HBO

So today is the big day. I'll be starring at my inbox constantly from 13h00 onwards.

This is quite lekker. Walk across the road to collect my number.

cool......now to get back to the car

There are some very good tips on this thread. Tim Noakes book is quite comprehensive and Low Carb is Lekker also has some very nice recipes. It still is important to keep an eye on your daily calorie intake. One can easily eat a lot of calories because of the lekker food. I found that Myfitnesspal is a great tool to assist with this. Just a heads up. LCHF is like kryptonite to a cyclist. Although you won't feel a lack of energy, there will no powers when to train/ race high intensity. I can ride at a steady pace (23km ave) in a fasted state for 97 km easy. I haven't tested farther but probably could. However as soon as I increase the intensity I bonk in an instant.

So you can easily go for 75 Argus's. That will be something. Now just hold thumbs that you "win" an entry every year.

.....and is lucky enough to "win" an entry every year.

I can't agree with this more. I would guess that your proposal would only secure about 15 000 entries at most excluding the charities and tourists. To give 20 000 on the ballot system would be more than adequate for the "not so serious" riders. At the end of the day you can only please some of the people some of the time and not all the people all of the time. By allocating a certain number of entries for people who qualify like elite, racing vets, sub 3, 5 000 top seeded, 10 plus- and the rest on a ballot system is as fair as it can get- imo

so now I was thinking. If I don't "win" an entry, I just as well may take the money it would have cost me to get down there and use it for a nice upgrade on the bike, like wheels Since it is allocated for cycling, it must be used for cycling.

Have a caramel fudge ice cream. I'm pretty sure it will knock those numbers down.

thanks, one less competitor to worry about, hehe

Sure enough, but the first timer should qualify by doing other seeding events. "fun" riders can go in a ballot system. By looking at this tears seeded and un seeded groups, I would guess that of the 35 000 at most 25 000 are serious riders and the rest "fun" riders, or at least people who won't care that much if they miss out on entry. So why not give your more keen cyclists who did 2 or 3 seeded events a first chance to enter- I doubt there will be 25 000- and then throw it open on a ballot basis.

I'm ok with coughing up R 470 to ride, even with the R 15K it will cost me and my wife to for the week down there. I just feel they could have put in some more thought into this. Surely some sort of preference should be given to more "serious" cyclists than to the "fun" riders. Perhaps also penalise people who entered and didn't show the previous year- they should be at the back of the queue. I know at the end of a day there will never be a system that will pleases everybody and like the adage goes;" If you can't change something, then change the way you feel about it"

Well, I've already booked my accommodation and paid the deposit. If I cancel by end of September I will get a portion of it back though. It might be more fair to give the riders who entered last year preference, since we paid all those money (entry fee, travel, accommodation etc) for 47km. What if my entry is successful and my wife's isn't. I would say that preference must then be given for cyclist who actually take part in other races as well, like Superga said, and then give chance for the non cyclist who only do the argus to entry.

Hi jcza, please tell us here where you will be posting. Since I'm in the same boat as you, I would like to hear your progress and especially your cholesterol levels. When you say 5 to 10g/kg is that per day or week? If it is per day that is a sh*t load of carbs per day. If you weigh 75kg, it means between 375 to 750g a day! Is this for the food or the carb content. In other words as an example, oats for instance is 50g a serving which contains 28.5g of carbs. Are you going to have 15 servings to get to 750g of oats or 26 servings for 750g of carbs? Tim Noakes said that active, competitive athletes should/ can take between 100 - 200 g of carbs per day.

Well good luck. Please post the link to the new blog. It will be interesting to hear the difference in performance. I'm on LCHF since the Argus and power is way off. I've started to take some carbs (apple juice and fruit-orange or banana) on HIIT days only and immediately the power is up. I will slowly increase the carb intake, but will stay with the good healthy carbs. I will remain on this life style until I reach my goal weight, which will be before the 94.7- hopefully

Hi, congrats on the weight loss so far. Try using MyFitnessPal for the F/P/C calculation. I find this very handy. You can get the ketone sticks at Dischem. There are some quite knowledgeable guys here, whom I'm pretty sure can give you good advice. I also still have a lot to learn. I'm curios though, do you experience a lack of power during higher intensity training?

well, the higher cholesterol levels a quite a concern. If I may ask, by how much is it up? I haven't tested mine yet since I'm on LCHF. It was high before I started, 6,2. I thought I shall check it again when I reached my goal weight.

Well, hats off to you for staying disciplined to your goals and not to succumbed to the "carb treats" at the water points, although you knew it will certainly boost your energy levels. I follow your posts with keen interest, since I'm now on lchf for 3 months and still don't have any power to do HIIT. No problem to go steady or even tempo for 3h30 on the road, but during HIIT (on the wattbike) I can't maintain the same effort levels- not even remotely- than prior to lchf. Good luck.

I would love to upgrade, but the problem with me and cycling is that my wife does it as well. So any upgrade is "times 2", which will make it a costly affair. To be honest, it is awesome having your wife cycling with you.

What a beaut. I have a 2012 Madone, but my dream bike is a Dogma F8. This will probably make me dream other dreams.. haha

Wow!! Awesome looking bike. I'm not sure how I feel about that handlebars though. I Agree, it look similar to the F8. I still prefer the F8

I'm a bit shocked with this hostility. Surely everyone has his favourites, but what has he and Andy done to deserve this? If it wasn't for the puncture on the cobles last year where he lost about 10 mins, Frank would have had another top 10 finish. Surely he is not a GC contender, but I would have root for him for a Top 10 finish and perhaps even a stage win.

So all in all, its a good thing. Higher heart rate for same effort - more blood flowing, meaning more oxygen etc. But doesn't this mean that energy expenditure is also higher causing you to run out of energy quicker? I haven't experienced this on the bike yet, but then my rides are all low intensity so-far. During HIIT sessions on the wattbike I ran out of steam, but perhaps that is because my body hasn't fully adapted yet?

Thanks for the updates JC. I found it very interesting. I'm really interested to see how/ if your power improve to 100% of what it used to be prior LCHF. Do you perhaps know where we can buy the Atkins products? Only online or at certain shops. I haven't seen any in shops yet. Also celebrated the shortest day yesterday Its the ONLY highlight in winter

Resting is up by at least 10 bpm. It is difficult to say how much it increased while on the bike, but I ride about 6 km/h slower than I used to before LCHF and my ave HR is about the same over a 72km ride. During HIT on the wattbike I now push lower watts over a 90 min training session at a higher ave HR. Max HR was 176. Since I started LCHF I've pushed it to 186 on a number of occasions. I'm 46 (age)