A lot of people have been asking for before and after photos form my weight loss efforts for the last year.  To be dead honest I’ve been quite hesitant to post these photo’s because I still want to lose another 3o kilograms. So, below are the before photo’s and a halfway to my goal photo. The first two were taken last June, around the time when I decided to run Comrades. I was 165kg’s and I’m sure you can understand why sports physician was not to keen on me giving Comrades a bash. The last photo was taken last on Thursday the 10^th of June in Soweto for the Fifa 2010 Kick Off Concert. It was taken exactly a year, to the day, after the picture at the Confederations Cup warm up game.

June 2010 - 165kg's

Confederations Cup Warm Up - Italy vs New Zealand 10 June 2009

35kg's lighter in June 2010

It has been two and a bit weeks since Comrades 2010 and although my work schedule has been pretty crazy I’ve had some time to digest the events that unfolded on the road to Durban on 30 May 2010. You may or may not know what happened but in a nutshell I missed the cut off at 60km (29km to go) and was pulled off the road. No excuses, I just wasn’t good enough on the day but will be back in 2011 fitter, leaner and stronger to finish off what I started.

In the meantime though its time to set a few new goals for the rest of this year and the first bit of 2011. I have been saying in the build up to Comrades this year that once it was done I would be keen to give a triathlon a bash. I still feel that way but obviously the long term goal is Comrades 2011.

So here is what I’ve come up with as goals between now and 16 June 2011:

1. Complete a couple of the Energade triathlons which start in October.

2. Run the Soweto marathon in November.

3. Ride the 94.7 Cycle Challenge in November (and at the same time try and raise R1 000 000 for the PinkDrive)

4. Complete the half iron man in East London in January

5. Run the Johnson Crane Marathon.

6. Swim the Midmar Mile in February.

7. Run the Vaal Marathon in March

8. Run the Two Oceans and/or Loskop Ultra’s in April

9. Complete the Comrades Marathon in June 2011.

Some of this list may change between now and then but at least it’s out there. I’ve learnt that unless a goal is out there you’re never going to achieve it!

Please see the details below of my charity initiative for Comrades 2010.

My preparation for the 2010 Loskop Marathon was not ideal. A constantly niggly left foot after the Vaal Marathon 6 weeks earlier never allowed me to do the sort of mileage in the build up that I would have liked to have done. I also decided to change the shoes I was running literally one week before the race. This in hindsight probably wasn’t the wisest decision either. In the week prior to the race with the new shoes my tendonitis cleared up so I decided to risk running the 50kms in the new shoes.

We decided not to sleep over in either Middelburg or at the Loskop Dam the night before as I was on air until 7pm on the Friday evening. We woke up at 2am and were on the road to Middelburg by 2:30am. An early start to what was going to be a long day.

The Start of the 2010 Loskop Marathon

By the time we reached the start I was a bundle of nerves. As it started to get light the 4000 runners began the trek to the loskop dam. Earlier on in the week I had spoken to my good mate Dave Walters from MPower FM in Nelspruit and it turned out MPower FM was the media partner for the race. We were going to try and do a couple of live crossings from the road and the first one was as the gun went.

My goal was to go out until halfway at just under 7 minutes per kilometre until halfway and then take the rest of the race as it comes. It all went according to plan. About 5 km in I got swallowed up by Vlam’s sub 6 hour bus and decided to stick with them for as long as I could. I actually finished the Vaal Marathon in the bus and that’s how I qualified for Comrades 2010. That’s why it wasn’t vital that I finished under 6 hours in this one but the goal was to spend as much time as I could on the road to get a decent long one in the legs.

Peter Swanepoel and myself about 8kms in

Halfway - 25km to go to Loskop Dam

Looking back down Bugger's Hill

The ball of my right foot started hurting about 20kms and I just thought it was the hardness of the new shoes. Turned out it was the start of a monster blister. More on the blister later though. Going down Kranspoort Pass hurt like crazy. That pass is steep and I took it very slowly knowing that I had enough time in the bag to finish regardless of what happened. After turning into the valley the road stretches out in front of you and you get your first glimpse of Loskop dam.

At the Marathon mark with my Garmin 310xt

There is one last ugly sting in the tail of the Loskop Marathon. Varaday’s Hill. If you’ve run it you’ll know what I mean. After 46km on the road, you’re tired, your body aches, you know you’re close to the finish and then you arrive at the foot of Varaday’s. It’s a horrible climb and is made worse by it positioning in the race. At the top of Varaday’s the view down to Loskop Dam is nothing short of spectacular and it then leaves you with a jarring 2km to the finish.

