camerons

is the bike leg really that tough? I would love to race but can't afford two trips to the eastern cape for me and the family. I will be doing the midlands ultra instead which is just up the road.

mr_stig and Zula - just enter and worry about the consequences later. You won't regret it. Well actually you might but it will be worth it in the end.

g-rex from tritalk?

respond and have some fun with them. THere is an entire website whose name escapes me right now that is devoted to this very thing (scamming scammers) in fact... found it. http://www.419eater.com/

I've not used them myself but have heard nothing but good reports abouth their customer service. Given the cost of the devices it is reasurring to know.

I think Zula and Robrider have given you some sound advice for climbing. Seems like for about 95% of people seating climbing is the best thing to do! To get better and therefore faster at it you need to start building your power. Is there a power meter on your spinning bike or some way to measure your effort? To build power try this program on the bike: On a effort scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being sitting on your sofa and 10 being balls out max you want to vomit type stuff do this: Warm Up part one: 5 mins - effort starting at 2 rising to 5 by the end Warm up part two: Time trial - 6 mins - effort level 6. Cadence 90-100 Rest - 1 min - effort level 4 Main Set: Time trial 4 mins - effort level 7. Cadence 90-100. Every minute add 20 to your candence for 10 seconds (effort level 10) then go back to time trial pace Climbing - 2:30mins - effort level 8. Cadence 80 max. Every minute add 20 to your candence for 10 seconds (effort level 10) then go back to normal climbing pace Rest - 3 mins - effort level 4 Repeat x 4 Cool down: 5 mins - effort level 4 reducing to 2 by the end Make sure that every time you do this you are going slightly harder than the time before otherwise you'll just platue and never get any better. This is why some way of measuring effort it key. If you like this program I can suggest some others, just can't be bothered typing out more if you're just going to ignore it I've been doing programs like this on my turbo trainer over the winter and I am feeling quite strong on the bike at the moment.

If I did that I think I would get annoyed hopping from machine to machine. What are you goals/what are you training for? Knowing that will help people to make suggestions.

For my own interests I just looked up the word "moderation" and it seems the accepted definition is: "nothing in excess" so I guess that now opens up a whole new debate as everyone will have differing levels of excess In the case of me and taking painkiller/antiinflamitories for excercise... My accepted level of use would be to take enough to get me to the end of a race if I was running the risk of DNFing and that is all anything more than that I would view to be excessive. I would not use them for training and I would not make a habit of using them in racing. If this did become the case then I would seek to find the reason why I needed them and sort that out.

This is the last paragraph of the article: When, then, are ibuprofen and other anti-inflammatory painkillers justified? “When you have inflammation and pain from an acute injury,” Warden says. “In that situation, NSAIDs are very effective.” But to take them “before every workout or match is a mistake.” Sounds like he might also be in the "everything in moderation camp".

I'm with grumpyoldguy on this one... everything in moderation. There is a big difference between starting a race on myprodol and consuming a bunch more myprodol during said race than there is with maybe taking a couple of nurofen in the latter stages of a tough event. Ultimately neither is sensible but you can normally get away with the latter. I guess the danger is where do you draw the line. In my own highly relevant experience I once developed a pain in my shin while running. Instead of resting it, before I went out running I would put ibuprofen gel on my shin which made the pain tolerable and I just carried on. Anyway the net result was a stress fracture. Lesson learnt in terms of continuing to train on pain killers/antiinflamatories. However that being said I have used nurofen in the latter stages of races to help me get to the end and will in all honesty continue to do so. If the difference between a finish and a DNF is a couple of painkillers/antiinflamatories I know what I will do everytime.... or maybe I should just train harder p.s. Dangle - glad you survived your ordeal. 24 hour bike races are not for sissies.

Yes it will be fine - just don't push it. You might also want to consider doing a couple more short and easy run sessions this week to keep the legs turning over. Maybe consider doing 20mins today, 20 Wednesday and 20 Friday as wel as some gentle biking and swimming. It will keep you nice and lose and rearing to go.

If you like and train with them then great. Just make sure that either they are what they're giving out at whatever race you're doing or bring your own because switching on race day wouldn't be so smart. I have made this mistake twice and suffered from bad stomach cramps on the run as a result. Speaking of gels I learnt a neat trick. On my bike I carry two bottles, in one I mix a bunch of gels with water in the other I carry just plain water. During the race I just sip on the gel/water mix instead of having to phaff with gels. Nice neat solution.

I'm not sure you can neccessarily say one gel is better than another. I think it's all about what you train with and what you're used to. Personally I cannot stomach either GU or Powerbar and import SIS Go Gels from the UK. Works out cheaper than buying local gels anyway.

That is blitzvinig! There is a fun thing you can do if you have a garmin to get an understanding of how quick good runners are... set your virtual partner at 2:30 or 2:45 or whatever marathon pace and see how long you can keep up for. I once set mine at 2:03 which is marathon world record pace and was able to keep up for 200m. Just incredible what some people can do.

