Beyond the norm, beyond the call.

Both athletes on the edge, broken, hanging on for the win. Beyond the line drawn in the sand where the limits lay, both these guys went all in, full retard if you like.

One of the greatest wars in our Ironman sport.

Not sure we will ever see this again.

Watch.

But more importantly…

Learn.

How to win.

Continue Reading →

For a while now, I have had the privilege of knowing the man called Songo. He is a gentle man, who has that urgency to look after those who have no choices. To give them options.

This weekend, I am taking more goods to Songo. They have more kids than they can handle at times and any bit helps. I have a few people coming along as well and if you were so inclined, please join us on Sunday at 1:30pm at Kyamandi Police Station where we will take a ride out to Jonkershoek with the kids and the team from Songo will show us around their area, sharing what they are achieving there.

If you have not heard of Songo.info here are the details: Songo.info is a social development program that provides sport and recreational activities to children, offering a safe place to play and grow, establishing values of accountability and responsibility, teaching goal setting and instilling in children the ability to dream and go out and achieve their goals.

The songo program works closely with the children to instil our values including:

Trust: Trust is at the core of our program including building trust with our sponsors, our donors and with the children so that they know they can rely on the program and that the program respects and values each child.

Accountability: We strive to instil accountability for everyone who partakes in the program by demonstrating through example, taking responsibility in the program and teaching the children to take responsibility for attending the program and looking after the resources they are provided with. We seek out and develop leaders in our community who lead through example.

Consistency: In the township world there is so little consistency, we try to create a buffer for the children to not experience the up’s and downs of a Not-for-Profit organisation and only promise what we can honour building trust with the children where they can come to rely on services and facilities being available to them.

Availability: As far as possible we try to always be there for the children in the services that we offer, in the need for contact and support. Our goal is to have the program running effectively so all bikes, equipment, training and races are always accessible to the children.

There is a real sense of purpose with the guys at Songo. So come along this weekend and if not, there are 2 fundraising dinners in the next few weeks for you to get involved in as well. Those details follow here:

We are really excited to once again be holding our songo.info fundraising events on Wednesday 09 November 2011.

We will be following a similar format to last year where riders can join Christoph Sauser, Burry Stander and Dan Hugo for a fun ride on Table Mountain. This year will be taking a different route, starting from the Deer Park Restaurant and heading towards the Block House.

The evening event will entail a cocktail function to be held at the Reeds & General Motors Showroom in Culemborg from 7pm. It will include Christoph and Burry sharing insights from their Cape Epic win, as well as Christoph sharing his experiences of winning of the Marathon World Championships. Dan Hugo will be sharing insights from his experiences in the US including racing against the 7 times Tour de France winner, Lance Armstrong.

The evening is an opportunity to listen to the champs talk about their Absa Cape Epic win and all the successes and tribulations during the summer racing season.

afternoon ride

Venue:
Deer Park Cafe (next to YUM)
Deer Park Avenue
Vredehoek

Cost:
R150 per rider

Details of Event:
Meet at 15h00
Ride starts 15h30
Distance approximately 30kms
Plenty of parking available

evening event:

Venue:
Reeds & General Motors Showroom
Corner of Oswald Pirow and Jack Craig Street
Culemborg

Cost:
R300
(Kindly note cash bar)

Details of the Event:
Evening starts 7pm
Cocktail and fundraiser evening
Plenty of parking outside the Reeds showroom on Jack Craig Street or across the road

The evening promises to be interesting and insightful as Christoph Sauser and Burry Stander share insights into their win of the 2011 Absa Cape Epic as well as their experiences racing the US and European Season and Christoph’s win of the Marathon World Championship title.

Dan Hugo will be sharing insights from his experiences in the US including racing against the 7 times Tour de France winner, Lance Armstrong.

We have incredible auction items including Tour de France rider, Fabian Cancellara’s World Champs timetrial suit and IronMan winner Chrissie Wellington’s running shoes! We also have a Maurice Lacroix watch and stunning Addidas Hampers.