Looking back down Varaday's Hill

The view of Loskop Dam from the top of Varaday's Hill

I completed the race in 6:16 and some change and to be dead honest was knackered. First thing I did after getting my finishers medal, t-shirt and goodie bag was to find my family and take my shoes off. The blister on the bottom of my right foot was extremely sore. I’ll leave the story of the treating and subsequent lessons learnt from that blister for another post.

Generally I have only good memories of the 2010 Loskop Marathon. It was well organised and the 2011 Loskop Marathon is definitely one to pencil in the calendar.

2010 Comrades Marathon - The Ultimate Human Race

The 2010 Comrades Marathon is happening on Sun 30 May 2010. Just writing that makes me nervous. But the truth of it is that as a novice I don’t think you think you will ever be ready. You may or may not know the reasons why I am running this year’s race. My mom is losing the battle to breast cancer as I write this and I wanted to do something to make a difference to people fighting this horrible disease and also for the families of those who have lost a loved one to it. Breast cancer does not have to be terminal and if it is picked up early it is in most cases curable. I have decided to support the Pink Drive and to raise money for breast cancer awareness. I think they do a fabulous job. I’m not going to go into to much detail as to what they do but if you want to check them out go to http://www.pinkdrive.co.za

Running Comrades as part of the Comrades Marathon Associations celebrity challenge provides a great platform to raise money for the Pink Drive. We have set up an sms line that if you sms the word ‘run’ to 4 222 0 you will donate R30 to the Pink Drive. The other fundraising initiative we are running is the 89 Memories – One race initiative.  The Comrades Marathon is 89km and run between Pietermaritzburg and Durban and this year I will be running each kilometre for someone that is either fighting the battle against breast cancer or in memory of someone who has lost the battle to breast cancer.

That is where I need you come in. I need your help. I need 89 individuals, families or businesses to sponsor each one of those kilometres. Maybe a colleague is battling with breast cancer and you want to pass a hat around the office and sponsor a kilometre then I’ll run it for them. Maybe you’ve lost your wife, mother, daughter or niece to breast cancer; I would love to run a kilometre in their memory. I would obviously like to raise as much money as I can (I know I’m greedy but it is for a great cause) so I need to put a minimum amount on the sponsorship for a kilometre. I have decided to make it R100 but if you can afford to donate more it would be highly appreciated. Ideally I’d like to try and raise R89 000 – That is R1 000 per kilometre.  So if you can donate that please do and if you can do more we would obviously be massively grateful. I am running in Toyota’s colours this year and in return they have agreed to double whatever I raise. If you would like to sponsor a kilometre please send an email to 89memories@bradbrown.co.za I will also include your loved ones story and memory on my blog and a picture of them too. If you would like to sponsor a kilometre or just to make a donation to our 89 Memories initiative the Pink Drive Bank details are as follows:

Bank: Nedbank

Account Name: PinkDrive (Comrades)

Account Number: 1825 011 109

Branch Code: 182505

Branch Name: Clearwater Mall

Reference to use: 89 Memories & Your Name

If you are not in South Africa and would like to donate the Swift Code you would require is NEDSZAJJ

What I am also challenging you to do is make a list of 89 memories of the person you know. Whether they are fighting the disease and are going to beat it, if they, Iike my mom, are terminally ill or if they have lost the battle and passed away. It’s really tough to do. I know this because I’m putting together this list together for my mom.  It’s a very emotional process and in the build up to comrades keep checking back here or subscribe to my rss feed to see the memories I will always treasure of my mom. Even though she is still with us, I want her to know what I will always remember about her. Also if you would like to is send those 89 memories to me, I would love to post them on www.bradbrown.co.za

It is going to be a very emotional day and I want you to be a part of it. I will be tweeting my progress as well as updating my Facebook profile from the road. You can follow me on Twitter or on Facebook.

I’ve been pretty slack with updating my blog in the lead up to Comrades 2010, but we’re heading into the final stretch and its time for some serious, focused effort. My qualifier has been done; I did a 4:56 at the Vaal Marathon on 7 March and am a week away from the 50km Loskop Marathon.

I came across this video clip online, which is a promo video for the Comrades Marathon that I think sums up the spirit of this great race better than any other I have seen. If you don’t know much about the race, have a quick watch and let me know your thoughts.

