritty and methodical as ever, has taken up the challenge by bulking up his fat stores (he has gained 20kg in weight recently), and by training in tanks filled with ice. He is doing this at the South African Sports Science Institute in Cape Town.

Pugh, a tall 38-year-old, plans to travel to the North Pole in December, accompanied by a team who will assess the conditions and guide him on personal safety issues. He will be swimming only in briefs and a bathing cap, in conditions that kill most people in only a few minutes.

Hypothermia: What it feels like

It may not seem braver than climbing a mountain or surfing a roaring pipeline, but to actually experience icy water conditions for any length of time is very unpleasant. It requires both endurance and the tenacity to cling to one’s life against the constant shark bite of cold.

Just how vulnerable the body is to cold water conditions is easily demonstrated by my own experience. Some years ago, on Boxing Day, I participated in my second 1 mile out-and-back swim from Clifton Beach, in Cape Town. The beach is licked by icy Atlantic waters. The rough seas produced a soapy lather of foam, which made visibility and breathing more difficult in the heaving waters. Most painful of all was the marrow freezing cold: 11 degrees Celcius, and in places, the wind had ripped the surface skin away and the colder water had reached the surface, as low as 9 C.

Like Pugh, I swam only in swimming briefs. Unfortunately I did not have a bathing cap with me that day – a near fatal mistake. It’s fair to say that even in 11 degrees, the body screams in agony, and being completely immersed, it actually feels unendurable. I swam as hard as I could to get it over with as soon as possible, and to warm up my body. My back, exposed to the air, felt as though it was on fire. My face felt numb with cold, my skull as though it was cracking, my brain seized by a hundred ice-cream headaches. In these conditions one needs to stay calm, concentrate on even breathing and a flowing swimming stroke. It’s not easy. I quickly found myself gagging on the very salty foam I was inhaling, and being further sickened by the combination of rough sea and extreme cold.

After 20 minutes I’d turned around at Barker Rock, and then after a short distance, with about 400 meters to go still, I felt the cold eating right into me, and the beach just seemed beyond my power. I lifted my arm to wave to lifeguards, and as I did so, sank underwater. I remember a moment, cold and alone and submerged, thinking: “I could easily die here, and it wouldn’t be unpleasant. Like falling asleep, being a little out of breath.”

Every moment I did not move, the cold bit deeper into my spine. I could see no reaction from the beach. I hovered a little while, conscious that my situation was increasingly desperate, and I was becoming increasingly fragile. Still no response from the beach. I realized even if they did respond, would they reach me in time? I knew I had to keep moving, keep swimming. I decided then to try one more time for the beach. I don’t remember the next 10 minutes. It was as though I woke up with my fingertips scraping the kelp on the shallow seabed. I tried to stand up, but without the support of the water, my cold numbed body couldn’t support me. Lifeguards caught me and carried me to the showers. I remained under a hot shower, people were rubbing my skin to get the circulation going; they did this for around 12 minutes before I started to shiver. The shivering subsided, and then returned shortly after. Then I shook almost uncontrollably.

The Cape Times carried the story of my near demise. Friends who saw me emerge out of the water said my face had turned purple in the cold. When I finally left the beach that day it felt like I had been electrocuted.

I have a photograph taken that day, and what occurs to me is that I had very little body fat, and of course, not using a bathing cap would only have exacerbated vulnerability since the body loses a great deal of its heat through the head. Pugh has swum the entire Cape Peninsula, over 100km in conditions probably as cold as and colder than those I’d experienced in Clifton. Pugh will need to maintain a high level of fitness, but develop a thicker skin to protect him. As a safety precaution he will swim with an electronic harness which will provide his team with changes in his core body temperature during his North Pole swim. Even so, a 1km polar swim must feel like 15 minutes of blinding white pain.

On his website, Pugh says he has witnessed retreating glaciers, coral bleaching, animal migrations to colder climes etc. He has encountered crocodiles, sharks and even polar bears during previous swims. The odds are though that any creature that spots Pugh, a naked human being, swimming in its cracking icy domain, is going to realize something very peculiar is going on in the world. Hopefully the human population will receive the same message, loud and clear.

*Based on Bobby Jordan’s Sunday Times article: SA man aims to be first polar swimmer (May 27, 2007)

Commitment

Dizzy

There is a big whirlwind in my head...
Isn't there a song that goes, "I'm so diz zee..?" Or is it "You're so..."

I felt pretty despondent today. I am intellectually eager to be working, but practically that is just not on the cards. I feel extremely weak.
Slept all day today. Not sure how much of this gnawing empty-headedness is from nurofen, and how much is from the bug that's doing the rounds. I suppose I have the same thing someone else I spoke to has...who said they were sick for 2 weeks. 4 days to go.
Throat is less sore today, which I guess is something.

I'm feeling very glum. I feel like I left South Africa, triumphant and strong, and everything seems to have come undone by pushing myself back to this gray, sterile place. In fact it isn;t gray and sterile - spring and all the associated colors are unfolding. Nonetheless, the life I had, the glimpse of goodness I had back in South Africa is like a kaleidoscope, and here feels like a stained glass window at best.

I think it is unrealistic to think about things in broadstrokes now, or make plans, because I am ill, and frustrated. Really frustrated since the energy that went into the last week was a lot, a lot of it was just pouring out because if you're sick and you continue as normal, you start depleting resources...and now I am feeling quite exhausted.

Although I have 2 fairly decent job offers waiting for me, I honestly feel so confused and delirious I actually think the best thing is to make the first priority just to get back to a state of health. I can't imagine that it will take much longer than 1 or 2 or 3 more days.

