This weekend I got my first big weekend in for Ironman South Africa in April. It involved multiple sessions and many kilometers. The weekend went well, but weekends only get bigger from here on out until the end of March.

Last night I got thinking about the familiar emotions and feelings I had as I sat, shattered, attempting to pay attention to my lovely mrs.

Over the next 8 weeks or so, those of us hoping to go well at Ironman South Africa will be displaying the following symptoms. If you come into contact with any of us, please be patient, understanding and kind.

Your hopeful Ironman will be:

- Displaying what is known as the 1000 yard stare. Especially if its a weekend afternoon.
- Wearing compression socks under his/her jeans (hopefully not with shorts)
- Speaking strangely. When you ask “How are you?” – they may answer “Ironman fine thank you very much”
- Attempting to engage you in conversation about watts, aerodynamic benefits of dimples on lycra and how best to consume calories while running.
- Eating non-stop, while talking about food all the time, despite the fact that they look hungry.
- Stressed about the race. Even though its February. I know, it’s stupid.

Expect to encounter combinations of the above, like talking about lycra while eating a protein bar, having a protein shake at the same time, whilst wearing compression socks with shorts, in the middle of a restaurant, whilst staring straight through you.

These are big days for a lot of people. Their undertaking monstrous and their minds simply not able to compute just yet that they will be perfectly OK if they get the mileage in and arrive without an injury.

Be kind…

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How cool is that little guy…

If you are one of the 3000 people racing in East London this weekend, that should be you right now. Focus on the basics. I am focusing on getting a back spasm to relax, personally, but I am pretty sure that by Sunday, it`ll be ok and I will be able to take my best to the course. These things happen and I am focused on rehab rather than moaning about it.

Here are some key things you should be focusing on this week:

Race Gear

Is it all purchased? Have you ridden with your race wheels and in your new tri suit?

I see so many people trying out new stuff on race day. It’s simply not advised.

Race Nutrition

Is your plan ready or is your plan a lack of planning?

Over the shorter distance, nutrition is not quite as vital, but you should be attempting to get in more on the bike and hang tough for the run, when we are all hurting with smiles on our dials. Use what you know and like – don’t try the new “Super Gel that provides PB’s 4 times a day” for the first time 20km into the bike and realise you just can’t stomach it.

Recovery

This is the week to sleep in a little, go to bed earlier and relax at work. If you have let work pile up over the last 8 weeks thinking that you could catch up this week… naughty!

Some other elements you should be focusing on this week:

- Please don’t wear compression socks, tights, sleeves and other compression stuff around the expo, to the Spar and to restaurants. Keep it tight, but keep it at home.
- Please don’t irritate every other nervous athlete you see by asking stupid questions like “Are you fit? Are you ready? Can you tell I`m pooping myself?”
- Remember that your taper makes you irritable, short on patience and long on selfishness.
- Eat a little less, but eat better, whole foods. The temptation to smash your face full of chocolate is there, I know. I feel it too.

More than that, I simply urge you to focus on breathing all week and before you know it, you`ll be coming down Bunkers Hill towards the finish line wishing you had taken more in, relaxed a little and had more time to share.

Focus…it`s almost over, again. Enjoy the video as a piece of inspiration.

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By now, those of us who are doing Ironman South Africa come April should have made the commitment and started training properly. Finishing an Ironman is an incredible feeling. Training for it is far better, if you do it the right way.

Ironman is a big training day and many athletes never quite enjoy the actual day. After a very unsuccessful first try, I looked hard at the journey and worked towards learning what it took to enjoy the last 4 months before an Ironman. This training program is a result of that. It works for beginners, elite age groupers and those wanting to improve their times. It’s based on aerobic economy and keeping you training the whole 15 weeks without killing yourself. Only one gigantic week, the rest are all under 20 hours per week of training. Simply, that’s what it takes. I have seen many first timers put in 25 hours a week unsuccessfully. My program averages out at 18.

You should enjoy this time when you get fitter and more tired than you have ever been as well as be equipped emotionally to deal with the ups and downs that come with preparing for the toughest day in sport.

As with Challenge Cape Town and 70.3 Buffalo City, I have a pre-built program available to those who are looking for guidance for the race. This includes:

1. Course Overview.
2. Course specific training.
3. Nutrition Advice.
4. Swim, bike, run + functional strength workouts.
5. What to expect from the race.
6. Training Camp details and what to expect in your biggest week of training mentally, emotionally, etc.
7. Emotional preparation.
8. Equipment advice.

