It’s the last day of 2011 and I am really enjoying reading posts on a lot of blogs I follow and on Twitter about memories of 2011. So much so that it has inspired me to go back into the archives and see what my highlights of 2011 were:

1. January saw me finish my first Ironman 70.3 triathlon (1.9km Swim, 90km cycle and 21km run) in just over six and a half hours, in the pouring rain & with pink hair.

2. March brought an interesting little initiative across my path. Roxy Burger started the 40 days of zarmies for lent and it got a we bit bigger than any of us imagined it would. Here’s to even more sarmies in 2012.

3.  April saw me finish my first Ironman in Port Elizabeth (3.8km swim, 180km cycle and 42km run) in just under 14 hours.  Hearing Paul Kaye on the red carpet saying “Big Brad Brown, you are an Ironman” will always be one of my favourite memories of that day.

Me running down the red carpet

4. The Comrades Marathon rematch took place in May. After failing to finish in 2010 the pressure was on to get the job done in 2011. One of my fondest memories of the day was having my Dad (Who has done 11) on the route supporting through out the day and at the finish when I crossed the line in just over eleven and a half hours.

Having my Dad at Comrades 2011 was awesome

5. My first magazine cover (much to my surprise it wasn’t Farmers Weekly).

My June Cover

6. Having a dream come true by running across our vast country from Cape Town to Johannesburg as part of the Continental Run to Stop

7. Helping people get fit and lose weight at Run Walk for Life in Bryanston

8. My best mate from school, Leanne, getting engaged. Even if it is to a Kiwi.

9. James, my best mate from varsity (and the best man at my wedding) getting engaged and married in 2011. Go you good thing.

10. A long time friend Poppie from my campus radio days getting engaged (just shows that there is someone for everyone). Love you Popster!!!

That's Poppie in the Bulls jersey. We all have our faults.

11. Marc and Sam & Lindsey and Hayley getting hitched this year too.

12. Finding a house that I can call home.

My name is Brad and I’m addicted to food. There I said it. Does food addiction have a name? It must have a name. I can’t be the only person who suffers from this addiction.

That’s number one of the seven things I plan on getting a handle on in 2012. Call it what you want to call it but the truth of the matter is food has ruled my life for way too long and it has to change. If you have been following my journey you’ll know that has been an issue I’ve been battling with for a long time my whole life. It is time to draw a line in the sand and get better. The problem is unlike drug addiction or alcoholism as there is no rehab (that I know of) for food addiction.  I’m going to have to play this by ear as I go along.

Yikes!!!

One thing I have learnt by getting down from 165kgs to 110kgs in the last two and a bit years is that diets don’t work. Sorry to burst your bubble. If you are looking for a quick fix you’ve come to the wrong place. It didn’t take me a few weeks to put the weight on so I can’t expect it to fall off in a few weeks (unless I amputated a limb or two). It’s a process, a change in lifestyle and that is what beating this addiction is about for me.

It’s time to call a spade a spade. I managed to get down to 110kgs for Ironman 2011 by literally training my backside off. 2 sessions a day, 6 days a week. Swim. Bike. Run. Swim. Bike. Run. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. When you are training that hard you can almost eat what you want and you’ll lose weight but the problem is as soon as you slow down or stop you will just put weight back on. You I need to address the food issue. Ironman was on 10 April 2011, Comrades was on 29 May 2011. I was still running quite a bit in that 6 week period. I ran an ultra marathon (48km) and a standard marathon (42km) in that time. I wasn’t swimming and cycling though and I managed to put on 10kgs. My Comrades 2011 starting weight was 120kgs. I took a bit of a break from training after Comrades but not an out and out hiatus. I was still putting in the odd session. By August 2011 I was back up to 128kgs just because I was eating like I was training for ironman but without the training.

I put on 18kgs from April to August. In case you were wondering, that’s not good. That is why I need to take control and firstly admit I have an addiction and secondly to get it under control.