We really hope you will be able to join us at both or just one event!

Bookings available through: www.songo.info/cpt

The same event is taking place in Johannesburg on the 29th October. Full details are available on their website at www.songo.info/.

Continue Reading →

Rapha Continental USA Pro Cycling Challenge Stage 2 from RAPHA on Vimeo.

Another day, another beautiful Rapha video. This one stands out for me in the team spirit within the guys. They know the day is going to be hard but there is an anticipation of that. If it was easy, it wouldn’t be real – or something in that vain.

2 weekends ago we took off on a ride towards Franschhoek. 200km long and along some of my favorite roads in the area. The route reminds me of good times, great rides and best friends. We had some riders join for parts of the route but essentially it was just myself and Matt for the entire way. It was a challenge and it was one of the key rides for me for what would be Challenge Cape Town.

We ride because we want to see where the limits lie. Sure, it’s fun at times but without limits we wouldn’t ride nearly as much. On that day, some limits were definitely discovered. At times, it was that the limits I had set for myself were too low. At other times, that they are possibly too high. Unless you test them, how will you ever know where they are? They are a reference point and a moving reference point at that.

Some great lessons can be learnt in just a few short hours (not that a 200km ride is a few short hours) on the bike. For me, more so than on the run. The bike allows me to learn lessons day after day. I am not conditioned enough to run 2hours a day, ever day. I`ll leave that to the Ryan Sandes’ of the world. No, for us, the bike is the easiest way to learn what the body can do and cannot do.

I really like the line where he says… “That was the most brutal, beautiful day…”

Sums it up nicely. That haze which hangs over your vision for the afternoon after a 5 hour smash in the saddle, the joy of putting 2 500 calories in your face for lunch and not even blinking throughout the process and the 40min nap that feels like a full 8 hour sleep shortly afterwards. Sure, we are shattered but wow, what a feeling.

This morning I had to ride intervals for the first time in roughly 6 months. It hurt more than I care to remember and was a reminder that in the next 2 weeks I am going to hurt a lot. Those limits are not very high at the moment. I have a great diesel engine, prepped for an Ironman distance race that needs to be molded into something resembling speed before Triple Challenge in a few weeks. Limits. Essences. Beautiful, brutal days ahead.

Epic…

Continue Reading →

As you know there have been rumors and this morning, confirmation that Challenge Cape Town has been postponed. I got an email saying blah blah (really, not like you care about the rest) you can have your money back or have an entry for next year + a team entry for free. Whilst the race has been struggling to get race routes approved and been even worse at communicating these changes with hopeful participants, we have gone about our business to get ready for the race.

Sure, I am disappointed, like most others. But here is the thing.

When you were training in the dark, in the wet and the cold through winter – surely you didn’t expect a pot of gold somewhere on the Promenade that would make it all worth it, make it all seem like the past and right all the wrongs in your life?

If you were preparing for this race as meticulously as I have in the last few weeks, you would have gone through the high and low moments that are so common in these last preparation weeks. The journey is the ride, not the race. Sure, race day will seemingly come (some time in 2012 even though no date was mentioned) and for some, this allows time to prepare a little better, but I urge you to find peace in the fact that you have given so much and that the reward is with you, right there, as you read this.

Close your eyes and feel how amazing your body feels after all this work. I am skinnier than I have been all year and I am amped to find another race or two before the end of the year to go have fun at. This is not the end of the world – in fact, its an opportunity.

Sure, I want to kick in the door on the Challenge car when I see it next, but merely as tough love, as kindness of sorts. These things happen and just because there is no race day doesn’t mean that all the jam has been stolen out of my doughnut.

I urge you to take the work you have done for this race and carry it with you into the season. Somewhere, you`ll ride off the front of a group somewhere and reap the benefits without really being aware that it was the cold, wet mornings you donned every piece of cycling clothing you owned and exercised new bike skills just to make it back home.

