Africa's Hardest Triathlon

Yeppers, my amazing husband finished what is known as "Africa's Hardest Triathlon" this morning at Sun City and man did he ROCK IT!!! It is an international race, so triathletes from all over the world competed. The winner was an actual Olympian and he was seriously from outer space. He SMOKED everyone, even second place was a good 5 minutes behind him.

First I'll start with the day before his race. We stayed the night in a campsite in Pilanesberg near Sun City because the race started at 7am and Sun City is 2 1/2 hours away. We spent half the day driving around the park before camping out. We had our best giraffe experience. There were 20 giraffes that came to say hi and ate around us for a while. Pretty cool.

The bugs on the road were actually the highlight today. It must be bug season because they were all on the road. It was pretty gross. Here's our friend Mr. Dung:

Ok back to the triathlon:

All I know is that I couldn't have done this race. THE COURSE WAS SO HARD. I seriously would have had a heart attack.

Olympic Triathlon:

1.5km swim (1 mile)
40km bike (25 miles)
10km run (6.2 miles)

Here he is stretching before the swim:


He seriously is the best person to race with because he's always joking and making people laugh around him. They are lucky guys:

The swim was nice, it was SUPER clean water (lucky) and it was in such a beautiful place. Ben really enjoyed the swim (except that his nose clip slipped off because of the sunscreen he'd put on and he doesn't do as well without it).

That's him in the green cap on the left and the guy taking a breath on the right:


DONE!


Telling us about how hard it was to swim without his nose clip:

The bike was SO hilly and it had this half-mile stretch that was almost vertical it was so steep (and he had to do it twice because he had to do 2 laps of 20km). But Ben said it was his favorite part of the race, like me.

Last stretch of the bike, the major hill:




Getting ready for the run:

The run was uphill for the first half hour, and by uphill, I mean UPHILL. Ben said he felt like he was going to pass out. His ankle really started to hurt, but he made friends in each leg and they helped push each other to the finish.

I AM SO PROUD OF HIM!!! Seriously, he did so well considering it was his first, his sprained ankle, only having trained for 9 weeks, the toughness of the course, and the fact that South Africans are obsessed with triathlons (each person we've met doing them has done 10-50 of them) and everyone couldn't believe we were only doing one.

Aren't we so hard core!!?!? And we're good at beating our goals. Ben's was to beat 3 hours and 30 minutes and he got 3:23:48! (The winner, Olympian Sander Berk, got 2:05:30, just to give you an idea of how big this race was).

He is so handsome. This is when he jumped in the pool to relax and cool off:

He practically needs a wheelchair and will be out of commission for a couple days. Good thing he has the next 2 weeks off!! I'm SOO happy! This next week he is taking "Study Leave" and will be busy studying the GMAT all day, but he'll be home at least and that will be nice. And then Friday we leave for CAPE TOWN!!! We seriously can't wait. It's a much needed long vacation that will be so much fun. Can't. Wait.

Swim. Bike. Run.

I finished my first (possibly not last) sprint triathlon!! It was EGGSELENT!!!! I loved it and I am so happy I did it...and that it's done! The last couple of days were "rest" days, storing up on glycogen and preparing my muscles for the big day. I was so nervous the day before, it wasn't even funny. We got up at 6:30am and left at 7:30 to get there at 8:30 for my race at 9:30 (fun sentence). It was so chaotic -- there were hundreds and hundreds of people there. There were about 450 men that raced and 160 women (also, Veterans, Juniors, and Teams).

On to the race. I set up all my stuff in the transition area and headed to the water. We had heard that this was one of the worst dams to swim in because it was so filthy and they weren't lying!

In the pictures it looks kind of pretty with all the plants floating on the water...but up close, it was so gross. It was like seaweed. It tasted like fish and mold. EW! I hope I don't get a disease....oh well. If I die, at least I'll have done a triathlon:)

Anyway, women went first and then men started 15 minutes after us. The gun went off and we started the scramble! I made sure to stay on the outside far away from the big crowd, but it was still quite crazy in the beginning. Lots of splashing and kicking and chaos, but after about 5 minutes, it started to taper out and I found a good pocket to swim in and wasn't kicked the rest of the time (except for around the buoys).