It’s a full schedule 15 week program, running at R990 for the complete program. That works out to R66 per week, which is very, very cheap if you are considering personal coaching.

If you are interested in the program, please contact me directly at raoul [at] urban-ninja.co.za on email or leave a comment below and I will get hold of you.

It’s a beautiful journey. Time to enjoy the ride.

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Intro

Ironman 70.3 in Buffalo City is unlike any other half ironman in the world. The conditions are unique, the course is unique and therefor it requires some specific preparation.

The best gear to race in is whatever you are comfortable in. I prefer a 2 piece triathlon specific outfit. Have a look at www.fluidlines.co.za for more information.

In terms of training before the race here are a few things you can insert into your riding.

Hill repeats – there are many hills in this race on the bike, and 2 big ones on the run too. Make sure you are comfortable and know how to pace the hills.

Open water swims – make sure you get used to swimming in open water. It’s an adaptation from the pool and can leave some people a little panicked. Get comfortable.

Bad weather riding – if it’s raining, head out there to know what it feels like to ride in the rain. On race day, you may have no other option.

Swim

The Swim is a 1 lap swim. It’s farking cold, so a wetsuit is mandatory. Not wearing a wetsuit places you in the “HIGH5MEINTHEFACE” category. Last year, it was 11 degrees.

Use Body Glide under the arms and around your neck to avoid chafe.

When choosing to warm-up or not, consider that you may have to stand there on the beach after your warm-up cold. If it’s raining, spend the time on the beach warming up with a decent routine of arm swings, stretching and mental psyching up. Find your power animal.

Start towards the right if you are a weaker swimmer to avoid the bunching up around the first buoy. Don’t get involved in kicking and punching, as karma is a patient animal and will bite you back.

Near the end of the swim kick a little more, warming up the legs a little more for the run.

It’s a long run to T1 so prepare yourself for a little slog. Don’t sprint up the beach. There is a nasty little hill to T1.

Transition 1

Take. Your.Time.

Be friendly with the volunteers and have them help you. Keep it to the basics when it comes to keeping stuff in your bag.

The following should be ON your bike: Gels, Bars, Energy Drinks, Shoes (if you`re speedy and put them on once riding)

In your bag: Shoes (if you`re not comfortable putting your feet into shoes while the bike is moving), Helmet, Sunglasses.

If it’s hot, ask the volunteers to sunscreen you to bits. Smile and say thank you.

Bike

Your first thought will be “Whoooooaaaa I`m on the bike already”. Soon, it will become “WTF was I thinking entering this race”. The first 45km at East London are tough. 815m vertical gain on the way out, often in the rain, always in the wind.

Take your time and ride steady, varying between sitting and standing. Focus on being light and riding strong, but not hard.

Have fun on the way back. It’s a fast trip back to T2. In the last 5km, spin the legs at a high cadence to ready them for the higher turnover on the run.

Transition 2

In the bag: Shoes, socks, visor, a cup of HTFU.

You`ll be feeling it, but you can still run well, I promise. Focus on running light along the peer and ready yourself for the longish hill on each of the 2 laps. Take water, coke, gels off the route. Focus on the finish, you CAN deal with the pain – it`ll be gone sooner than later and faster if you run faster.

Have fun. High 5 some volunteers. Your mind is your greatest weapon at this point. Use it.

Finishline

Walk. Slowly. Soak it up.

Zip up your top, wash your face at the last aid station. Nobody likes a finish photo with snot across their faces and coke all over their shoulders.

After

Eat smart, be merry and dance on the tables. Official Urban Ninja instructions.

+++

If you have any more queries, there are still pre-built programs available for the race and I will offer all the advice and help you need in them.

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First off, congrats to Ray Tissink with his 7th after there being rumors of a non-start a week before. Proud of the man.

It was The Big Show over the weekend. What a show indeed. In the last few years, the men have upped the game, with no clear favorite going into any Kona for the last few years. If you had a rough patch, you were out and only a perfect performance brought you the win. So how does the man called Crowie do it, so often, so well?

For me, he is the calm in the storm, the eye of the moving machine that is Ironman. Always quiet, always calm, always professional. If you look at his week before the race, switching 2 key sponsors, you have to know that it must have been a long few weeks leading into the race with those negotiations.

Add the pressure of winning 70.3 Worlds, just a few weeks before.