Nobody can take that away from you. When we eventually get a race date for 2012 (holding thumbs like an 8 year old kid) we can go in better prepared.

Adapt your schedule, show yourself the honor you deserve by unleashing the beast within somewhere else, calmly and quietly. Be the journey. Skip the name and shame routine, skip the tantrums and show the world that endurance sports is a lifestyle that improves every aspect of our lives, not just our performance on race day.

Go out there and be great. Get it done.

Continue Reading →

That. Is. All.

Continue Reading →

When you`re on the ground, your horizons are quite low.

Once you put in the work, climb a little higher, your horizons expand, stretch and become brighter, cleaner and so, your limits disappear. 5km becomes 10km becomes 21km becomes 42km and then who knows, maybe 165km through the mountains of Leadville.

Sure, people will scrunch their faces, question your motives and wonder what it wrong with you.

But…

They can’t see your horizons. They aren’t living the benefits, they haven’t gotten out there, experienced what you have and the feeling, the emotions it gave you.

So what the hell do they know.

Climb higher, see further and see the horizons beyond your known possible.

Continue Reading →

I do not fit the mould. I get that. Most likely, if you read this blog, you will find that you also don’t fit the mould.

You want more, right? You strive for better, you push what’s possible and you want to know that impossible just requires more effort to become the “been that, got that t-shirt” in your past.
I have been reading The Pirates Dilemma. Loving it. Here is a quick overview:

It has me thinking about the way we limit where we spend our energy. I am not saying you need to spend your days starting new, below the radar, semi-legal ventures. I am talking about doing what we do more efficiently, using the open-source environment to improve the way we do things. In our office, we have various ways to, essentially, create more time. We have a daily “stand up” meeting where we all compare tasks and can ask for help with current issues. We use Support Software to track queries, questions, tasks and problems quickly and efficiently. We are moving to doing training on our products via teleconference, rather than flying around the country.

The smartest minds are sharing tools and tips and tricks that used to be reserved for the inner circle. Now, even at a small cost, you can benefit from thousands of hours of work instantly. It’s an exciting time to be around.

Essentially this creates time to do real work. Work that matters and improves your life. Work that brings you promotion or brings your company success.

When it comes to sport, it’s the same. The libraries and forums out there have all the information you will ever need to be faster. The IP of the smartest minds in the world is out there, for you. If you are willing to trawl, apply, review and reapply, then you`ll be on your way to success.

Alternatively, spend a couple hundred rand a month and buy that knowledge and save yourself the time.

Just never trust it as The Law. You should always be learning from things. Nobody has the perfect answer for you and you`ll only learn to apply things perfectly by doing them wrong a few times and doing them semi-right a few times.

I find that it’s only when I start doing things incorrectly that I know I am around the limits. With work, if I am getting a twitchy eye and I am having sleep problems it’s time to manage expectations but until those things are happening, surely I am not near my work potential?

With my training, it’s the same – unless I am exhausted to the point of breakdown and where I am hating the shortest of sessions, there is more to give. I am not saying go run 3 hours a day until the body gives in.

Instead, I am saying build into building up mileage and hours (work and training) to the point where breakdown starts occurring. Anyone can really **** themselves up by putting in silly hours every day.

That’s easy.

What’s tough is building up over time to the point where breakdown is merely a part of what is going on. Where it’s subtle, not “having Redbull for breakfast” obvious.

Choose where you push the limits wisely. Make sure your back-up systems are there and that those around you understand what you are doing. Be prepared to step out for 36 hours or so to disappear from the world, sleep for most of those 36 hours and eat for the rest when it all comes apart.

Once you have gotten there, re-assess your moments, along the way and how to recognise them in future.

Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, well, we all know what that is otherwise referred to as…

But, be the pirate along the way. Questions the methods, scream at conforming to what others are sheepishly following and ask as many questions as possible. Measure the progress. I recently discovered the Quantified Self arena as something I have unknowingly been prescribing to for years.