I knew that swimming in open water would be different than in the lap pool, but I still had no idea that it would be that different! It was so weird. You could only swim about 5 strokes before you had to switch to breaststroke just to straighten out and see where you were going.

(arrows for your convenience)

On the way back:

I felt awesome until I got to the shore and stood up, then I suddenly feel my fatigue. I got really dizzy and felt exhausted. But push on I did as we all ran to the transition area to get ready for the bike!

The bike was surprisingly the best and funnest part of the whole race! (Thanks to the awesome road bike I had). I took off and went at a really good and fast pace the whole 20km (12.6 miles). It was an awesome route. It did have a lot of small ups and downs, but it was nice because I could coast and drink water on the downs and push it on the hills. The road bike rocked because I would SMOKE anyone who was on a mountain bike on the hills, even though we were pushing the same. It was amazing! I felt SO incredibly good the whole time.

Off with the helmet and gloves and on with the run. I knew it would be the worst part for me and it really was. The only thing I was hoping and praying for was that I didn't get my stitch and IT CAME! It was really bad the ENTIRE run. I was focusing hard on breathing deep and with my diaphragm....but to no avail. The run was kind of hilly and all in the sun which was tough because it was SO hot.

(P.S. A side stitch is an intense stabbing pain, usually on the right side, under the ribcage. It is said to be a "muscle spasm" of the diaphragm. It can occur because of the movement of the internal organs as they jounce up and down while running, thus pulling down and straining the diaphragm as it moves up while exhaling. But who knows. I've tried everything).

I'm glad Ben took a picture of this guy because when I passed him, I thought, "What is he thinking!??"

Almost done!!! Fighting the evil evil stitch:

My goal was just to finish under 1h 45m and I finished in 1:42:33!!

Anyway--I'm done! And it felt so good. Wow. I loved it. Ben was a great cheerleader and took some AWESOME pictures. His ankle is feeling a little better and we'll see how he feels this week for his olympic tri this next weekend.

Our Kind of Threesome

Hip hip hooray! We did it! The once virgin-triathletes have completed their first one!

4km run . 10km bike . 250meter swim
(2.5 mile run, 6.2 mile bike, 10 lap swim)

The popular gym here called Virgin Active, held their annual Triathlon series all over the country this weekend. It's broadcast on TV from some of the big gyms, it's free, you don't have to be a member to register, and it was perfect timing for us to do as a good, smaller 'practice under pressure' one before our big tri's coming up. I was SO nervous. It was like Christmas Eve for me, and if you know me, you know that my stomach and bowels do not do well with excitement and nervousness. And I was praying my guts out about my side stitch.

Before the races. Mine was at 1pm and Ben's was at 2pm (so we could cheer each other on and take pictures--which are really grainy because we didn't use my nice camera):


Doing some stretching:


In my heat, there were only 3 other people, 2 guys and one girl. And one of the guys took 1st place last year. I was not in the beginner group. Oh well. I was super proud of myself because I went faster, longer, and farther than I've ever done without stopping. I was focusing SO hard the entire time on my breathing though because I could feel the stitch starting at about 10 minutes, just wanting to come. But it didn't! I did the 4k in 22 minutes, which was awesome.


Next up, the bike. My legs were so jello but the bike was nice. My arms got so tired! They never have before in any of the training and spinning classes it was weird. I finished the 10k in 18 minutes.




And then, the swim. IT WAS SO HARD!!! It's usually my strong point but man, having it at the end after you're already winded and tired and out of breath...wow it was so hard in terms of breathing. My first lap was AWESOME. I felt like I was flying but then the other 9 were tough. I had to breath every other stroke (instead of every 3) and had to do breaststroke a couple of times once I got to lap 6:


I finished it in 6 minutes SO exhausted. I actually lost count and thought I had 2 more laps when I was really done, so I was kind of disappointed because I hadn't pushed and sprinted the last 2 like I had wanted. But it felt SO GOOD to be done!

You just have to flex when that number is on your arm, it's impossible not too. Too bad it's my weak left arm:


Then right to Ben! His was a bigger heat, there were 7 of them: 6 boys and 1 girl. The guy in the orange was intense! He was running at 18.5 k/h and Ben was running FAST at 15k/hr. The dude was a die hard, that's for sure.