Don’t forget that he had a puncture in Vegas and raced having just come off anti-biotics, after a 4 months struggle with a virus.

Somehow, his preparation was perfect and his race was perfect. I would imagine him to be a delegator of epic proportions. He clearly has a team around him who he trusts who handle the pressure for him.

I would imagine he gave 50 interviews in the week before the race.

I imagine that he knew he had to cover every move and suss out which one would stick, then it was time to show everyone he COULD ride at the front. For me, it had nothing to do with the bike. His slowest marathon in a few years, despite running a 1:11 in Vegas tells you that he bikes his freaking heart out, hoping the poker face would not crack.

But he kept calm, managing energy on the run as Raelert & Jacobs chased, but for me, he won the race by riding almost too hard, running along the edge of a sword with his desire to be Champion, again. Hunger is beautiful thing to watch as it gets let out. Throw in a bit of anger, a dash of regret and a handful of calm and what you are left with is an incredible mix which gives that quiet power, that awesome-to-watch-goosebumps-power when the guy/girl passes you on the run, fluid, easy and looking like a Sunday stroll when you really know they are going FULL TILT.

Look at Chrissie – look at her patience, her resilience and her attitude. Man, I wish I had just some of that. When the moment obsessed media and minds went “she’s out of it, too far back”, I bet she was thinking “Be smart, ride your own ride, you have the run”. Inside, raging like a wounded buffalo, she picked off her competitors until simply, there were none left and the history book will show her as the victor, unbeaten at the distance, Champion of the World, again.

Watching the race unfold and reading some reports today made me realise that I need more calm, which in turn, means more confidence in my form. I know it comes from putting in the work and this weekend, I covered 350km on my bicycle and tapped out 15km of running at the end of a big week of exercise, so I am getting there. I found some quiet, powerful moments out there. Perhaps the Ellipsis is the Calm of a Champion. The pause to believe in yourself entirely, to back yourself when the chips are seemingly down but when you know that there are still miles to be covered, competitors to smash.

Either way, this weekend’s race was so full of lessons. We witnessed 2 races being raced for 226km, over 8 or 9 hours flat out. That is incredible. In the end, we saw the Calm of 2 great Champions triumph over the best in the world.

Great inspiration for the week.

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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…

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I will be back there sometime soon.

I miss the preparation, the discovery process of getting conditioned enough to rock over there. I miss the vibe, the energy and the people.

I will be back.

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Quite a bit about the Challenge Cape Town route has been on the “interwebz” since the race announced its launch a few weeks ago. Quite a few comments about the ability of local police to manage the crowds, about the route being too tough, etc. I am not here to comment on the logistics of the race as I have nothing to do with the race other than being excited by the race being in my home town. So let’s do the course overview to justify some claims and put others to bed.

Here is the official route:

Cool, but not that informative. So I cannot confirm where an email came from, but it arrived in my inbox leaving only a small trace and no return address with no words and only a few images addressed to The Urban Ninja. No doubt they are top secret and I will be taken to task on this, but here are some in depth images for you, my loyal followers. I do this for you…

Pretty simple stuff, apart from that section along Baden Powell where the wind blows side on and you are riding on the road that was built in the middle of a sand dude. Let’s hope it’s not windy as a chain filled with sea sand is NOT going to be much fun for the last 100km, which includes only a few hills.

That section is going to, as they say, separate the lads from the fads. Something to remember is that this race is not just a pedal and stay aero ride like Ironman South Africa. Your ability to ascend is going to be as important as your ability to descend. You will save minutes on this route by knowing where to brake, where to push, where to conserve. You`ll be free wheeling for around 20km on the route, but you can still loose minutes in that distance to riders who descend well. Also, quite a bit of this is rough tar. Into Misty Cliffs is pretty rough and will catch a few guys by surprise.

So in total, I anticipate 2100m of vertical on the ride. The Argus, South Africa’s benchmark, is around 1200m. Ironman South Africa only has 600m in the whole ride, so virtually 4 times as much climbing. Having said that, if they get this right, it`ll be the most spectacular bike ride you will do in your entire life. The vistas, the scenery, conquering the possible wind… it`ll all add up to an Epic on its own.

Let’s get onto the run, because this is going to be a special run, let me tell you.

Nice little hill in there after that “flat” bike ride. In any race of this distance, the first 6-8km of the run is going to make or break your day. I forsee MANY a broken day as you (yes YOU) will try hammer up the hill and more importantly, DOWN the 8% gradient on the other side. You`ll feel fresh and fast and you`ll make that key mistake. But then the last 25km are flat, so what do you have to worry about, right?