Learn how your body works, feels…

Read.
Write.
Reassess regularly.

Copy the greats and learn from their lessons and apply your own on top.

You don’t fit their mould, or mine, or anyone’s. You are purely yourself and will never behave 100% like anyone else. You will have inconsistencies and moments of total suck in the middle of the awesome vibes, but you will learn and adapt faster if you apply these simple rules.

I am not The Law on this, no. I am a work in progress, an eternal one at that, in this arena. Always searching, always wanting more, always wanting better. I have regrets, remorse and memories of absolutely incredible things.

These things make me just like you, but completely unique.

Continue Reading →

I recently discovered that I am a bit of a Quantified Self guy. I have also long been fascinated with what it takes to qualify for Kona. I come from a massive athletic background and had the perfect build up for Ironman racing as a kid (not that I even knew of Ironman racing until I was around 17). All these things count in my favor to qualify for Kona. So often I hear of guys who spent 6 years racing 18 Ironman’s to qualify and it breaks me a little inside when I hear their stories, especially those who have yet to qualify. Recently, Endurance Corner have started running a series on what it takes to qualify for Kona. This post is about the realists view on qualifying. It makes for fascinating reading.

by Alan Couzens, MS (Sports Science)

Last week I talked about the different improvement curves that I’ve observed for different types of athletes. I identified three basic athlete types: the natural, the realist and the worker.

As part of our new “How to Qualify for Kona” section that recently kicked off, I’m going to put some of those observations into the context of what it means to different types of athletes looking to qualify for Kona.

In a previous article for the Training Peaks site I conveyed some of the typical chronic training load ranges that I tend to see for athletes of different types and ability levels. The table from that article is reproduced below.

The times that qualify an athlete for Kona are getting faster by the year. The 2010 ranges for flat (Florida, Arizona, Brazil) and hilly courses (Lake Placid, CdA, St. George) for differing age-groups and genders is shown below.

So, comparing the two tables, if you’re a young(ish) male, you’ll likely need the fitness level represented by a VO2max/VO2 score of 60-67ml/kg/min* corresponding to a Chronic Training Load somewhere in the 75-150 TSS/d range. If you’re a young(ish) female, you’ll need the fitness level represented by a VO2max/score of 57-60 ml/kg/min* corresponding to a CTL somewhere in the 70-130 range.

*I am using VO2max here as a general indicator of fitness here, but in reality the components of ironman fitness necessary to qualify are more complex and multi-faceted. I elaborate on some of these factors here.

As I conceded in the training load piece, these are some pretty big ranges! In hours per week terms, we could be talking about an average training week as low as 10 hours or as high as 25 hours per week! This is where last week’s article on different athlete types comes in. There will be a fortunate 15% who can sign up for one of those “Get to Kona on 10 hours a week” plans and actually get to Kona on 10 hours a week! If you’re one of those athletes, you can close your browser; this piece isn’t for you. But for the vast majority of us, Kona level fitness is going to be take more – a lot more! If we convert these CTL numbers to hours: a chronic load of 18-20 hours week of easy-steady training for five or more months prior to the event.

Think about this, two-and-a-half to three hours a day of training, eight to 10 hours of work/commute, eight to 10 hours of (necessary) sleep, eating, bathing, etc., is going to lead to five or more months of very structured living and not doing much else. It is no coincidence that those who qualify typically have atypical work or family situations. Kona qualifiers have different fitness levels to the rest of us generally because they have different lives to the rest of us.

According to VO2max data from the Cooper institute, Kona qualifiers are in the top 0.5%-.0025% of the population when it comes to fitness. In other words, if you’re a young (college age guy) and we randomly sampled 200 folks from your dorm, you would consistently be the fittest. Taking this a little further, if you’re a 40-something guy living in a pretty good-sized town of 40,000 people, you’re the fittest guy in town! This kind of stat doesn’t happen without living a little differently to those 39,999 folks who have more “normal” fitness.