Here is the deal. One of the reasons I want to do the Seven Things is because I need to be accountable. As I go through the other six you’ll see what the plan is and how they all fit together. This is what the plan is for number one of the seven:

I need to get down to 90kgs for a few reasons. According to my BMI my ideal weight range is between 80 and 98kgs. I have a funny feeling 80kgs might be a bit low but 90kgs sounds good and I’ll never know until I get there. Secondly I have never, in my entire life, felt thin. I want to feel what that feels like. For as long as I can remember I have had a bad body image. Thirdly I want to know athletically what I’m capable of racing at 90kgs. More on that one later though.

This is how I’m going to get down to 90kgs in 2012. Accountability is the key. I am going to keep a food journal for the duration of 2012. Every morsel of food or drink that goes into my mouth will be written down. Every morsel. OCD much? Absolutely. You don’t get to weigh 165kgs without being obsessive. By keeping a food journal it will help me see where I am going wrong (and right) on this journey.

I am also declaring now that for 2012 I will not buy ANY fast food. No McDonalds. No KFC. No Debonairs. No junk. Period. This is going to be really hard to do. Especially pizza. Especially pizza after Ironman and Comrades. I might need to reconsider this on the 22nd April and the 3rd of June but we’ll cross that bridge when we get there.

The next thing I need to do am going to do in 2012 is to radically change my eating lifestyle. By that I mean I need to re-educate myself with regards to healthy food choices, food preparation and in my case the correct portion sizes. I know Low GI is the way to go. I am dedicating myself to learning as much as I can in 2012 about the Low GI way of eating. I will learn at least one new Low GI recipe a week for the duration of 2012 and share them on here.

Part of the accountability will also include a once a week weigh in and measure (which I’ll post the results on here). Nothing quite like putting it out there that I’m on a mission to turn things around.

If you missed where the Seven Things idea came from you can read the origins of it here. I would love you to join me on this journey. I don’t know what your Seven Things are but if you don’t aim for anything that is exactly what you’ll get. Feel free to add your thoughts and your Seven Things in the comments section below, I’d love to hear from you. 2012 is the year to turn things around.

I love South Africa. I really do. I love being a South African. I can’t imagine being any other nationality. One of the things I love most about this country is the spirit of its people. We just never seem to want to give up. It’s that never say die attitude that I love. If you actually sit down and think about what this country has gone through since 1990 it is amazing that there has not been major bloodshed. There are many countries on this planet that have gone through half of what we have and have imploded. But we have carried on regardless and made the best of the hand we have been dealt.

We also punch above our weight limit in a big way. We believe we can chew whatever we bite off. We just do. I love that. Our sporting culture screams that. In particular South Africa’s ultra distance running culture says tons about us as a nation. Go to any other country and mention that you are running or have run a marathon (42.2km or 26 miles) and they treat you like you are an absolute rock star! And you should be treated like that. A marathon IS a big deal. It’s a hell of a long way to run in one go but more than that it takes some serious commitment and dedication to train for the actual event. Tell a South African you’re running a marathon and no one bats an eyelid.

What really got me thinking about this was all the runningbeing done around the country this weekend. The Old Mutual Two Oceans Marathon took place in Cape Town yesterday. Even the name plays it down. It’s not a marathon. It’s an ultra marathon. There is a big difference between the two. In this case 14km. The Two Oceans is 56km and is no walk in the park. I’ve never done it but have seen the route profile and it’s not one of the easiest runs you’ll ever do (While I’m at it cograts to a few mates that did it yesterday, Craig, Tanya, Morne and in particular Catherine who finished her first one, Richard who did it in a cow suit for Choc and Lindsey who racked up another silver with a sub 4 hour run!). The scary thing is for a large part of the field yesterday the Two Oceans wasn’t the goal. It was a training run for a longer one but I will get to that in a mo.

