What an amazingly wicked day. Saturday 4 September 2010 will forever be etched into my memory as the best Joburg Day ever. I’ve been trying to figure out how many I’ve done so far and I think its got to be seven or eight. But I can safely say this has been the best line up. There has been some great individual performances that stand out over the years. The legendary Johnny Clegg singing The Scatterlings of Africa as the sun set a few years ago. Prime Circle rocking Live This Life and the Parlotones having the crowd eat out of their hands back in 2008, the last time Joburg day was held at the Randburg Sports ground.

The line up in 2010 was seriously impressive. La Vuvuzela, Loyiso, Danny K, Jack Parrow, HHP, Liquid Deep, Thembi Seethi, Arno Carstens, Denim, Freshly Ground, Prime Circle, The Parlotones and Locnville. There were also guest appearances by Axene, the Irish band Ash and Thabo Mdluli to name just a few.

Everyone brought their A game. But the stars of the show were undoubtedly The Parlotones and Locnville for me. I’m looking forward to Joburg Day 2011 and to see how 94.7 Highveld Stereo can top the 2010 line up. Below are some pictures I took on the day:

Arno Carstens Joburg Day 2010

The Momentum 94.7 Cycle Challenge is approaching fast and I see more and more people out on the roads starting to get active. I hope your training is going well (if you’ve started) and if you haven’t, don’t stress too much about it, there is still time to build up nicely in order to have a great ride. My PinkDrive charity initiative is starting to pick up some momentum (excuse the pun) but we are nowhere near close to where we want it to be. So, if I can ask you a massive favour, please can you continue helping me getting the word out there that we, as a group, are trying to raise at least a million rand at this year’s cycle challenge. The money is going towards a great cause and if we can raise the million we will be able to buy another educational truck for the PinkDrive. If you can forward this link onto anyone and everyone you know who is riding the race, is thinking of riding the race or who has ever thought about riding it. In a nutshell it’s pretty easy to get involved. All you need to do is raise R3 000 for the PinkDrive. As a PinkDrive group we have an awesome start time, you’ll get cycling kit to show you’re part of the group and you’ll get to ride along side some South African celebs that have also committed to ride in support of breast cancer. All the details you need are here, Brad Brown’s Cycle Challenge Initiative and check out Race 4 Charity to see how easy it is to raise the required money for charity

Bailey Schneider and I were talking about the Garmin range of sports GPS units on the afternoon drive today. As part of the entry process for the Momentum 94.7 Cycle Challenge Highveld Stereo are giving away 20 Garmin Transitions packs, but only if you enter before 1 August 2010. You can enter by visiting the Cycle Challenge website. In that pack is the Garmin Edge 500 cycling GPS unit. I don’t train with that particular unit, I use the Garmin Forerunner 310XT which I absolutely love, but the functionality of the two units are very similar. If you love gadgets you will love training with a Garmin. Below are the details of the ride I did on Sunday afternoon. Take a few minutes and analyse the data to see what nifty little gadget it is: (by clicking on the view details button at the bottom)

I love what I do for a living. Being on radio everyday is one of the best things about my life. There are perks to what I do as well. We get to go meet tons of really amazing people and get to go to some pretty exclusive events. But every now and again we get to experience something that comes along once in a lifetime. Today was one of those days. Primedia teamed up with Southern Sun and Supersport and invited South Africans out into the streets of Sandton to show their support for Bafana Bafana.

By the end of my show on Wednesday we had about 50 000 people committed to coming out onto the streets to support our boys. Our expectations were exceeded and then some! About 250 000 proudly South African supporters came out and showed just how much support there is for the South African Football team for the 2010 World Cup. Below are some of the pictures I took from the side of the through out the day, from one of the open buses in the parade and from our building at Primedia Place.

The crowds at United We Shall Stand

RMB United We Shall Stand

Cnr Maude & West - United We Shall Stand

Cnr West & Friedman - The Bafana Bafana bus to the right

Marriage Proposal for Katlego

Young and old enjoying seeing Bafana Bafana

The smiles say everything

No Vuvuzela? Make a plan brother

You make Joburg great

Cnr Gwen & Friedman - United We Shall Stand

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…

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 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 a bit bleak this morning. I’m not bleak because I’m on air on 94.7 Highveld Stereo, I love that. I’m bleak because I actually put in a days leave for today so that I could run my first half marathon since coming out of retirement (lol). I’m on air this morning and not running because I’ve done some damage to my left foot. I spent the week in and out of doctor’s rooms and x-ray departments to figure out what I have done to it. I was really concerned that it was a stress fracture Read more…

Joburg Day 2009

I have been trying today to calculate how many Joburg Day’s I have been involved with. I think this one was my seventh. They all tend to blend into one to tell you the truth. Although, in saying that I think Joburg Day 2009 will always stand out for a few reasons. The first reason Read more…