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Snytjie

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  1. I am in a similar boat. Been saving for 5 years to take a France/Italy trip with the family. Old JZ and his crowd wiped out 50% of those savings in the past six months, so we have to prioritize pretty seriously now... Although I always feel unsure about EL just after the race I returned 3 times and would've liked to go again!
  2. Snytjie

    Rugby...

    HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
  3. How do you refrain from drinking too much red wine and playing golf in-between IM races? Every day after work I actually relax - for the first time in 4 years. Love it. No good for fitness though...
  4. Real iron men don't wear socks, dude. We are ******* hard man.
  5. So its because of moisture? Didn't know that.
  6. Jeepers, I'm glad I'm not the only one. Lost my 4th toe nail a while back and didn't know what the hell that was all about. Luckily when it came of there was anew beneath. Now after the weekend I have two blue nails...
  7. Like ADe I used Joe Friel's Triathlon Bible for the full, in conjunction with Mark Jarvis' Strength and Conditioning for Triathlon. Before I made the decision to do it I also read Tim Noakes' Lore of Running and Friel's Triathlon Science, which both gave great background. I considered coaching but the costs and possible bias made me hesitate. If I was going to do it for a third year in a row I would have seriously considered some sort of input from a coach to give myself the best chance of improving...
  8. I'm quite curious to hear how it went? My lesser volume/more strength-quality-speed approach did not work, unfortunately. I either did not do enough of the shorter sessions, or it simply doesn't work for me. I suspect the latter. Last year I did much more volume and my endurance was better. This year I was faster/stronger but my endurance let me down in the last half of the run. My AG placing confirms this. Last year: 111/308 = 36%. This year 138/313 = 44%. So I dropped 8 points despite an additional year of training...
  9. Eish! Quite an interesting race this one... In an animistic way I have to say that PE didn’t take kindly to our idle talk about an easy course and nice weather and brought us down to earth properly! We stayed at the Town Lodge this year and it was a great location. Eating breakfast on the porch on a beautiful Saturday overlooking the bay and all the activity I again understood that for me IM is all about the massive anticipation in the hours leading up to that start. That feeling I had walking along the shoreline and on the beach before the start, knowing that I was going to partake in the very thing all this is about, was again just magnificent! The practice swim pointed towards an interest leg and it turned out to be just that. Swells that certainly got my attention and a chop to match made for a proper test. It was really difficult to sight and after the first turn I followed about 100 athletes in front of me on a completely wrong line. I realised this a few minutes later when I noticed that we were swimming towards the left crane and not the end of the harbour wall. I sat up to check and saw that a major part of the field immediately in front of me was going off towards the 1st yellow buoy after turn 3, some 300m off course! I don’t know what happened to these guys but I’m very glad I realised it. Big swells around turn 2, and what I think must have been current on the back leg: I missed all the yellow buoys about 50 m to the left despite how carefully I sighted. Came out in 1:19 which was about 5 min slower than what I hoped for. The bike was relatively pleasant. Conditions were perfect for the first lap, and ok for the second: little hot, slight wind towards the end, but much easier than last year. I stuck to my target HR, felt strong throughout and ate/drank according to plan. The 28mm tires definitely helped (Thanks DaveM!). Got off in 6:12 which meant my best ever average speed of all 70.3’s and one IM. Out on the run and, initially, I felt quite good. My target HR translated into a ‘brisk’ pace of 5:57 for the first 20km. But then, just as thoughts of breaking 12 hours entered my mind all came crushing down rapidly. It was weird, just like pulling a plug. The power just drained out of me within a few kms. At 22km I couldn’t get myself to run past the feeding tables and walked all of them. At 28km I was getting really dizzy and couldn’t figure out whether I ate/drank too much or too little, which with all the normal scary thoughts during the last stages of an IM wreaked havoc in my mind. By 32km I was walking both upslopes at the ends of the course. The last 4km felt never-ending. I eventually finished the run in 4:25. With liberal transitions it meant a 12:13 for the race, a good 33min faster than last year. My AG position will show whether I really did a better race. I feel proud irrespective. Great organising as always and the fans and volunteers were again the lifeblood of the whole experience. Like ICM said above I hope that I could also support and volunteer in the future. After two IM I can say with all integrity that I gave everything I had, in both training and racing. I am completely happy. Bar marriage and parenthood, this is the most intense thing I have ever done and I think I came out a better person on the other side. I won’t be back in the foreseeable future as there are some other amazing things I look forward to achieving now like trying out Xterra and cutting my golf handicap from 9 to 0, but come next year I will definitely have some serious nostalgia. What an amazing two years this was! I am indeed a very privileged person.
  10. Going on the old workhorse in TT mode. This bike really served me well over the past 4 years switching between road and TT setup: Is it not bad karma to speak about goal times??? I did 12:46 last year and think this course will be quite a bit easier. In case of reasonable weather: 1:15 swim, 6:15 bike, 4:20 run and then transitions time determine if I go under 12:00 or not...
  11. If there is one thing that really bothers me on the run it is that smell of braai/potjie. Can't take it...
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