Watching my twitter feed this week I felt like I was the only one not in Cape Town for Oceans. But that couldn’t be further from the truth. I did a training run on Friday as part of the Randburg Harriers Easter 100. It’s called the poor man’s Two Oceans. It’s very similar. In fact, there is a lake, Zoo lake, a dam, Emmerentia, and mountain, Northcliff Hill (ok maybe not a mountain but it is still a mission to get up it). The Easter 100 is not actually an official ‘race’. The whole event takes place over 3 days. Day one is 48km, day two 33 and the last day 19 to make up the 100kms over the weekend. It is a training run. A T-R-A-I-N-I-N-G run! Yip you heard right. A 100km training run. There are no marshals telling you where to go. In fact you get a map before each day and off you go. You don’t get a medal for finishing it, although if you do all three days you get a t-shirt. I’m terrible at estimating numbers but I guess there must have been more than 500 people running on Friday. On an unofficial training run, that was longer than marathon. It was a training run for a longer one.

The ‘longer one’ I talk of is the monster of all ultra marathons. The Comrades Marathon, an 89/7km (depending if you’re running ‘up’ or ‘down’) ultra marathon. Run between Durban and Pietermaritzburg (The up) and Pietermaritzburg and Durban (down) on alternate years. The mother of all ultra marathons. Once again it is called a marathon. You probably couldn’t call it the Comrades Two Marathons and a 5km Trot right? But that is exactly what it is. Maybe not a 5km trot at the end, it’s more like a 5km drag. That is just insane if you actually think about it. Why would you want to put yourself through that? Oh, I forgot to mention there is a 12 hour time limit to it as well. It used to be 11 hours back in the day and most hardcore old school Comrades runners don’t call it a finish unless you do it under 11 hours. That was in the day when the men were men and the women were also men. So not only do you have to run the almost 90km but you also have the pressure of having to do it in a really tight time limit. Something else you need to take into account are the hills. There are some monsters. The ‘big five’ as they are affectionately known as, Cowies Hill, Fields Hill, Bothas Hill, Inchanga and Polly Shorts. They are not pretty. In fact they are downright ugly. The scary thing about Comrades is that there are hills on that run that would frighten most marathon runners that are so insignificant in the greater Comrades scheme of things that they don’t even have names! I know the question you are asking yourself if you’re, one, not a runner, and secondly someone who thinks a marathon is the most amazing achievement a runner can achieve is why would anyone do this to themselves? The truth is we need to ask the 19 617 runners that will be taking this challenge on come 29 May 2011. There are a few foreign runners in that total but the vast majority are ordinary, everyday South African citizens. Most have families, jobs and the same day to day responsibilities the rest of us have but they dream of greatness. Like most South African do. There are some phenomenal athletes in that group of long distance runners but you would be surprised at how many ‘average’ runners there are that line up to take this challenge on. In fact for the most part if you passed the majority of them on the street out of there running gear the thought of them being super athletes wouldn’t even cross your mind. But they are, because they believe they can be great. Like most South Africans do. That is one of the thousands of reasons why I love South Africa. I’m looking forward to lining up alongside those 19 odd thousand brave souls in 5 weeks time to be part of and to become, something great.

It is exactly four weeks to my first Ironman and I’m starting to get really REALLY nervous. 3.8km swim. 180km cycle. 42km run. An Ironman. Just writing that scares me. What an epic journey it’s been. Less than two years ago I was seriously obese (probably bordering on morbidly obese) clocking in at a whopping165kgs. Today I’m sitting looking at my watch thinking “this time in four weeks I’ll be zipping up my wetsuit/getting out of the water/on lap two of the bike/getting off the bike/finishing my first lap of the run/an ironman!”. If you had told me two years ago I would be writing this about what I’ll be doing in four weeks I would have told you to lay off the happy pills.

