davem

B Active gets the daily spot prize for well timed relevant opportunistic marketing. Whew, am away for a few days and Garfield starts another s#@!fight. I agree the Bela Bela 5150 is very pricey but they do organise a great event. I almost fell off me couch when I got an SMS on Friday telling me early bird entries close in the next few days. Why would I register six months in advance for an Olympic distance event. To save a whole R100 nogal. They must have a new shipment of good stuff in PE. Unfortunately as with last year, I feel that the event schedule is spread out in such a way to make it practically impossible to do as a one day event (from Joburg) which skyrockets the costs into thousands for accommodation, kennels for dogs etc. On the whole, it looks almost like race organisers have abandoned finding sponsors and looking for the full race revenue from the athletes. Triathlon is a commercially run sport where events are owned by individuals or companies and everyone is paid for the work they do and the owner has to make a living from it. Running by comparison, is a volunteer run sport where races are owned by clubs and staffed by volunteers. They are just as well organised. The difference is that it costs those that volunteer to organise the race a huge amount in time and lost income. They can continue to do so because the sport and clubs have a long tradition of volunteerism and community service. Triathlon does not have any meaningful clubs and certainly no spirit of volunteerism. (The volunteers at IM and 70.3 are not generally athletes). Everyone wants a slice of this nice juicy pie. As with every exciting new industry, some will do well in the short term but likely most will fall by the wayside and the quality and value will remain. Hopefully, the greed does not damage the sport in the long term.

To totally throw the cat among the pigeons, do you even need to dope to win the Tour de France? Yes, your team will need to. The winner only rides in real anger for 2 to 3 hours in the race, the rest of the time, he gets pulled along. LA was the master of strategy and intelligent riding. I believe that it is possible. Maybe even, he pretended to dope to get his team buy in so they would do it for him. I can believe he would be clever/devious enough to do that. The facts stand, that he never tested positive. The only evidence is a hearsay from bunch of guys already caught doping after also lying about it repeatedly (somewhat lacking is their own integrity already). This theory is the only one that fits the evidence and is reasonably credible in my opinion. Ironically, that could make him guilty of the US Federal charges of misusing public money, but not guilty of doping. I find it difficult to believe that every single person is on the take from one athlete, he does not have that much money.

Not really. The course was laid in the morning. This should account for the tide at that time. The tide level would not change the course distance materially from day to day. The beach did not seem narrower than usual either.

Just to add some more analysis to the swim time. Marino Vanhoenacker swam 1:25 per 100m in EL. At Kona (a non wetsuit 3.8km swim) he did 1:20. Compared a female age group podium finisher. 1:41 per 100m in EL, 1:30 at 70.3 Thailand. (ie 3min 35secs slower in EL) My estimate is that the swim was probably in the region of 10-12% longer than the 1.9km. Where this had a catastrophic effect is that Team Garwood missed the cycle cutoff by less than a minute. A regulation distance swim would have meant they would have made the cutoff comfortably and finished the race.

Both mens (26:29 vs record 18:33) and ladies (26:56 vs record 20:28) swim times were about 8 minutes outside the record (about 43% (men), both set in 2008). Both mens and ladies fastest swimmers were 1:30 slower than 2011 which had horrific conditions. Conditions were relatively mild on Sunday which would indicate faster times. We can safely infer that the swim distance is not consistent.

1563

Hey DC Demon Sean Your split is too far out. They are not that different. You should do a 1h35 out easily but then you will have to work hard for a 1h15 on the way back. Don't forget to leave some juice for the little bastard hill that surprises as you get off the freeway on the way back. You obviously feeling strong, has the training been going well? Cheers Dave

Hey B-Active, change your web address on your footer, you have moved. If fact, get clever and put the event address links, so you can save me several clicks.

Mike at SBR seems to have a great reputation. He gave me excellent service on getting me some new running shoes, including a full gait video analysis. Very nice guy. Troisport on the other hand, mmm, tired of walking into the store and being ignored. Really irritates me that they don't put prices on their merchandise. I guess with being the dominant player in the market, they have got slack.

