Bartho Saaiman .... you are an IRONMAN

.... the words we love when we go down the red carpet.

Yes it was tough. Yes I enjoyed every minute of it. Yes I finished it in 14:21:53.

Will I do it again? Probably only if my wife will do it :)

So on that note ... to my lovely wife, thanks for allowing me to do this and for dealing with a moody, grumping, tired full of nonsense hubbie most of the times. Hope the flowers have been delivered and make up for some of it!

So what to do next ....

Are we there yet ....

ALMOST!!

Well at the time of writing this we have 17 days and 23 hours to go. Makes me really nervous!!!

So training has progressed well and if there is ever a time for equipment failure NOW is that time.

So I went out for what was suppose to be a 2 hour training ride, just to be cut short. Reason for this sudden reduction in traing time ... a broken gear selector with the gear stuck in the smallest gear at the back. Why does it always get stuck there?

So I had to turn around and head back, with Skilpadvlei and Polka Draai between me and home. Was the hardest pedal ever!

But fortunately the owner of the bike shop that attends to all my cycling needs is also a neighbour. When I eventually got back home, went to Alwyn and gave him my bike. Fortunately it is still within warranty period, so damages on the pocket should be limited. Also asked him to inspect everything to make sure that they will not fail me on Ironman day.

So as I will probably be without a bike for a day or two, I will probably use that as an excuse not to traing. Oops, I forgot that I do not need the bike to run or swim :(

Wetsuits are mad for swimming … or not!!

So we flew down to Durban on Friday. Kids were really looking forward to this as it was the first time they would fly! Whoopee!!!

We checked in at Midmar dam late Friday afternoon and just relaxed. Took a drive around Howick to find a store where we could by some food for the evening, and I also spotted a bike shop. This was important as I had to leave my CO² canisters at home. Not allowed on the airplane.

So Saturday morning early left for the bike shop and returned home uneventful to quickly go and register for the event the next day. As I promised the kids we would go to uShaka Marine, it was all aboard and off to Durban again. The day was spent mostly in the wet and wild area on the slides.

All of us pretty much enjoyed the day and headed back to Midmar to just go and relax and make sure everything was ready for the next day.

At 06:00 on Sunday on my way to transition, my son spotted that everyone was walking around with chips around the ankle! Where was mine? Quickly in to registration again, just to be informed that at the time I registered they did not have the chips yet. So I received my chip and went on to check in my bike. As I was busy going through check in, the announcement came … today is going to be a no wetsuit swim!!!

PANIC! PANIC!

I then spotted the “coach” and she saw the spot of bother on my face. “Nah you would be fine!” she said. I could only wish.

So we started the swim and as I was not feeling comfortable, I started at the back anyway as I did not feel like being swam over. I do think the swim was longer than they measured, but it might just be me thinking that. So after 48 minutes I managed to drag myself out of the water into bike transition. Took my time cleaning my feet, getting my shoes on and off we go.

What an awesome bike. Up and down the whole time, but relatively fast. This was by far my best bike experience in a race so far. I was hunting down the people as we went along the 20km loop which we had to complete 3 times. In hind sight I was may be going too fast and would pay the penalty later on in the run??

As we started the run I realized it was not going to be an easy run. They have literally just cut the grass down for us to run on. Had to run so careful as to not injure my ankles on the uneven ground. Anyway managed to finish the run a lot slower than anticipated, but in one piece.

I did a respectable time of 04:41:10 to complete the 1.8km swim, 60km bike and 15km run. Now it is back to training with 7 weeks left to IMSA.

freeze, freezing, big bay

So I did 2 ocean swims the past weekend! On Saturday we did the Big Bay Xtreme Swim around the Rock. This was a swim of 2.4 km.

So when I got to registration I was given the option of wetsuit or no wetsuit. Duhh!! Off course I will swim with a wetsuit. No amount of OBS would have convinced me to get into the 14 degree water. So off we went a few minutes later than suggested. The swim started in Small bay where we had to get to the back and around a buoy. What an experience being knocked around by big breakers. But I made it to the back and also safely around the island. Then there was some more trouble as I could not spot the buoy to return to the beach because of the swell and just carried on in a general direction to eventually find it.

Going out I was wishing I had a surf board with me as the conditions was ideal for surfing, just not body surfing. Every now and again I had to look around just to make sure there was no breaker about to break on me.

So on Sunday we returned to do the 11 Global Triathlon. Just to find that the swim is more or less the same. The swim was slightly shorter and in 11 degree water!!

The swim started at 07:00 and I had my fastest 1.5km ocean swim yet. I was out of the water after 22 minutes. I managed to also have a really good bike leg averaging 30km/h. The heat was on to finish in a really good time. So I turned up the leg speed to make sure that I finished the triathlon in 02:44:01. My best so far!

On Friday we are off to Howick to go and do the Midlands Ultra Triathlon (www.midlansultra.co.za). Not sure who is looking forward to this the most? The kids will be flying for the first time when we leave for Durban.

WP Trials

Needles to say that I had a disastrous WP Champs! First I walk straight pass "the coach"! That surely set the tone for the race.

The swim was OK. Actually it was a lot better than I anticipated.

When I got to transition some twit move my bike from where I racked it earlier. So my transition was slower than expected, but I pay to race and do not get paid to race :).

The bike leg started really well and close to the 30km mark I was averaging 35km/h. Then disaster struck. I could no longer keep my fluids in. I immediately stopped drinking my trusted Hammer product and just started drinking water. For the next 10km it was 2 sips in, 3 sips out. Not very good for me and I was starting to fear dehydration.

Got to transition and tried to take a sip of Energade I had. No use as it would just repeat on me. I just decided to stick it out as I was still feeling strong, but just had the worst ever stomach cramps. During the run someone passed me a sachet of water and I started sucking on this. It seemed to help a little. I could run the flats and up hills, but not the down hills as it was contributing to my repeating feeling.

At last I went down the last downhill and to finish in a worse time than expected. But at least I managed to finish the race in one piece and it made me realize that anything can go wrong on race day. Just have to work out if it was the combination of salt water and Hammer that caused this to happen.

been a while

so it's been a while since I posted here!

so far everything is going according to - ME THINK. well it did until the 13th of december when I was suppose to do jailbreak.

a south easter of note decended on the Paarl and caused havoc. bike transition was blown away and the bike leg completely destroyed!

PANIC!!!!!!!

because of jailbreak, and lack of funds I did not enter for IM70.3 in East Londen and with jailbreak being a blow out, what should I do!!!! my online training program did not make provision for this!!!

PANIC!!!!!

well not really according to claire horner (www.mytrainingday.com) after taking me under her wing. reworked my training program with race goals etc and now everything is back on track. have recorded 2186 km of training since saugust 2009 and have to admit for a non professional athlete that feels a lot.

so my next goal is wp champs end of january. will be the first race in the sea, so I am looking forward to that.

Making progress

So training is a long progress with a goal in mind. As of today my big goal is 184 days away.

The past Sunday I did my first very long training ride. I took part in the One Tonner 160 km cycle event. The aim for me was to cycle as close to 6 hours as possible. As all of us know in a perfect world it does not always go according to plan.

We (me and Jan de Moerin) set off and was keeping a good pace. Up until about 100 km were he started experiencing back pain etc. We went very slow from here up to 130 km were I then left him to cover the last 5 km to the car and I went off to finish the last loop of the race.

Eventually I spent 6 hours and 50 minutes in the saddle! But that is all OK as I really did finish strong and that means that training is starting to pay off.

Now we just have to keep the legs and arms going to the next mini goal which is Jailbreak in December!