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.

Yesterday we said our farewells and left PE to travel back home – it’s nice to be back home and sleeping in one’s own bed. The trip back was pretty uneventful outside another chip on the windscreen – I’m so pleased I decided not to replace the cracked windscreen in PE.

I woke up normal time this morning and thought I might lie in, but as soon as Louise and Kobi were up and getting ready to go for their early morning forest walk I realised that I couldn’t just lie in so I put my running shoes on and went to test the legs. I was really surprised how good I felt – a little stiffness but nothing serious. Ran for 30 minutes at a gentle pace and felt great.

As after all big events which you spend months preparing for, there is always the post race blues and analysis of what went right/wrong. I downloaded the race info off my Polar and added up the time I spent sorting out my technical issues – almost 75 minutes! If I take that time off my finishing time I still wouldn’t have achieved a sub-11 hour IRONMAN. I really felt I was in good condition going into the race but I’m now even more convinced that I have to run a sub-4 hour marathon if I want to break the 11 hour barrier. My run time of 4:21:09 just doesn’t crack it! Yes, I realise that I went too hard on the bike for the last 35km to pick up time, but still, I need to improve on my running off the bike.

I spent the whole day catching up on admin after being out of the “office” for a week. This evening I collected my bike from Paul and Kelly and took it directly to John O’Connor Cycles to remove the race wheels and check the tubes and give it a good clean – it was seriously greasy after all the wheel changes. I’m not sure when it’s going to get out again, but I’d rather have it in race shape than needing attention when it come to be used again. I think it might be time to pull out my mountain bike again. After dropping off my bike we had a wonderful stroll on the Mouille Point promonade and had a great coffee at Prima – the van next to the lighthouse – fantastic coffee – well worth the stop.

So what’s next? Really not sure. I did bump into Eddy Casar at the IRONMAN finish and he is running the Challenger Triathlon in Cape Town in November and I’m going to have coffee with him and find out more about this race. I guess after my performance on Sunday I feel there is room to improve and given that I have this fitness I’m keen to test it with another race – maybe – not sure? It will however have to fit in with my new focus of setting up my consultancy business as it is clear that I cannot rely on making a living out of tri-athlon!

On the donations front we are nearing the halfway mark with monies received and commitments made. So still quite some way to go. I need some of those larger corporates who were so generous last year to come to the party. From a physical point of view I’ve done my bit, but I’ll still be pushing hard to get in more donations so we can send those kids on leadership skills training. We all know that this is what this country needs to become even greater – educated leaders. Come on all – dig in and dig deep and let’s close the gap on the magical R80,000.

You might think that I have lost the plot after IRONMAN with a blog title like that. Well, my astrologer wife tells me that the planet Mercury is not in good shape which can result in technical issues. How right she was!

We were up at 4am and off to transition to do the final checks and have an interview with Mel prior to the race start – all good and ready for a big day. I had an OK swim given that it’s one of the areas of my training which has been lacking. A lot of the field (including myself) swam to far out when rounding the back bouy on the first lap resulting in a longer/slower swim. After what was quite a quick transition for me, it was onto the bike. At this stage all still going to plan. I was pretty conservative on the first lap and the marshalls were out in force penalising drafting, passing on the wrong side, blocking, crossing the white line etc etc which made it really difficult to get into a rhythm, especially early on in the bike when the field was still so congested. My first lap was around 2 hours, a little slower than I’d wanted but still feeling good so I picked things up on the second lap only to have a front wheel puncture after 110km. Now, bike maintenance is really not my thing which is why I always take my bike to the bike shop to have anything done. I know how to fix a puncture, but it’s not the speediest nor prettiest process with me. Anyway, I fixed the puncture and cursed that I had not put the new tube in which I’d bought the day before, rather opting to use my spare which had been in my tool tube for quite some time. On the second lap when going up past Action Cycles I collected 2 new bombs (CO2 cannister which inflates your tyre) just in case. Well I wasn’t 10km up the road when my back wheel flatted. Fixing a back wheel flat is more time consuming and messy than a front wheel flat as you have a greasy chain to deal with. I sorted it out and by now I was pretty peeved – I can only think that the tubes were old as I did not feel that I had hit anything to justify a puncture. Now I’m riding with no spare tubes and am still 50km from the finish, but surely I should be OK – who has 3 punctures in one race? Me! Just before the turnaround point (140km) – the furthest point from the finish, my rear tyre goes. There’s nothing I can do as I have no spares left so I begin the long walk/run and hope the mechanics roaming the route will eventually get to me. The other competitors offer sympathy as they know it is not possible to get all the way back to the finish pushing your bike. Time is ticking by and there are no mechanics in sight. By now I’ve blistered my feeting from run/walking in my cycling shoes and my cleats are worn to the metal. It’s looking like a DNF (did not finish) for me. All I could think of at that time was what am I going to do about all the donations which have come in already – will I have to go back and re-imburse them? Then, by complete chance a fellow competitor comes past and asks if he can help but looking at the wheels he was riding I said it was unlikely as I needed a tube with a valve extension to fit my deep section rear wheel and he was not riding deep section wheels. He then digs into his bag and pulls out a tube fitted with a valve extension – exactly what I needed. I could have kissed him – although I’m sure he wouldn’t have wanted that. I’m sorry I did not get his number to thank him afterwards but if by any chance he is reading this – massive thanks!

By now my day was pretty much blown, but I thought I’d still give it my all and just finish. I pushed way too hard over the last 35km of the bike and ended up with a bike time of 6:56, almost 2 hours too slow for me to achieve the magical sub-11 hour mark. And my legs were toast after running with the bike and pushing too hard over the last part of the bike course. All it meant was that the run was going to be a super slog. I ran the first 8km solid and then moved into my walk the aid stations and run in between strategy which kept me going through the run – but some of the running was at 6 min/km which was all I had in my legs. I did however finish strongly and ran some 5 minute km’s to finish which I was pleased with. Overall, a very long and tough day. Total time 12 hours 44 minutes and 19 seconds, a good 1 hour and 45 minutes longer than I’d hoped for. Am I disappointed? Yes and no – I’m disappointed as I went into this race feeling really good/confident and would dearly liked to have cracked the 11 hour barrier, but on the other hand I’m really pleased that I struck it out and finished and gave it my all – I left nothing out there on the course. Sometimes it’s in these sorts of races that you learn the most. I thought that last year I had to dig deep to finish and ensure that all the hard work we put into raising the funds did not go to waste – that was nothing compared to this year.

To all of you who have donated so far a massive thanks – you can sleep easy knowing that I’ve given it my best shot. To those who still plan to donate, think about doubling what you had in mind, as this effort of mine was a lot bigger than last year and took a lot more out of me.

A huge thanks to Mel who drove up from Cape Town to come and represent SCORE here in PE and provide the coverage on the IRONBRIAN website – you really embody all the best characteristics of what true charity work involves. A big thank you also to my family, Louise and Kobi, who have supported me through thick and thin on this journey going back many months – putting up with a tired and often grumpy husband/father is not easy. I promise now that we can have those dinners and take those walks which have been put off to squeeze in extra training time.

Lastly, to all those IRONMAN finishers – well done – YOU ARE AN IRONMAN!