I had the funniest experience last night that I just had to share. I attended the Rockies Road Runners Comrades 2010 panel talk at the Zoo Lake sports grounds. The speakers had a wealth of Comrades experience and knowledge and I thought it would be good to go learn from them. Included on the panel was 9 times Comrades winner Bruce Fordyce, Dan Oliver who is a running coach extraordinaire (He has also completed 19 Comrades marathons himself) and well known and highly respected sports physician Dr Jon Patricios. Don Oliver opened the meeting breaking down his training programme and Bruce Fordyce wrapped things up with a bit of a what to expect session and opened the floor for a bit of a Q&A session which was very entertaining and informative.

The amusing bit of the evening was the talk by Dr Jon Patricios. I first met Jon in November when I had picked up a strain of the peroneal tendon in my left foot. His talk last night was about the adaptation your body will go through to finish a race like Comrades. Obviously one of the biggest changes in your body will be the strengthening of your skeletal system and your muscles and tendons. My injury in November was my body not being able to adapt to the stresses and strains I was placing on it.

To wrap up his talk Jon said it was important to be sensible in the build up and make sure the adaptation was gradual enough not to cause serious damage. In closing he used the following example to illustrate his point:  He said he saw a patient at the end of last year with an injury that was caused by a few things. This patient is a radio jock on one of the big radio stations and weighed about 145kg’s and was convinced he was going to run Comrades as part of their celebrity challenge (At which point the audience gasped). He went on to explain that this patient had broken down at the end of November and there was no ways that this guy was going to do it. I think the words he used were “reckless and irresponsible to think he could do this”. With that he wished everyone luck for their training and the race itself. At the interval Jon was chatting to one or two of the other runners that were using the opportunity to ask a few questions. I waited my turn, shook his hand (I could see he didn’t recognise me) and said that I was the reckless and irresponsible radio jock he was referring to. I corrected him and said that I was actually 160 odd kg’s when I started and that I was on track as far as my training was going. There is still a long was to go in my training and a lot of hard work to get me to the start line on 30 May but so far so good. I need to find out where his next talk is, that story he tells is just going to get better!

Another week closer to Comrades 2010! Only 18 more weeks to go. That is starting to scare the living daylights out of me. My training is going well, but I can’t help but feel I’m not doing enough. In the January edition of Runners World mention is made that I should be able to do 10km comfortably by the end of January, a 21km in February, a full marathon in March and an ultra in April. So far so good. I think. I more than comfortably did 10km in training twice this week; I also did a 15km night race and a couple of shorter runs too. I’ve done 50km this week, will up that to 60km this coming week (including the Johnson Crane half marathon on the 31st).

I’m struggling with a slightly injured right knee, that I hurt on Wednesday night in Kempton Park, but its not that sore that it is keeping me off the road. I’ve taken the last couple of runs really easy and it seems to be holding up but I definitely need to keep an eye on it. As always you can see what training I’ve done this week on Garmin Connect

I’m starting to realise the power of social networking site like Twitter and Facebook. Its amazing how you can be in touch in real time with friends and family but also with people who traditionally were unreachable for the masses. I love the fact that I can use these sites to communicate with people who listen to my radio show and also people who are following what I am doing on the road in the lead up to Comrades 2010. I spent a bit of time this week end redesigning the background of my Twitter profile that is more inline with who I am and what I do. If you would like to follow me on Twitter you can find me at www.twitter.com/bradbrown947

Brad Brown on Twitter

What a great start to the new year. My training has been going really well and I feeling fit and fab (although the foot is still a bit niggly). I think one of the benefits of running through December is that by the time January is in full swing you have hit the ground running and there is no need to try and play catch up. I noticed yesterday on Twitter ( You can follow me here)  a few people had mentioned that there were 140 days left to go until Comrades 2010. Someone else mentioned that it was 20 weeks. 20 WEEKS!!!!! Oh my hat! That is enough to scare the living daylights out of any novice! If you look at it that way there is hardly any time left. But we will get there.

I had a meeting with Craig Fry from the Comrades Marathon Association on Friday and things are starting to fall into place quite nicely for their celebrity challenge 2010. I’m really excited to be a part of it and am looking forward to some of the initiatives that are being planned and still on the drawing board. By the way you can see what I did as far as my training is concerned on Garmin Connect.