I can remember my first run like it was yesterday and I use the term run very lightly. It was about an 800m walk. Three times around a hockey field. It was uncomfortable, strenuous and a million miles away from even thinking I could take on an Ironman, never mind finish it. Ironman was never a goal. It never crossed my mind until 8 months ago. The goal was not to die before I hit 40. I wanted to run Comrades but I never even gave triathlons a thought. But as we stand right now it’s four weeks to go to the biggest race of my life. If I have to be honest I’m tired of training. The two sessions a day for the last 6 months have taken its toll and I’m mentally and physically tired. I have one more hard week of training left and then it time to taper and make sure I’m fresh on race day. The best bit of advice I’ve been given is to go out and enjoy race day, take in the atmosphere. Race day is a reward for all the hours of hard work that I’ve put in over the last 6 months. I am really looking forward to race day. I have no doubt it is going to hurt but I am looking forward to the reward. I’ve visualized those final few meters on the red carpet over and over and over again. I get goose bumps just thinking about it. Music pumping, crowd cheering and the announcer saying “Brad…….YOU ARE AN IRONMAN!!!!!!”. Four weeks from now I’ll be somewhere on the road working towards that one moment.

I love simple but innovative ideas that make a difference in other people’s lives. You may or may not know about my involvement with the PinkDrive and my passion for raising money for their education and early detection programs through endurance events that I am taking part in like Ironman and the Comrades Marathon but I often feel like I am always begging my mates to open their wallets and support the next wacky event that I am taking part in. I came across an initiative this morning that I absolutely love and hence this post.

Roxy Burger

I follow Roxy Burger (Currently of Survivor Maldives fame) on Twitter and saw a couple of her tweets this morning with a hash tag that read #40daysofzams and it kind of aligned itself into the way I was thinking the last or two any way. Not being that religious I have never been one to get give up things for lent. Although at my dik former self it might have been said that I had given up my neck for a long long time. Listening to the radio yesterday afternoon in the car with my 8 year old son Ethan there was a conversation about lent and what people were going to give up. Ethan was asking a few questions about it and asked if he could give something up. I told him it had to be something he really liked, he thought about it for a while and then asked if he could give up school for 40 days. I nearly crashed my car. He definitely takes after his dad. I said to him we would find something we could do. Then I saw Roxy’s tweet this morning.

Ham & Cheese Zarmie

Forty days of zarmies. What a cool idea. The basic idea is this: Make a sandwich every day for 40 days, find someone who needs it and give it to them. It doesn’t have to be a gourmet zarmie, it can be as simple as a jam sandwich. It’s as easy as that! Honestly, such a simple concept but if we can get a thousand people to do it, we’ll be able to feed a thousand people a day. That is 40 000 sandwiches handed out in just over a month! Small idea, massive results! There are thousands of people roaming the streets of this beautiful country of ours that are hungry and I love that an idea this small can make such a big difference. By taking part you don’t need to fork out hundreds of bucks, you don’t need to spend hours of your time all you need to do is make one sarmie a day for forty days.

It is so easy to do. You might make yourself a lunch every day for work, just make an extra sandwich, whack it in a sandwich bag and on your way to work give it to the mother who is begging at the traffic light just around the corner from home. If you’re a mom who makes school lunches, make an extra one and get the kids involved. This is my challenge to you. Get involved. For forty days let’s see how many people we can feed. Post a comment at the end of this post to let me know if you’re in. If you’re on Twitter you can also drop Roxy or myself a tweet to let us know you’re in and how the #40daysofzams is going (don’t forget to use the hashtag in your tweets!). Share this post and challenge your mates to do the same!

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.

I’m sitting watching the cricket this afternoon Mike Haysman just mentioned that we received 100mm of rain on the Highveld overnight last night. I think I was up for most of it! Today was the BSG Prestige Ultra Triathlon and the weather didn’t play ball.

I woke up a few times through the night last night. Some of it had to do with nerves but there was also the mother of all storms last night and the lightning and thunder woke me up a few times as well. Up at 4:00 for a 7am start. I packed the car, popped my bike on the bike rack and was soaked before I left! The drive down to Vanderbijlpark was harrowing to say the least. The roads were extremely wet and slippery. At one point on the N1 at the Maraisburg off ramp the highway was so flooded (across all 4 lanes) that cars were turning back to avoid going through it. I took my chances and drove through it and I’m guessing it was about a metre deep!