Faced with such stats, it is tempting to pull the genetics card, but based on what I’ve seen, genetics isn’t the limiter, at least when it comes to getting to Kona level fitness. The vast majority of folks respond to training load quite similarly and most of us have the potential to reach a very high level of fitness. As I suggested in the previous article on athletic types, for 70% of folks, if they do the work, Kona is within reach but setting up your life to do the work is another matter and for many it is far easier to attribute the limiter to genetics than to make the required change.

Merely setting up your life to have the space to fit in five months’ worth of 18 to 20 hour weeks of training in your Kona build isn’t enough. The realist knows that even with the life space to fit the training and sufficient attention given to recovery, you can’t just get up off the couch and throw down one 18 to 20 hour training week after another. You also need a fitness “base” to pull this off. So you’ll want to factor in a period of preparatory “training to train” weeks, progressively building up the fitness to tolerate the back to back big weeks that will comprise your Kona build.

Based on my experience, most folks coming in from normal active fitness levels are going to need to both be generally fresh and healthy (that is, come into the hard training unloaded), and have a base fitness of five to six months of preparatory training in the 12 to 15 hour range to tolerate those 18 to 20 hour weeks of your “get to Kona” push. If you’re coming from below normal fitness (less than 45 VO2) you’ll probably need another five to six months of preparatory “get in shape” work before even beginning the “train to train” period.

Additionally, we both know that your chances of putting together 20 or more back to back weeks in the 18 to 20 hour range without recovery isn’t good. You’re going to get tired and need some recovery weeks sprinkled in to your Kona build. In fact, if you manage a ratio of 3:1 loading to recovery weeks in the context of a 9-5 job and family life without getting sick or injured you’ll be doing very well! So that five months of specific training, more realistically becomes six or seven months.

Adding it all up, the realist should be planning for:

Six to 12 months of uninterrupted, consistent “basic training” to get ready to train for the event.
Six to seven months of focused “specific training” directed specifically towards your (first) Kona push.

This is harder than it sounds.

Think about how many ways life can get in the way over a 12 to 18 month period…

You start a new job/your work commitments increase beyond the 9-5.
You start a relationship/end a relationship/have relationship issues
Your family commitments increase
You get sick/a family member gets sick.
You get injured.
You move
You go on vacation
You race too frequently (and have too much time for each devoted to taper and recovery)
You/your significant other plans a home improvement project!

It only takes two weeks of disrupted training (or disrupted recovery) to lose a significant amount of fitness. Any of the above could lead to that. Any more than one of these interruptions over the course of a six month period and maintaining fitness will be a best case scenario. The realist doesn’t fight this, is aware of a certain level of unpredictability in life and is committed to “as long as it takes.”

That said, the realist is also going to be inherently aware of the consequences of inconsistency and is going to control the controllable and whatever they can to avoid the above and put together at least a couple of relatively uninterrupted seasons where their training load is limited by their level of fitness not by life circumstance. Gordo wrote about some of the proactive ways to enhance life stability in the intro article to the “How to Qualify” section.

Also, the realist is going to realize that there are no guarantees. While a VO2max of 60-67, a threshold of 85% and metabolic fitness of 4-5kcal/fat/min are all likely going to be necessary to qualify, they are not in themselves sufficient. You need both the fitness and a good day on an appropriate course to pull it off. In other words, you may need to put together more than one of these builds before high fitness and a good day coincide!

In my way of thinking, it is the combination of these factors (physiological, life and race) necessary for ironman success that make up the beauty of ironman racing. We’ll go into some of these additional factors that maximize your chances of qualifying in coming articles.

Until then…

Continue Reading →

This popped into the inbox today via Kamal and it was too good to not share. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Today we mourn the passing of a beloved old friend, Common Sense, who has been with us for many years.

No one knows for sure how old he was, since his birth records were long ago lost in bureaucratic red tape.

