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!

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.

I was so looking forward to the Spar Lantern 10km night race last night. It was rated as one of the best 10km races in the country last year. I wanted to take part as I had heard that it was well organised and the atmosphere was amazing with the entire route lit up by lanterns. After last nights race I have no idea why it was rated so highly.

I think why it was so bad last night was mostly because of the big field. The announcer mentioned after the race that there were over 4000 people taking part and that was what contributed to the absolute scrum that took place on the roads. The entire race is run on the Agricultural Research Council’s property in Irene. The roads are fairly narrow and not in the greatest condition. The lanterns were few and far between and the road surface was not great to negotiate in the dark.

There was only one table which was placed just after the 3km mark and the route then doubled back on itself and we passed the same table at around the 7km mark. The route doubling back on itself is the major problem of this race.

The 5km fun run/walk and 10km race start at the same time. It took us almost 11 minutes to do the first km (that is not including the 3 minutes it took to get over the start line. The reason for this was the unbelievable congested start with many people pushing prams and having small children with them. After the first kilometre things started to flow slightly better and we were sort of able to run. It was just after the 2km mark that things got really congested again because the leaders were now doubling back on the route and the already congested main field on two lanes of the road now got shunted into one lane. So the scrum continued. Things got slightly better when the 5km runners took a detour and the bigger race continued along its way. It was just the 8km mark that the 5km runners joined the route again and it was virtually impossible to run again (never mind push for the finish) once again we had to scrum our way through masses of people with prams and small children. The finish was not much better. As we approached there were tons of people standing on the road and I thought that was pretty cool the way they were supporting the runners. It was only then that I realised they were runners and the congestion in the finish chutes for the 5km had backed up to about 300m before the finish.

I think the organisers really need to have a serious look at the 2011 race. Either the field needs to be limited, the venue changed or the route dramatically altered so that the two races are separated and so that it doesn’t double back on itself. To be honest I don’t think I’ll be back in a hurry.

Other than that it was an enjoyable run. Its not the most difficult 10km run you will ever do as you can see by the route profile below (You can have a look a the entire race on Garmin Connect from the data I collected with my Garmin 310XT). I ran with an old friend, Gareth Edwards – sports anchor for the E News channel whom I hadn’t seen in ages. That boy is crazy fit. He is a pretty good cyclist and has just recently got into running. He did a 90km cycle in the morning, ran the race with me and hardly broke a sweat!

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

Berg en Dal 15km Night Race Route

The only downside of the route was that it was very dark in places that one couldn’t see the road surface but other than that the water tables were well organised and in particular the last table before the finish had a great atmosphere. A big thank you has to go out to the bloke who brought his bakkie and was blaring Robbie Wessels through the sound system. It was much appreciated and a road race in Krugersdorp just wouldn’t be complete with a Robbie Wessels song or two.

I didn’t break any records as far as my time is concerned but that wasn’t the objective of last nights run. All I wanted to do was get some time on my legs. I wanted to pace myself and have a comfortable run which I definitely did. As far as the time is concerned, I did it in 1:52 which is exactly the pace I wanted to do it in so I’m pretty chuffed. I’ve uploaded the details of the run that I recorded with my Garmin Forerunner 310XT onto Garmin Connect, have a look if you want to analyse my run in a bit more detail.

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.

December has been one silly month! I am actually glad it is over to tell you the honest truth. I’ve been pretty slack updating you on the progress of my training but at least I haven’t been slack on the training. I seem to be recovering pretty well from my foot injury (although it has been playing up a bit the last couple of days again). I’ve managed to get a few 10km runs in the last two weeks which has been good preparation I think for the Berg en Dal 15km night race that is happening on 13 January. If all goes according to plan I will run another one on 20 January in Kempton Park and that will be great preparation for the Johnson Crane half marathon at the end of the month.

As always I’ve been training with my Garmin Forerunner 310XT and you can see what training I’ve done on Garmin Connect

It has been a pretty productive week as far as my training has gone. I am still battling with the tendonitis in my left foot but as the week has progressed my foot has improved. I’m still going for physio every day with Derrick Carter and he seems to be working some serious magic. I was able to run 4 times this week; Monday I did about four kilometres (on grass) without much pain during the run. Wednesday I ran 5 on the road with a little discomfort but was really sore later on in the day as I cooled down. On Friday I was able to run nine kilometres with no pain at all and on Sunday ran six and it felt fine.

I think we are on the right track and it looks like I’ll resume my training programme for Comrades 2010 within the next week or so. I’ve also been cycling on the days I haven’t been running so all in all it has been a pretty good and active week. Don’t forget that I record all my training using my Garmin Forerunner 310XT, you can follow my training at Garmin Connect.