I arrived at the Emerald Resort and Casino at almost half past six. A journey that normally takes an hour took almost two this morning. Having heard on the way that the start had been delayed by an hour I wasn’t too stressed about arriving at 6:30. Once there I heard the cycle leg had been cancelled due to the amount of water on the roads. I was seriously surprised as I thought the river would be raging from all the rain and there would be no way we would swim. I was wrong. The swim was on and so was the run.

We started at 8:15 and the swim went better than expected. Swimming upstream was pretty hectic but once we turned back we cruised home. The river was so dirty that visibility was non existent. You couldn’t even see your arm going into the water in front of you. There was also tons of debris in the river which was interesting to say the least.

The lake at the entrance to transition

Transition was pretty wet and I’m almost sure we could’ve swum straight out of the river into transition! My run went really well. There were patches of rain but generally it was dry although underfoot it was still quite wet. I went out pretty hard on the run. I said before the race that with no cycle this was the perfect opportunity to run a sub 2 hour half marathon for the first time (my previous pb being 2:06). At halfway I was feeling pretty good, although I had left my gels in transition, so I kept pushing. I took a bit of strain on the second lap of the run but managed to hang in there to finish the run in 1:53 (20km), and would’ve finished sub 2 if it was a full 21km run. I was really chuffed with my performance even though I was a bit bleak that we weren’t able to cycle. So 70.3 it is for my full half ironman triathlon in January in East London.

On an aside, I bumped into Kate Roberts today as well. I met Kate when I was in Bloemfontein a few months ago on the Comrades road shows. It was really good to see her and she made me laugh big time. We saw each other a couple of times on the run. Before you think I was seriously motoring to keep up with Kate (considering she is ranked 7th in the world in olympic distance triathlons) she was using the run as a training run and was run it in the opposite direction to the rest of us. She mentioned to me after the race that I was looking pretty strong on the run and asked if I was going for a sub 9 hour Comrades! Bwahahahaha!!! You made my day Kate!

Below is the data of my race in Garmin Connect:

I can’t actually believe how fast this year is wrapping up. I looked at the triathlon racing after Comrades 2010 and plotted out what races I was planning on doing in the build up to Ironman 70.3 in East London in January and the Ironman in Port Elizabeth in April 2011. I only scheduled 3 before the end of 2010 and two have come and gone already. The next big triathlon on my racing calendar is the Prestige Ultra Triathlon in Vanderbijlpark on the 16th of December. 11 Days to go to my first half ironman triathlon. Just writing that scares me. I’m doing a half ironman having only done two triathlons up until now. My training has gone well and I am pretty sure I’ve done what is needed. I’ve got a couple of longish cycles planned for early next week but other than that it’s time to taper. I always get nervous when I start taking my body to places it has never been before. You never quite know how it is going to react to the stresses and strains you put on it. It was the same in he build up to Comrades this year every time I went up to a new distance I was nervous. The only time I attempted to double what I had done up until then was from an ultra marathon to Comrades. I am practically doubling what I have done to this point in triathlons. That is a huge step up and I think I’m understandably nervous. I’ve done more than the individual distances in training (except the run, I haven’t gone further than 15 since I picked up some ITB in August) but it is now a case of stringing it all together on the same day. I’m sure there is going to be pain on the day but I really hope I have a good race as this is my dress rehearsal for the 70.3 in East London which is just 6 weeks away. Now THAT is scary. 6 weeks away from my first surf swim. I’ll leave that for another post.

Well let me be totally honest with you here. I don’t have the balls to hang glide. I think it must have something to do with the fear of heights I have. When you’re as tall as I am you come built in with a fear of heights. You’re even scared of falling off yourself. But that is a whole different story.

You may or may not know about my fundraising efforts for charity but its time for me to spread the love that I’ve received pushing my cause over the last year and a bit. One of my biggest cheerleaders in the lead up to Comrades and Cycle Challenge has been Leanne Operman. We met on Twitter in the build up to Comrades 2010 and even though we haven’t met in ‘real’ life she has followed my journey from fat to fit. Anytime I needed some help getting word out on a fundraising drive I had put together for PinkDrive she was always the first one to retweet my message. She was along for the ride as I was twunning (tweeting while running) trying to qualify and was quick with words of encouragement when things weren’t looking good on race day at Comrades.