Any hubbers want to get together in EL for some Garfield style smacktalk?

At 26.3 degrees you going to have okes crying about not being allowed to use their wetsuits again.

Garfield The ocean is wet, wavy and cool. Now go taper something and stop worrying. Cheers

Thought in quite funny/naive that the question about sufficient water got a response related to dam levels. This has been the major grind against these events on this forum, to be flippant is not clever PR.

Guess you will have to carry all body parts to the finish.

I seem to remember there being such a table.

Garfield, we dont want to see you like that. You riding on Sat again?

http://www.drugfreesport.org.za/ Your dietitian should know that.

I have a pair which I am very disappointed with. Despite the large surround, I have great trouble getting them to seal properly on my face. They do however has excellent visability and are comfortable. I guess it depends on the shape of your face.

Hi e_div Happy to join you. Garfield's rides are good and the guys are friendly. Garfield, are you riding this Monday (2nd), keen to join you. Cheers Dave

These strips didn't seem like the cleverest idea. Have they all been removed?

To the OP, thanks for a well thought out argument. Some issues that need to be factored into the thinking: 1. Above a certain temperature, a wetsuit can be dangerous due to overheating. In the ocean this can lead to sea sickness. 2. A wetsuit is not a life preserver or floatation device and should never be thought of as that. 2. As mentioned by other posters, if you can't swim the distance without a wetsuit, you should not be in the race. Would you start a marathon without the training, an ocean race without a skippers ticket, fly a plane without a pilots licence. 3. Novice swimmers should self seed and start 30 seconds later. If you want to mix it with the front guys then be prepared. Let the race snakes go and you can swim without being klapped. You are also more visible to the life guards as there are less swimmers around. You are also more accessible by the life guards. 4. It is unlikely that a swimmer will drown because of the lack of a wetsuit. I would suggest that the few swim deaths in triathlons around the world are more likely attributable to heart attacks where the athlete is immobilised and slips unnoticed under the water. In an Ironman, yes it can be tough not to have a wetsuit, but its not called Ironman for nothing. For reference I am a 1h30 Ironman swimmer with a wetsuit, so I can claim knowledge of the back of the pack in the swim.

Respect to you. Why do you do it? Are you raising money for charity? If so put up the details. I'll give them a hundred bucks for your insanity.

If you shout at someone for littering, you've got to come across as a bigger muther than him, otherwise you are just going to get it back even harder. I prefer the following approach. which I used recently in the Cradle. Dude was riding between Teak and the Lion Park at about 20kph. Ate gel, chucked in the veld. I pulled along side him and spoke very quietly too him, he could not hear so he leant closer and said "Pardon" I just said again very quietly that littering wasn't very nice. He got the message, and could not come back with any aggression to ruin my day. All he managed was a "Humphh"

Hi guys Haven't been on for a few days, but here is some feedback. The lady who fell was Karen, her husband was also riding (sorry can't remember his name) and was with her shortly after her accident. She was conscious for the whole time. She was kept immobile until the paramedics arrived due to the fact that she had serious damage to her helmet which indicated a possible neck injury. She has numerous obvious roasties but no obvious broken bones. A fellow rider, Mike, is a paramedic and attended to her and kept control of the situation. I was able to asist with getting an ambulance there quickly and assist in getting the road partly blocked to prevent a second collision. It was a single bike accident, the other bikes were people who had stopped to help. Once Netcare 911 arrived, I left to continue with my ride. I saw her hubby once they had loaded her into the ambulance and he said she was OK. I would suspect a significant concussion given the nature of the helmet damage. A rider who was behind her just before she fell, said she drifted onto the red and white curb barrier and lost control. She is an experienced cyclist as while lying on the ground, her primary concern was whether she would be able to do her 10th Argus next year. Fighting spirit! The plus side is that hubby gets to buy her a nice new helmet for Christmas. Thanks to Netcare for reacting pretty promptly and to the circuit management who got a bakkie out on the track to protect the guys who were on the track. Cheers Dave

3 flats! Put slime in your tyres. This is not a road race, you don't need Ferrari type acceleration.