Brad Brown

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 running 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.

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!

Another long one in the bag. It wasn’t pretty but I was reminded yesterday on twitter some days you’re the kicker and some days you’re the ass. A marathon is tough even if you have a great run. I’ve only done three but I learnt the most out of this weekends Wally Hayward marathon. I had a serious lesson in vasbyt.

The race was a two lapper and according to the nedbank 2010 race guide its one of the easiest marathons you can hope to run. I think they must have been talking about a different race to the one I ran on Saturday.

The blister that I picked up at the Loskop Marathon 2 weeks earlier had kept me off Read more…

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.
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