Check this out:

Those of us who live here run the Promenade quite a bit. You`ll know its made of concrete, which, unbeknown to you, is much harder than tar. That’s why your feet hurt after running on it. So we get 2 amazing loops on one of the most beautiful coastal run loops in the world to finish a crazily amazing race. But your feet are going to hurt extra on the concrete brick, I assure you. You`ll be begging to get your shoes off and you won’t know why until you refer back to this article post-race.

So we have it all on this route. Hills, rough road, twisting descents, wind, concrete bricks, more hills and the elements to fight us. But that is exactly why we enter these races. Factor in the cold water on the swim and I believe this race will make you feel more like the title of its competitor than you have ever felt before. It’s called Challenge for a great reason and we are in for an amazing day.

Tougher than Puffer? Sure. Comrades? I doubt it. Somewhere in the middle for me. It`ll be a pleasant hard. You`ll feel like you`re conquering the beast the entire way, that all the work you put in was worth it and that in the last 2km, you`ll want that feeling to last forever, that the race surely cannot be over just yet.

Bring it on!

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Yesterday was a pretty monumental day in Port Elizabeth. Arguably one of the best fields in the world lines their toes in the sand at Hobie Beach to see who would be the last guy to pop. We held our breaths as we had 2 capable South Africans in the field, either of who could walk away with the prize. One of them did and he did it by fighting like a champion. The transition in the arsenal of a pro athlete is one which takes more hard work and dedication than you could imagine.

I have seen this man change his physical appearance, get his swimming back to absolute world class, improve his run where it’s now a weapon and continue to be one of the best bikers in the game. He belief to take on the absolute best in the world is blossomed and it’s a beautiful thing to have watched.

Unwilling to give up his title as the best Ironman athlete in SA, his local race, he goes about preparing for this race in the most meticulous way. Each win executed in a slightly different way. Each celebrated as if it was his last day. Look at the emotion on his face in that picture.

It matters.

It’s important.

Let’s all put our hands together and celebrate Raynard Tissink. He will be completely lost in the media what with a Saffa winning The Masters as well, but to me, he is a hero and someone I am going to celebrate all week. Cheers.

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This weekend there are hundreds of scared and nervous people in Port Elizabeth. They are partaking in Ironman South Africa, a 3.8km swim, a 180km bike ride and a 42.2km run. All but a handful of the 1800 of them will finish. All but a handful will have lots of excuses for what went wrong out there, too.

I am a simple guy when it comes to these things. Sure, I am blunt and I am rough at times. Insensitive by societies standards and not as compassionate as the majority of people would like. Whatever. I haven’t achieved what I have by being nice and having excuses all the time.

This weekend the amazing race takes place. You will go through places in your mind and through experiences within that you may never have thought possible. I urge you to bring to excuses in your arsenal of weapons to race day. Bring the hours you spent out on the roads training your mind and your body. Bring the ability to make the right decisions, which you so carefully worked at over the last six months. Bring your sense of humor, which I hope you found out there training because let’s face it, you`re a little bit crazy, aren’t you?

Things may go wrong out there and elements beyond your control may affect you on the day but if you look back and see excuses, then perhaps the day was not all it could have been.

I promise you there is a guy or 10 out there who could have far more excuses than you possibly have. What about the triple amputee who finished in Kona last year? What are his excuses?

(I know the video is a little thick on the cheddar but it’s Ironman week, so no holding back on the emotional stuff!)

There is someone who sacrificed more than you did, who had to probably sell something of immense value to them to afford the entry or possibly who slept in their car the night before the race because budgets didn’t allow for hotels. These people exist, I promise you. They have no excuses and do the best they can with what they have.

So go out there on Sunday and be all you can be. Be smart, above all. Focus on pace and nutrition. If you can master those 2 simple things ALL day, you will have no excuses. Stay focused and remember those 2 things and the excuses will vanish and you will get lost in the moment in what is truly an amazing day away from the world. Get lost and be amazed at what you are doing, what you are achieving.

No excuses. Take that with you and be one of the handful of guys who gave it all without a “but”. So when you`re standing there at the start line and the guy next to you has that look of fear in his eyes, that inevitable blank stare…

Pat him on the back and tell him to breathe and that he is going to have a great day, with no excuses. You could be changing his life, right there.

BOOOOOM!!

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