Ben did awesome, he finished his 4k in about 16 minutes, in 2nd place, and then on to the bike:


He did the 10k in about 14 minutes--still in 2nd place (right behind orangy). But Ben pretty much died on the swimming. I told him all that hair would slow him down...but he didn't care:)




I was just laughing because he did 1 lap of freestyle and then did this weird scissor/side stroke the rest of the time. He said he sucked in air weird in the beginning and it ruined the rest of it for him. He still finished in 7 minutes, in 3rd place overall!


The results:


We both got 3rd! Too bad I got 3rd out of....3 girls, but whatever. I had a blast. And Ben did awesome and got 3rd out of 8 so he's a rock star! (Oh and he beat the guy in my heat that got 1st place last year--sucka!)

It was so fun. We both LOVED it. All the staff was right by our side the whole time cheering and dancing us on. We got free t-shirts (that say "I was game for a Threesome!") and backpacks and water bottles and juice! And man, we finished a triathlon! We just got back from Cafe Europe, this DELISH place we love and I usually can't ever finish my meal, but I downed it. And now I'm ready for a GIANT bowl of ice cream.

Only 3 weeks till my sprint triathlon (600 meter swim, 20km bike, 5km run)! AH! Can't wait!

Tri Update

Just a quick update on the big old Triathlon! Training is going really well. I'm on week 5 and Ben is on week 4. I am half-way there--only 5 more weeks to go! I get nervous when I think about it but at the same time I just can't wait for it to get here so I can do it! We were able to go see my route this weekend (it's about 45 minutes away at Roodeplaat Dam) and I feel really good about it now. It's pretty level, which is a relief.

We also signed up for a mini-Indoor Triathlon that our gym, Virgin Active, is putting on next weekend, October 3-4th! Super excited, but we don't hear if we actually got a spot until the 29th of September, so we're just training like normal and hope we get a spot! It's a 4k run, 10k bike, and 250 meter swim all indoors.

And last thing, about the dates; mine is on October 25th and Ben is doing his on December 6th. We decided to do them separately for several reasons: 1) Ben wanted a few more weeks to train, since he hasn't been able to train as much as I have 2) We wanted to be able to watch, cheer, and take pictures of each other. If we were doing it together, we'd have no one to take pictures of us or cheer along the way! 3) Most importantly, we could only round up one bike! That's the main thing. One of Ben's coworker's husbands was going to sell his road bike and is going to let us use it! A road bike! SO much better than a mountain bike, so it should be good!

That's the update! Keep cheering us on from back home! :) We need it!

We're In!

BEN IS HOME!!! And I couldn't be happier. There's nothing like having the hubby home.

On another note, here's some exciting news. I've been procrastinating this post though because posting it means I'm really in. But that's exactly why I should do it.

I've always wanted to do a triathlon. Mostly because I love swimming and was on the swim team in high school, and would just love to get in that kind of shape again. I've been looking online for a while trying to find Triathlons in Johannesburg and couldn't find anything. A couple of days ago, I thought I should widen the search and typed in "Gauteng," which is the providence we live in...and there they were!! All the upcoming triathlons in the area! I was so excited. I started shaking and got all hot and nervous. I knew I was in.

So I told Ben we're doing it and he's in too! It's 10 weeks away. I started Monday but now that Ben is home, we're really starting training this Monday. I'm not too worried about Ben, he's a guy and a power house. He could probably do it tomorrow and be fine.

So we commit! We're doing our first triathlon!!

October 25, 2009

Swim: 600 meters
Bike: 20km (12.4 miles)
Run: 5km (3.2 miles)

I've been working on the training schedule, pulling ideas from friends who have just done one, and also from sites online. It's ready! Really excited about those brick workouts! Not. It's posted on my new Triathlon Blog. I'm using that blog for my training journal. I'm just going to write how I feel each week about the training and what we're doing. Mostly so I can see my progress, and be able to look back at everything. But possibly for anyone out there who is thinking about doing one...JUST DO IT!

If I can do it, anyone can do it :)

LET'S GET THIS PARTY STARTED!