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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The last 2 days I have had to go out and ride my bike along what can simply be described as some of the most beautiful coastline in the world. At my house, there is an absence of wind, almost at all times. It’s deceptive, as there has been a gusting wind blowing other side of Camps Bay, on both occasions. This morning as I was attempting to ride easy into a gale headwind, I remembered this set of videos I came across yesterday which had me longing for more Epic Unsupported Tour. The same ethos applied. Keep pedalling, no matter how tough it’s getting.

Here is the first video:

Rapha Rides TOC – Episode 1 from RAPHA on Vimeo.

I am going to be doing these crazy trips for a long time. This one has inspired me to capture it, like these guys have, with a road ride sometime this year. If you are a production company and you are reading this, I would love to show off South Africa in a very professional manner, as Rapha have (by the way, one of my favorite brands in the world), all by bicycle. Please contact me. If you could see the areas we went through recently, it blows the mind away.

The concept of group suffering is not new to me. It’s not new to many people. There is something extremely rewarding and peaceful about riding a bike for a mightily long distance. There is something about going minimalist on the kit, the crew, the food, that brings you back closer to how you are supposed to be. It shows you just how much your body is capable of. It’s a special place when you discover that. Nobody can ever take it away from you. No material object can ever give you that personal confidence.

Rapha Rides the TOC – Episode 2 from RAPHA on Vimeo.

Rapha Rides the TOC – Episode 3 from RAPHA on Vimeo.

So back to this morning, where I was riding into this headwind, knowing that if I went any harder, I would just tire myself and hate tomorrow’s session. So I plodded quietly into this gusty headwind. I found a metaphor for life in there. Sometimes you just have to plod, without really knowing when the wind will turn. Eventually, the wind always turns and if you have a headwind all the way home, chances are, you had a tailwind going out.

Tough times, suffering, pain, they eventually all go away. Sometimes you have to go beyond the call of duty, to finish the task. Sometimes you have to stay the extra hour, work from home at night or make the point to disappoint someone in order to get to your goals. That is life. It’s a part of the headwind.

Rapha Rides the TOC – Episode 4 from RAPHA on Vimeo.

Once the wind turned with about 8km to go this morning it was plain sailing. Almost like there was no chain on the bike it was so easy. It was euphoric and worth the effort of being patient and applying the “off” button to the ego when other riders passed me earlier, riders who I could ride faster than, but who’s plan I was not on today.

As my fretten always says, just keep swimming. Eventually the beach will come. Eventually the wind will turn. Suffering will stop and all that you want will turn towards you with gusto and claim you like a bear hug. You will understand the reasons, the patience will make sense and you will find your ellipsis…

Rapha Rides the TOC – Finale from RAPHA on Vimeo.

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Its a bit later than normal, but here goes.

After a few weeks of successful racing I headed up to WP Trials on Friday last week with a bit of hesitance, as I was nursing an upper respiratory tract infection, commonly known as a Stuffy Head. I did not feel great and was going up to see how I went, but not to kill myself. My plan was to work hard in the swim and bike, and coast the run with a hopeful lead.

I knew some of the faster guys were not coming up and this gave me a bit of hope for the day as well.

We lined up on Saturday morning with the usual smack talk and chatter and I got a good spot on the swim line and before we knew it, we were off on our 2 laps. I hung with swim rabbit Emslie for about 300m and then backed off once I saw we had a gap on the group. I merely wanted to limit loss to Emslie but still build a bit of a break to the chasing pack before the bike got going.

My new Orca Alpha suit, boys and girls, is the shiznitz. It felt really amazing in the water, with less restriction on the arms than I have ever felt. I swim with quite straight arms, and the suit didn’t inhibit that for one second. Kudos to Orca, I think first 4 out the water were all in Orca suits.

Onto the bike, and the mission was to sit up till about 5km, then hammer till 30km, then spin into T2. Mission was on the way when at about 5km I passed young Emslie on the bike and motored by, riding hard (there may have been a bit of white foam on the mouth at this point), checking my Suunto to make sure I was keeping it above 170. At 10km, I had 75sec on 2nd place, at 20km, it was 120sec. On leg 3 I thought I heard a puncture and nearly platzed myself, but the faint noise wouldn’t go, even if the tire was staying hard.

