It’s now official – Challenge Cape Town is off till 2012. I’m pretty disappointed as I’ve put in a lot of training through winter and although I’ve picked up a slight cold this week I’m was looking forward to competing over this distance in Cape Town in front of family and friends. Well, it’s not to be.

One pleasing thing that I can take out of it is that I now know that I can train through winter in Cape Town. The training certainly won’t go to waste – there’s no such thing in my mind. I’ve entered IronMan 70.3 in East London so I’ll take a few days off now to get properly over my cold and then continue training for East London.

There’s been quite a lot of unhappiness on the social media about the lateness of this announcement just 17 days before the race. I have to be honest I was apprehensive about whether it would take place after attending the launch and seeing how much still needed to be signed-off on (hence my entry into IM70.3). As I said on Facebook, the issues around the route should have been addressed months ago. I’m not sure how one gets road closures for an event of this nature when there is a field of only just over 400 athletes, as I was lead to believe. I really feel for those athletes who were planning to travel to the event as there are sunk costs which they are not going to be able to recover. For me in Cape Town it certainly isn’t too bad – as long as I get my refund which has been promised. I see that the Challenge Family are offering free entries to other races of theirs in other parts of the world as compensation – nice gesture but racing outside of SA is really expensive and comes with logistics I’m not sure I’m prepared for.

For those of you who have made contributions to SCORE based on my completing Challenge Cape Town I trust you will be OK with these being transferred over to my competing in the IronMan 70.3 next year. Who knows, but if the organisers managed to get Challenge Cape Town up and running for 2012 I might have a crack at it?

The training for Challenge Cape Town has been going pretty smoothly. The big 5 hour ride was done on the weekend and besides some wind around Cape Point it was OK. I must say though this week I’ve felt quite tired so I took the day off yesterday. I’ve been pushing around 9 hours a week of training which is not as much as I was doing for IronMan but I’m feeling like it should be enough if I can just put in one or two more big sessions. Last week I clocked 12 hours which was more like it. I’m off to Johannesburg tomorrow so unless there is some big mileage on the weekend I’m going to come up short this week, but I’m not too worried. I’ve pretty much been at it solidly since the beginning of the year – just counted back on my training diary that I’ve only had 31 days of no training this year! This includes tapering for IronMan and the recovery period which when looking back is really not enough for the body to recover. Anyway, I should have enough mileage in my legs by now to be able to finish. I think I might well have some down time after Challenge Cape Town although I have entered for IronMan 70.3 in East London in January 2012.

The big talking point at the moment on the social media is what the final route for Challenge Cape Town is going to be. It seems pretty late to be in discussions with the Cape Town City Council less than 4 weeks before race day trying to sort out a route! I’ve voiced my concern around the swim course as a single loop swim in these cold waters will require plenty of marshalls/lifeguards out on the water as one can get into trouble quickly in cold water especially as most of us do not have too much body fat on us to keep us warm. Cramping could be a major problem together with hypothermia especially after over an hour in the water. Still I’m looking forward to competing over this very tough course (whatever it might pan out to be?) in Cape Town with all the local support. It’s going to be great having the whole family out there supporting one. And the SCORE office won’t have to travel too far to come and support!

On the fund raising side I’m still hoping to achieve the balance of the target which is required to send the winners of the Cup of Heroes on the environmental awareness and leadership skills course. adidas International are hopefully going to make a contribution and then it is going to be up to all of us to make up the difference so as not to disappoint those children from Marapyane who won the Cup of Heroes 2011.

In my last post way back in April I suggested that there might be another IronMan left in me after the disappointment of IM PE. Well I quitely went ahead and entered Challenge Cape Town, an IronMan distance event, scheduled for Cape Town in November. Challenge is really the opposition franchise to IronMan and looks to be a little different to the normal IronMan events, differentiating themselves either through location, scenery or toughness. They certainly have covered all three in the Challenge Cape Town event – this is going to be one tough but scenic event. Check out the website on www.challengecapetown.com.

Training has been going OK as the weather has certainly played it’s part so far this winter – long may it continue, although we might have to pay the price come summer with the lack of rainfall. I’ve also been fortunate to be able to train during daylight hours as I’m now consulting and not in the regular 8am to 5pm routine. It’s amazing to see how many people are in the same boat as me when it comes to their working hours – having been in corporate so long I just took for granted that everyone pretty much worked at least 9am till 5pm. Believe me there are some people who seem to have it right and be able to get out there for midday cycles when the weather is at it’s best or swim mid-morning when the pool is not so busy.

There are now 8 weeks to go so the mileage needs to pick up and the longer cycles and runs need to happen. I’ve been doing an average of 8-9 hours a week so far which I’m happy with. The biggest concern I have is the swim which takes place in Granger Bay in water which is going to be around the 14 degrees celcius mark at best – with very little body fat this is a problem for me. I spent 20 minutes swimming up in the Silvermine Dam a few weeks ago and absolutely froze so being in the water for over an hour will be challenging. I’m trying to get my body used to the cold water by popping into our pool at home after training for 10 or so minutes – really not pleasant!

After catching up with Mel last week I’ve now committed myself to trying to raise further funds for SCORE to make up the shortfall of around R27,000 which we didn’t raise at IronMan PE earlier this year. We set ourselves a target of R80,000 to put some SCORE members through coaching skills training and I’m keen to see this happen.

By all accounts Challenge Cape Town is going to be far more challenging that IronMan PE so I would very much like to see us raising the outstanding funds so we can get these kids the training they need to fulfill their potential. If you are reading this you know only too well the great work SCORE do in the communities and in their 20th year their needs are the greatest they have ever been from a funding point of view. Times are very tough out there in the markets and sponsorships are hard to come by and it is also very difficult to hold on to those sponsorships you do have so every little bit of help is truely appreciated.

I feel that the target is very manageable but with me no longer in the corporate world it is that much more difficult to land corporate sponsorships, so I’m hoping that the smaller contributions from all of you out there will get us to the target.

Uploaded by SCORE:

This month’s Triathlon Plus features ‘We’re inspired by Brian Kerby.’ Read about Brian’s journey to completing IRONMAN 2011 and his involvement with SCORE.

SCORE are extremely proud to have Brian on the team. He serves as an inspiration to us all.

Click here to read the full article

I guess this happens after putting so much time and effort into one single event – especially if you do not achieve what you set out to do! I’ve been exercising pretty much every day since coming back from PE – more for my sanity than for fitness purposes. I’m justifying it by saying it’s exercising as opposed to training – training implies there is an event you are biulding up to which is not the case. I realise my body needs a rest but I can’t seem to just do nothing – I’m sure a bit of light exercise can’t do any harm. With the weather in Cape Town definitely turning towards winter it’s going to be easier to just roll over in the morning when the alarm goes off.

At this stage I’m still pondering entering Challenge Cape Town – an IronMan distance tri-athlon in Cape Town. The problem is this will require a lot of winter training which I’m not all that keen on – let’s wait and see!

I’m going to be having one final bash at trying to increase the amount of funds raised this week so expect an e-mail. With all the pledges we are probably still only half way to the target but I’m hoping people will be waking up to what I’ve done when all these holidays are over and everyone’s back at work and reading e-mails and logging into the website.