Its now my turn to see if I can help Leanne; You see, Lea has an extremely rare condition called Hereditory Inclusion Body Myopathy, a form of muscular dystrophy and even though its easy to give up when things don’t go your way, Leanne has decided as long as she is able to she is going to make a difference. Last year she decided she wanted to skydive (I suspect she may have been dropped on her head as a baby to). Not only did she jump out of a perfectly good aeroplane but she turned it into a huge fund raiser. She managed to put together an event called Krazee for Kripples with the theme of “going mile high for muscles”, got a few bands to perform and sold t-shirts and braai packs to raise funds for the Gauteng branch of the Muscular Dystrophy Association of South Africa. She managed to raise over R10 000!

The 2009 Krazee 4 Kripples Skydiving Group

The event was so successful she has decided to make it an annual thing. This year the theme is “Hanging for Hope” and its grown a bit since 2009. This year she has 9 bands lined up, there’ll be t-shirts and braai packs on sale again as well as a cash bar available. The event is also tying in with the Gauteng Hang Gliding Championships.

How is Leanne going to make money out of this year’s event you may ask? That is where we need your help. The first way is giving you the opportunity to hang glide over Hartebeespoort dam (and here you thought the hanging for hope had to do with the after effects of the cash bar). R2000 is all it will take, R1000 of which will go to the cause. The second way is by the sale of the braai packs and t-shirts (there is still opportunities available here for sponsorship if you are able to help). The third is by the way of donations. There will not be a cover charge for the entertainment but I’m asking you to make a donation in support of the cause.

The details of the event are as follows:

The K4K Poster

You can also visit the Krazee 4 Kripples Facebook page here.

Even if you, like me, are to chicken to hang glide, then go along and have a wee bit of a paaaarty and make sure you hang for hope due to the after effects of the cash bar.

I also love people who think out of the box and come up with unique ways of getting what they want. One of them is LeeAnne Olfsen. She is hoping to be one of the mad ones hanging for hope on the day. She is raising the funds by selling off advertising space on her body to get the cash together. All she is looking for is 10 people to give two hundred bucks each towards her glide. I’ve decided to send some money her way; Ive taken two of those spots so all she needs is 8 more people to do the same. If you want to help her out check out her blog here

Six more sleeps to go. Its hard to believe that its less than a week to go to my first triathlon. By all accounts I haven’t picked the easiest one first up either. This Sunday, 7 November 2010 I will be at the start line of the 11Global Olympic Distance Triathlon at Sun City. A 1.5km swim, 40km cycle and a 10km run.

From just over a year ago, weighing in at 165kg’s and seriously unfit to being a handful of days away from competing in an event that most people shy away from because its too hectic! Who would’ve thought that would be possible?

I wish I could tell you how excited I am to race this Sunday. Not because I want to beat anyone or that I’m after a specific time. Just to go out and prove to myself that I can do it. After the disappointment of missing the cut off at Comrades 2010 I’ve worked really hard at getting better, stronger and faster. I haven’t raced much since June this year, I ran a half marathon in Pretoria really hard in July and took 20 minutes off my 21km personal best and broke 3 hours for a 103km cycle race in August. Other than that I haven’t raced at all. What I have done is put many hours in on the bike, on the road and in the pool. Its time to show myself how far I’ve come.

For the first time since I started training I’m injury free in taper week. For the first time I’m not worried about not finishing within the allotted cut off time. To be honest I don’t even know if there is a cut off time, that is because it doesn’t matter. It won’t get down to that. For the first time I’m not worried about being able to cover the distance. I’ve done the work in training. I’ve trained longer distances than I’ll be racing.

I can’t wait for 7am on Sunday morning to get into that water and prove the past wrong. Bring it on.