At 30km I still had 120sec over Harold chasing, with a foxy Brendan Lowen on his ass like a fly to a vrot carcass in the sun. I could see they were catching as Harold murders the bike, his freakishly sized calves not being supportive for his running agendas. I was pumped full of Whaspgel by this stage and was ready to spin/hammer home, but I felt as if I was riding with someone holding onto my shirt.

The last leg was murder and I couldn’t understand why it seemed so much harder (inspection after the race revealed that the brakes had locked onto my rear wheel a little and it was tough to spin the wheel – hence the extra effort and loss of time in the last 20km) but kept spinning as I wanted to have semi-fresh legs for the run, whereas I knew the two behind were going to hammer all the way into T2.

The official gap was around 30sec into T2, but I set out running lightly up the hill, but not murdering myself. My Puma racers were perfect for the day, no socks, light, no blisters, and YELLOW!

All our flat running was about to pay off. I buried the downhills and the flats, going deep into GP circuits for inspiration. The lead went up to 1:30 by the end of lap 1, 2:30 by the end of lap 2 so that I had the time and space to chill on lap 3 heading home for a well deserved win, sinus and rubbing wheels couldn’t stop me today.

As I came into the finishline I knew that the sickness, the strange bike feeling and the new, much harder run route would add to around 5minutes of extra time, so to come in just over 2 hours was a happy achievement, and proof that these damn ME workouts have paid off, that the calorie counting has paid off, and that a new attitude is paying off.

Thanks to all my sponsors, you make it so much easier. Puma, Orca, Whasp, Suunto, Rockets (worn in the car on the way home for no sore legs the next day), Jack Black Beer (official recovery fuel).

all images credited to Tess

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for a follow up on yesterdays post, I thought to write about changes again, as its the time of the year to think about what we want to achieve before the Xmas presents come out. So often one of my athletes, or someone I hardly know (they tend to find me lately), will ask me how to make changes in their lives that stick, as they seem to wander off track so often.

Now that you have the Cheatsheet, how do we go about practical examples?

Part of living in a one stop, instant satisfaction society is that we expect everything NOW. Our perception of patience, is as such, a little warped. We expect that if we make a change today, it should last forever, but in reality, we need to reinforce these changes every day.

For me there are a few key factors that I need to make effort on, on a daily basis, for at least a few weeks, when I want to make a change in my life. Here are some constructive real world examples:

1. A while ago I wanted to lose 7kg in 7 weeks. I had to talk to myself every time I wanted something sugary, or something full of wheat, which meant that at least 10 times a day for the first 4 weeks, I had to make the hard decision to NOT go for the short term satisfaction. The result; people tell me I am too skinny now, which means I am right on track. For the record, I am still under my Ironman race weight and nowhere near MTB race weight.

2. I wanted to make the change to becoming a better cyclist (point 1 is a part of this), as it was, and still is, the weak link in my triathlon armor. So I undertook a 3 year plan. Yes, not a 12 week fix, but a 3 year plan. This is year 2 at the moment, and the big changes came in year one. Now, to get to where I want to with cycling, I have reinforced training and committed to challenges (like Cape Epic) that will give me a boost in year 2, and hopefully, in year 3, I will have that breakthrough performance. My aim was to make my cycling up by 14%, but to get there, I would have to spend 3 years working at it, so that my run could stay the same.

Yes, I could probably go and ride what I want to now, but I would walk half the marathon in an Ironman afterward, which is not the way to make the lasting change. Once I am at this new level, it will be almost impossible to go back, because I have done it in the right way. Here I am talking about a realistic plan. Set out a long term plan and constantly benchmark is along the way, as you might need to back up, or slow down a little, to meet the plan’s goals and objectives.

3. I wanted to find more time in my life. I had to take a very real outlook at the long term application of how I was going about my daily days. I found that I spent loads of time doing things which were not of any productive value. I set out my day into 30min slots and found SO many of them to be useless. So I started cutting out 30min slots, until I had a few more hours a day. When it still wasn’t enough, I took the change to start my own business, so that I could have more productive time. I cut out alot of “mental junk food” and now, I have time, every single day, to sit and think. I also have around 30min to sit and do nothing, think about nothing, and in essence, reboot my mind. But I had to slow my life down to get there. Going slowly, is the first step to going really fast.

Hope that all makes just a smidgen of sense to you today. Its merely a follow up on that amazing post yesterday.

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