More packages (books) have arrived from Amazon, so will busy myself with those.
I've had thought of going to Himachi (India) which borders on Tibet, or Angola, or simply return home. I would probably never act on impulses like that. It's just a state that I am in, and I'm really wanting to escape from it, get away from it.

I believe I just need to be patient, and clear my mind, and let nature take her course with me. Obviously, if I'm sick, I'm doing something wrong, and continuing to push, and insist on what I want isn't helping.

I read an interesting article on News24 about the headmaster of Grey College and the coach of the First Rugby team, going onto the field after a match and basically insulting and shouting at the referee. (Grey lost to Maritzburg 15-13).

It's interesting to read because I went to that school, and both those men were there when I was there, and you look at a guy like Hansie Cronje (who was Volsteedt's prodigy, in a way), and you wonder if these guys don't have a screw loose. If the power and prestige from sport basically has driven these guys, well, not nuts, but made them into partial lunatics. I don't think it bodes well for those guys at school who are not obsessed with rugby, and might have their own challenges and dreams, which the school just will not notice or care about given their fixation with winning rugby and cricket matches.
It's like being at a school that is collectively suffering from a chemical imbalance, and that's not healthy. It's possible that this was happening when I was at school, and it's still true today.
It's a very subtle thing, so it's hard to be certain about, but where there's smoke, there's often something really going on, and this article is possibly a symptom of that.
Just a thought. Part of the story is copied below, from News24:

Moments after Maritzburg College scored a shock 15-13 win over Bloemfontein's Grey College, Test referee Michael Katzenellenbogen was walking off the field when he was confronted by Grey College headmaster Johan Volsteedt and head coach Dries van der Wal.

"I was still on the field when he (Volsteedt) said he was very disappointed with the penalty count," said Katzenellenbogen on Tuesday.

"I explained to him that I don't keep a tally of the penalty count while I'm reffing, to which he replied that it was 25-6 in Maritzburg's favour.

'Came here with a mission'

"He then said the result was totally unacceptable.

"The Grey coach then accosted me and said: 'I know who you are, it's clear to me that you came here with a mission, you're a Super 12 ref's arse?'"

Katzenellenbogen has officiated in three Test matches.

"I said to them that once they had seen a video they were welcome to contact me with any complaints, but I have not heard from them," he said.

A review of the match video revealed a penalty count of 11-8 in Maritzburg College's favour.

"I am in the process of reporting them both to the Midlands Rugby Referees' Society," said Katzenellenbogen, who has just returned to refereeing after a year's sabbatical.

"If a headmaster in a suit can accost a referee on the field, what sort of example is that for schoolboys and rugby public?

"There is so much hype at schoolboy level and people forget the players are still boys.

"But there is such huge expectation to perform being placed on these boys.

"The pressure is being heaped on them by certain teachers, old boys and parents."

Volsteedt told News24 it was not his style to insult players or referees.

Van der Wal declined to comment.

Two weeks ago, Pietermaritzburg referee Llewellyn Muller was assaulted by the parent of a Westville Boys' High School 1st XV player on the same field after Maritzburg College won a nailbiter 16-13.

Incensed about incident

Andrew Nicholson, president of the MRRS, said on Tuesday that the lack of safety for referees and touch judges at school matches was reaching crisis point.

"An increasing number of spectators, teachers and coaches are becoming more and more confrontational, accosting referees both on the field and in the changeroom."

Nicholson was incensed at the Katzenellenbogen incident.

"What do these people want? Michael is a Test match referee. This is a school game for goodness sake."

(For the full story click on the title of this post)

I am an Ironman

Every muscle hurts. I watched Superman 2 on the eve of Ironman and there is a scene where he blasts himself with red rays to make him human, and then reverses the process, but it still takes a while to get his full strength back. I feel a bit like that, but also sunburnt and chafed, but I also feel triumphant.

I spoke to Raynard at the Awards Banquet and he said that PE, home turf, is a good place to attempt your first Ironman.

I had no idea what to expect, but was thinking, close to the time, that I might do it in 13 hours. In the end I did:
12 hours, 41 minutes and 12 seconds.
Swim was 1h10:35 (actually about 1h08 without the 100m run)
Cycle was 6h00:27 (29.6km/h - quicker than my Argus time over 109km)
Run: 5h17 (about 40 minutes slower than my last marathon time.

353rd overall.

Muscles in my shoulders cramped after the swim, which made me think, at the time, that the whole race was possibly a pipe dream, but kept on with baby steps, stayed positive and ended up having a nice bike ride, and although I had cramps in the transition heading toward the run, felt quite fresh starting the run, and my 3rd and last lap was probably the fastest. Want to race like that more often - save the best for last and finish strong.
Would like to do my next Ironman in under 11 hours. Just need to choose a venue.
Am flying to Johannesburg tomorrow morning, and then to Hong Kong and Seoul.

Still very tired, but happy.
Thanks for the support and interest from everyone, thanks Daniel for your emails and interest too, but got quite a few calls from various people. Immediately after the race the battery on my phone stopped working, wouldn't even charge, so haven't been able to use my phone. Sorry about that!
The race itself was awesome, awesome support from the crowds, great food - the food on the course was even better than my own special needs stuff. The boiled and salted potatoes saved me a lot of pain!

I will keep the blog going. Maybe my next major ambition is buying a house. This is why I need to continue working in Korea to build up the old bank balance.
I won't train or think of the Ironman for the next 4-8 weeks, and then will start gearing up again when my body starts to itch and scratch in that direction. I will take a while and then set some new goals in terms of the Ironman.

What new title will I need for the next season: THE ROAD TO A HOME