The Road to Kona: Weeks 4/5

So the past two weeks has seen me training very hard (http://ironmansa.com/2012/08/27/key-training-block/) , possibly a little too hard, or more likely it’s the accumulative fatigue of 4 weeks of training, but with Kona still 7 weeks away, hopefully I am building a strong foundation for the toughest Ironman on Planet Earth.

One thing that athletes pushing themselves at or close to their limit need to factor in, is ‘recovery’ and very often the questions are how much can my body take, how hard can I push? The key question though is how much recovery do I need, without being considered (by yourself) soft? I’ve often heard that you need to push yourself through immense fatigue to toughen up for an Ironman, but this level of fatigue can lead to overtraining, illness or injury, so one has to be very careful. (To read more on this see….. http://ironmansa.com/2012/08/27/overtraining-tough-it-out-or-recover/)

The undoubted highlight of my trip to date was being reunited with my family this past Saturday, after being apart for a month. One can never underestimate the importance of family, the unconditional love and support that we receive and I am already experiencing the benefits of their arrival, with a couple of nights of great sleep. Undisturbed sleep will certainly aid recovery, something I have been struggling with a little of late.

This past week we saw the USA Pro Cycle Tour meander through Colorado and one of the best days of racing happened right here in Boulder. We spent the afternoon in and out of a Pizza place on Broadway, near Lee Road where the race came past. It was great to see Jens Voigt leading the breakaway pack, which included eventual stage winner Rory Sutherland.

I was also fortunate to visit the Red Rocks Amphitheatre, for the Gotye Concert, supported by Missy Higgins, which was quite a highlight.

The previous week I had a near miss, if you can call it that, when I was in the latter part of a tough bike workout and became a little dizzy and disorientated. I had stopped at the traffic lights and when they turned Green, must have been thinking I was back in South Africa, as thought I could just clip my cleats in and proceed left. Unfortunately I didn’t have right of way and found myself turning into oncoming traffic and luckily for me the oncoming driver was very alert and braked quite hard, slowing down sufficiently to avoid sending me careering over his bonnet. Fortunately I got up, dusted myself off and both my bike and I were fine, but quite shaken up and the irony was that the accident happened about a mile from where I had broken my collar bone in 2010.

Besides doing the Heart and Soul Half Marathon (a Boulder Running Company event with Mark Plaatjies and Johnny Halberstadt at the helm) as part of my long run, I also did the weekly stroke (1.5k swim) and stride (5k run) at the Boulder Reservoir this past Thursday.

So quite a full two weeks have just sped by, it’s a little more than a week till we leave for Las Vegas, which should provide me with quite a stern test being the World 70.3 Championships. One thing is for sure, I should have a good idea on my progress as I build towards Kona. To all my South African friends, Spring is just around the corner, so don’t forget to set some goals, develop some plans and chase them enabling you to enjoy summer (life) without regrets.

Thanks to everyone for their support, the words of encouragement are much appreciated and a big thanks to my sponsors too.