Brad Brown

It has been a month since I have taken over the Run Walk for Life branch at the Bryanston High School. Things have settled quite nicely and it is now time to start making things happen. One thing I have learnt on my journey over the last couple of years is there is no time like the present to get started with something. I always had to wait for a Monday/a new month/a new year to start with an exercise regime or a diet. You know what it is like I’m sure. I always used to start a week off with a bang and then fizzle out by Wednesday or Thursday. I then used to say “it’s to close to the weekend, I’ll start again on Monday” and that pattern got repeated around the 20^th of every month and then again in about October. I’ll start again in the new year. Sound familiar?

Let me share with you what I have learnt. There is no better time to start than now. If you fall off the wagon today that is fine but tomorrow it starts again. The same applies to eating healthily. If you have a bad meal at lunch time there is no reason why your evening meal can’t be healthy. Do it now. Don’t wait until Monday, next month or next year. Do it NOW!!!

With that in mind I’m running an awesome promotion for December at my Run Walk for Life Branch in Bryanston. If you join as a full paying member between 1 and 31 Dec you will receive a FREE pair of New Balance running shoes*. Free, nada, mahala! Why wait for Monday, next month or next year? Do it now! We have three training sessions three times a week at 16:30, 17:00 and 17:30 on a Monday, Wednesday and Friday afternoon at the Bryanston High School. If you want to find out more pop me a mail rwfl@bradbrown.co.za

Don’t forget you can also follow us on Twitter or like us on Facebook

The December Run Walk for Life Promotion

*Terms and Conditions Apply

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.

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.
Read more…

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. Read more…

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

I’m finally getting with the times! I have just set up my Facebook profile; you can find me here http://www.facebook.com/pages/Brad-Brown/158393978752?v=wall and also don’t forget if you are on Twitter you follow me at http://www.twitter.com/bradbrown947. I know it took me long enough but better late than never!