Race weekend started early Thursday morning with the 960km drive to East London. I arrived at about 3pm, checked into the hotel and headed down to the beachfront for a short run to stretch the legs. It felt awesome to be down there and in good shape ready to race.

The swim course was open on Friday morning and I took the opportunity to get my first surf swim under my belt. It was an interesting experience to say the least. The first 5 minutes scared the living daylights out of me! The sea was quite rough and very cold (I’m really glad I bought a wetsuit the week before after considering not getting one for this race!). Once I got into my rhythm I settled and quite enjoyed it but those first 5 minutes made me realise I was in for a tough swim on Sunday. I registered and attended the race briefing on Friday night. I also forgot to mention that I had dyed my hair pink for the weekend in support of the PinkDrive who I was racing in support of.

The weather forecast for the weekend was heavy rain and for once the weatherman got it right. It rained all Friday night in East London. The weather was starting to make me very nervous. Saturday morning saw the first Irongirl South Africa run and the weather was superb. Not a breath of wind and the sun was shining. Everyone was secretly hoping this is what it would be like on Sunday morning. As soon as the race finished the wind picked up and it started raining. Again. In the space of 10 minutes the weather had gone from great Read more…

It’s hard to believe its exactly one year since I did my first road race. I ran the Berg en Dal 15km night in Krugersdorp last night. All I can say is what a difference a year can make. I had a great run. In comparison to 2010, chalk and cheese! Last year I did a 1:52, last night I took 28 minutes off that time and ran a 1:24. It’s not the easiest of races you’ll do. The first half has some challenging climbs but Read more…

Another count down to another big race commences. This time in two weeks I will be at the 2011 Ironman 70.3 dinner in East London as a 70.3 finisher. Training this week has gone well. I managed to get a few really good sessions in and I’m feeling quite confident. This was my last big intense week before race day, this coming week will be a bit more chilled (although I’m still following the sub 11 Comrades programme) and then the week after is taper week.

This weeks training consisted of 5km of swimming, 213km on the bike and running 49km

If anything its my running distances that are concerning me the most. Not for 70.3 but I have decided to give a marathon a bash the week after at Johnson Crane. I have been looking at different marathons to try and qualify for Comrades and Johnson is it.

As far as kit goes for 70.3 I’m quite excited that I’m going to be rocking it for the PinkDrive again. So I’ll be kitted out in all pink, including my pink Oakley Radars that will be making their debut at 70.3. There are still two small kit issues I need to sort out. Ok they’re not so small. I need to have my KTM Strada 3000 serviced after the front derailer cable came loose on yesterdays ride and I need to get my hands on a wetsuit.

I’m also trying to figure out a way that I can have a map with live tracking on here on race day so that if you want to follow my progress you can, although I will be tweeting and facebooking throughout the day (except on the swim – haven’t figured out how to tweet underwater yet). So if you are a bit techie and know of a live tracking mapping solution I can use please comment on this post.

When it rains it seriously flipping pours! A lot of people have been asking how I broke the granite kitchen counter. Like most Darwin Award winners it was a moment of not thinking things through before execution. It all started with a tenant that went awol in one of my properties. Not only did they do a disappearing act without paying rent, they also didn’t pay their electricity account and they also left with most of the keys so I’ve had to get a locksmith out to change all the locks.

I’ve had to clean the unit (because they left it in an absolute state) and get a bunch of rental agents Read more…

Halfway into the first week of 2011. Can you cope???!!! Phillip has come and gone and we’re into a new year. December was quite a hectic month and I was rather quiet on the blogging front.

I can honestly say that I am glad the silly season is over and that we can now return to some sense of normality. December was crazy busy. I worked through, as I always do, but there weren’t many fill ins on the radio, like there normally are, so I kept myself busy with other work. I was able to get a whole bunch of admin and necessary leg work out the way to start the new year off with a bang.

In other related news I had 2 tenants in properties I own decide that December is a horrible time to pay rent and that it was better to enjoy their Christmas celebrations than to honour their financial commitments. Needless to say I made sure both were homeless by Christmas but I still took a massive knock financially in December.

On the training front it was a great month. I managed to get a whole bunch of quality training sessions in, even if the weather wasn’t playing along much of the time. Ironman 70.3 in East London is just over two weeks away and I’m as ready as I’ll ever be. Even though I might be doing the swim without a wetsuit due to the aforementioned tenants. But it is what it is and we’ll make the best of it regardless. I also realised in the last week and a bit it is time to start getting serious about my running and January 1 means Comrades 2011 training has officially started. I had a look at the training programmes on the Runnersworld website a week ago and they scared the living daylights out of me. So far so good though, for the last week I have managed to follow the sub 11 hour training programme. I had a chat to Lindsey Parry (the Comrades Coach) just the other day to see if I was on the right track. I told him I’m keen to run four times a week, cycle 4 times a week and swim 3 times a week. He reckons if I do that I’ll be a for away for Ironman in April and Comrades will be no problem in May. So, that’s my training regime for the next 5 months. Watch this space.

2010 was really a bipolar year for me. There were some serious lows. In particular losing my mom and not having my run on the afternoon drive extended. But there were also some awesome highs. Personally the turn around I managed to pull off as far as my health and weight is concerned has to be the biggest highlight for me. From a serious couch potato in 2009 to running my first marathon in 2010 (and subsequently running one more and two ultra marathons) as well as completing a couple of 100 plus kilometre cycle races and two olympic distance triathlons and also losing about 40 kilograms in the year.

2011 is going to be a year of new opportunities for me. I have decided to put most of my time where I get the best results. 2011 is going to be the year to make some serious progress on my business side of things. You may or may not know I own a consultancy where I help business owners develop and create new business online. I’ve been picking up new clients over the last year but it hasn’t been my primary focus. This year it is going to be. I am actively looking for and helping people who need help marketing and growing their business using the internet. I’m quite excited and have already picked up a few clients this year who are already benefiting. If you know anyone who has a business that they would like to grow and expand in 2011 please pass on my details, I’d love to help them out.

For now can I take this time to wish you a very happy and prosperous 2011. May it be your best year yet.