He will be remembered as having cultivated such valuable lessons as:-

Knowing when to come in out of the rain;- Why the early bird gets the worm;- Life isn’t always fair;- and maybe it was my fault. Common Sense lived by simple, sound financial policies (don’t spend more than you can earn) and reliable strategies (adults, not children, are in charge).

His health began to deteriorate rapidly when well-intentioned but overbearing regulations were set in place. Reports of a 6-year-old boy charged with sexual harassment for kissing a classmate;
teens suspended from school for using mouthwash after lunch;and a teacher fired for reprimanding an unruly student, only worsened his condition.

Common Sense lost ground when parents attacked teachers for doing the job that they themselves had failed to do in disciplining their unruly children. It declined even further when schools were required to get parental consent to administer sun lotion or an aspirin to a student; but could not inform parents when a student became pregnant and wanted to have an abortion.

Common Sense lost the will to live as the churches became businesses; and criminals received better treatment than their victims.

Common Sense took a beating when you couldn’t defend yourself from a burglar in your own home and the burglar could sue you for assault.

Common Sense finally gave up the will to live, after a woman failed to realize that a steaming cup of coffee was hot. She spilled a little in her lap, and was promptly awarded a huge settlement.

Common Sense was preceded in death, by his parents, Truth and Trust, by his wife, Discretion, by his daughter, Responsibility, and by his son, Reason. He is survived by his 4 stepbrothers:

I Know My Rights
I Want It Now
Someone Else Is To Blame
I’m A Victim

Not many attended his funeral because so few realised he was gone.

+++

Continue Reading →

image from Marc

Yesterday, I set a crash course program for Challenge Cape Town, now that O till O is complete. It’s quite a scary one, I have to admit but hey, I`m happy to fail from time to time and this certainly will have me in the failure area if I am not 100% diligent with recovery. In the run-up to O till O, I focussed on specific elements that take more time to get right (swim economy, for instance) and got in as much winter riding as possible, whilst remaining healthy and having a mad work schedule.

So now, we have a 5 week block based very much on maintenance of swim and run form and supercharging the bike leg for the race.

This involves early mornings, weekends spent in a post-endorphin-haze and being ultimately, focused on economy of movement for the next few weeks. Whilst I cannot work much on the testing aspects, protocol aspects and the fine tech that could help, here is a short list of things I DO control:

- Quality of sleep
- Stability of body weight
- Mood
- Quality of nutrition
- Financial stability
- Emotional stability
- Illness and injury history
- Immune system function
- Accident assessment – shelled athletes crash, fresh athletes have close calls.

These are items that I can keep untangled as such. Very importantly from that article for me in the next few weeks:

What you can do, however, is work on yourself, is accept yourself as you are right now, is start to fuel your own personal inner fire of belief without any external sources. It’s not that you don’t value the thoughts of friends and people you love, but instead, that you accept them as simply that: thoughts and input from the outside world. If every time you speak to a group of people, they yawn and look away, accept that maybe you’re boring them, but don’t take it any further than that. Don’t read minds. Just take that information and decide what you want to do about it.

There are going to be but a select handful of people who will put up with me in the next few weeks. They understand the drive and value the commitment (and that I will return from the haze soon).

Thankfully, there is a relatively economic engine under the hood which I merely need to rev a little and I don’t have to put in months of hard work to get close to where I want to be. I will most likely not be in the best shape of my life come 6 November, but I will get close, if all goes well. I am content that in my sporting life, I have done the basics to be able to merely rev the engine a little to get Pareto’s Principle going for me. Doing the work, as I have always stated, is the basic foundation. Once it’s there (just Google 10 000 hours), it’s easy to rev it.

In the next few weeks, I will be reporting back to you on some movement exercises a friend has given me to try out, to do with improving movement and reducing energy waste whilst swimming, cycling and running. Improving response times and being able to maximise performance whilst having a full time job is essentially once of the key pillars to this blog. I am excited to try a few new things and share them with you.

Continue Reading →