I agree with you if you are trying to go from good to very good, i.e. from Sub 11 to Sub 10. But for guys who just got round in their first go, knocking significant chunks of time off of their splits is certainly possible if they commit to the training second time round. Lots of guys will do their first one as a "feeler" and then have a proper go second time round. These are the guys I am talking about. Anyway it looks like we've got lots of guys heading to the race and some good goals all round! Should be fun.

I just joined and had to pay R75 for the remainder of this year and R75 for next year. THe membership years runs from 1 Jan - 31 December. The reason I paid for the rest of this year is because there are a number of races coming before the end of the year that I wish to participate and so it was worth it for me. If you have any questions ring the help number on the CSA website. Very helpful lady on the end of the phone.

@Enticement - I agree with your sentiments with respect to a programme being customised toward me and my goals. My intention is not to copy and paste from other peoples programmes. I am just trying to get some understanding of what is involved in training to be a decent road cyclist. I have a "resonable" understanding of training and training concepts/principals having participated in triathlon for a few years now. I just need to start shifting my mind towards cycling specific training as it is not something I have looked at in any detail before. Any good books you could recommend to this end or anything like that would be great. Thanks!

Wow that is a great goal. I wish I had a run like you but unfortunately I am a real cart horse and injury prone from running. To get your swim from 1:20 to 1:10 I don't think will be too much of a challenge, certainly not as challenging as running 3:25 off of the bike! Join a swim squad if you can, that is the best way to do it. Else spend some time on the swimsmooth website. There is some seriously good info on there. I have a copy of the fink competitive plan in excel. PM me your email address and I will send it to you.

I think this is an amazing thing that you are doing, well done. Out of interest (and I am sure you have probably already thought of this and have your reasons) why are you going to be giving the bikes away and not letting people "earn" them so they appreciate them more and give something back in return? I'm not talking anything major but something like if you're going to be giving a bike to a local kid for example get them to pick up 10 bags of litter in return... something along those lines. Just a thought. Anyway if you establish a collection point in Durban I've got some bits and bobs that I can donate. You might want to try Marty's Cycles in Hillcrest to act as a collection point. I've chatted to Marty a few times and he seems like a genuinly nice bloke who might be up for something like this. Well done again. Cheers

IMO to get from a sprint to a 70.3 in the next 3 months or so is very realistic provided you have some sort of base already and if you're hanging out on a cycling forum I assume you do. If you finish that strong, to get from 70.3 to full IM in another 3 months or so is also very realistic. Don't get me wrong I don't think you'll be winning the race but you should definately finish enjoy the race. p.s. Swim squads are brilliant training tools. It kills me that I don't have one in my area to join.

I am currently a very mediocre triathlete but as it turns out I am actually quite a decent (relative term) cyclist. I'm having one final assult at a sub 11 IM next year and then I think I am going to hang up my triathlon boots and concentrate on cycling. My question is to those at the pointy end of road races... what sort of training are you guys doing? I would love to see a sample of your training plans and to learn what you're up to. As part of my tri training I typically do one long 3+ hours ride a week and 2 or 3 shorter, 1-2 hour rides either on the road or on my turbo. Obviously I'm going to need to up that as the running and cycling falls away, but by how much? What sort of sesssion are required? Will I still need long rides when the longest races aren't usually much more than 100km? etc. etc. Lots to learn for me in this regard. Cheers

If you're anything like me you'll finish the half and swear you're never doing anything like that again. By Wednesday the following week you will have signed up for the full!

Don't be tempted just do it!

Good man! I've not seen the tri-fuel program but I am sure if you stick to it you will be pleasantly surprised by what you will achieve. Pretty much everyone I know who has put the training time in has exceeded their expectations come race day. The half will be very good training. I will be doing the half (Midlands Ultra) at Midmar which should be about six or seven weeks before the race. You will enjoy race day. The course and support in PE is superb. The feeling of achievement and the sense of well being when you cross the finish line is unbeleivable.

It is early days yet but who is in so far? I am and have been putting together my training plan. I Start with structured training w/c the 26th of September following a modified version of the Don Fink 30 week competitive plan. The reason's I've modified it is because I am quite prone to running injury so have substituted one of the running sessions for a X-Training gym session. I will probably do more cycling as well. Targets are: Swim: 1:05 Bike: 5:15 Run: 4:15 T1: 0:05 T2: 0:05 Total: 10:45. In reality I think I will be hard pushed to run that quickly (I use that word loosely) so it will be more like 4:29 with a 10:59 finish. Hopefully. Anyway I thought it would be nice to have a race thread (I've seen this on a different forum before) for people to talk about the upcoming race, the highs and lows of training etc etc. Cheers.