Yesterday Tim and Kelly were married at a beautiful wine estate called the Grande Provence just outside of Franschoek, which is a stones throw from Stellenbosch here in South Africa. It was a fantastic day, set in a stunning venue and thankfully the weather was just ‘one of those days’ you couldn’t wish to change. I had a superb day, evening and early hours(!), which I will certainly remember for many many years down the line. Thankyou to you both for inviting me along to your special day; good times. – Just some of my favourite pics are here below. Enjoy!

Me and my partner in crime (Pieter) for the day on departure from the guest house for the wedding….

Tim and his very good friend (and fellow triathlete) Nick Saunders before the wedding.  – It really was an incredible shirt!

Tim with some of the boys (me included) prior to the wedding ceremony….

… and Kelly with some of the girls after the ceremony.

And finally, our boy Gav and Bobby ‘Double B’ Behan with the bride – there is never a quiet moment with these two let me tell you!

and he emailed me this picture!

Very cool – my second magazine front cover, after a mountain biking shot taken at Xterra UK (which became a duathlon!) back in September 2006. This shot was taken in South Africa whilst I was training in Stellenbosch.

I rode along this section of road a number of times for this shot!! Worth it though.

The hills behind Stirling

This week for me at home, between one block of training and another prospective block of racing, is all about adaptation. Adapting to the weather is certainly the most obvious explaination, however I think it goes a fair bit deeper than that. The training I have tucked away over the past 12 weeks has been perfect – a fantastic base upon which to build the season ahead. But we get carried away with training training training I think sometimes. I certainly have been there plenty of times before (digging a hole that takes a while to climb out of) - not always after such a long and useful time away I accept, but the tendancy to get far too absorbed in ‘the numbers and hours’ is always lurking.

So, I am home for just a week, and am letting the training sink in and the body to adapt. A bit of training each day, mostly just swimming with the squad in the morning (solid swimming mind you) and a bit of stuff on the turbo or in the gym each afternoon. I had a bit of soreness develop on the top of my right tibialis anterior during the last week in Stellenbosch, so I have stopped running for a little while to let it settle - and had some great treatment, as ever, from Physiofocus here in Stirling. And just in case you don’t know where that muscle is?! -

The South African experience is drawing to a close. This time next week it will be ‘this way to depatures’.

It does seem amazing that 90 days can zip by so quickly. It’s almost as if you blink and you miss them. But then I actually think about everything I have done since I left Stirling on the 29th November last year and it’s a reasonable list. Here goes……

Well, starting with the obvious – the training, especially since the New Year, (and big toes not withstanding) has been super consistent. Tick. The weather has been all over the shop, but above all sunny. Most notably during the first week of Feb when it go so warm the hills were a-burning. The racing went to plan. Tick. The company has been pretty damn good Between Gavin Noble, Tim Don (timdon.info) and the last couple weeks, Nick Saunders, I have had wicked training partners, and I think between us we have managed to spur one another along nicely from time to time. I certainly feel I have moved along and that is in a large part due to the confidence I have had in the sensible and controlled training environment day in day out.

I have managed to spend some more time with Nikola (in the words of Conrad Stoltz aka the ‘Caveman’) – The Crazy Serb behind the blogging - our website guru. His funny words are here. Nikola lives in SA for the winter time each year, and it was out here this time last year that I briefly met him on one of our longer runs (where, and this is bizarre! – he thought I seemed exteremly GRUMPY.) I guess I can be a grumpy so and so from time to time. I must add I was most recently displaying such a mood during the hotness that was the fires of Stellenbosch which you can re-visit here. – I was best desrcibed as being similar to a ‘Grizzly Bear with a sore head’ during that period. Hmmmm.

I also got going and planned my next few months of racing in the USofA. From here I fly home and spend 8 days in Stirling before pitching up in Miami for 10 days or so. I will race the Miami International which appears to have a cracking start list. I look forward to returning there and seeing my homestays from last year – Martha and Mark. I then head over to California for the rest of March and April. I will race Oceanside 70.3 on the 4th April and St Anthony’s in St Petersburg, Florida on the 26th April. I then return to California to take part in the Wildflower Half Ironman which was probably my favourite race last year.

They work you know - as does the 'toe hole'!

I have been making very good use of my compression socks during the past 10 days….. which is exactly how long I have had some out here in Stellenbosch, since I forgot to bring my own when I flew initially.

I had thought ‘no worries, Blair can bring mine them out in Jan, when he comes to visit’. However, I started to pick up a calf niggle after my first two weeks back training through the middle of Decemeber (note to self; don’t start running 100k weeks right away. Muppet.) and so I got in touch with Sylvie at SLS3 over in California to see if they had a distributor here in SA, so that I could get a hold of some. They regretably didn’t, she informed me. However, she did insist on winging some out as quickly as the US Postal Service could manage during the Christmas build up. I received 3 pairs on the 28th; a nice belated pressie for sure. And boy are they helping out that calf niggle.

I first came across the product when I raced at Wildflower in May, out in California. I was intrigued, and to be honest, I at the very least needed some decent flight socks (for I tend to suffer from elephantitis on long haul). I started to use them after hard runs for recovery and by the the time Clearwater arrived in November I was using them for all long runs and any involving interval work – and I have the holes in the toes to prove it.

I am more than sold on the concept, and without question they are allowing me to train harder and recovery more quickly than before. Triathletes are well known for the embracement of all things ‘gimick’, but I really suggest you go give these a shot – stick them on under your tights for your long Sunday run (or whenever you choose to run longer!) or when you get back from a hard session on the treadmill or track or canal path or wherever.

The next step for these socks is a ’sleeve’, which doesn’t cover the foot, but would allow me/anyone to race in them from the get-go, under the wetsuit, thus not wasting any time in transition trying to pul them on (can be quite a strenuous activity when tired). I believe I would be happy to do so given the benefit I seem to gain from training. When I decide to race Ironman again, I will most certainly be using either of these products. There are other sleeves available on the market already, but the actual level of compression offered is negligible.

I look forward to working more closely with Slyvie and SLS3 – www.slstri.com  throughout ‘09 when I am based over in California again.

the spectacular view across Jonky park

The last week, which spanned last year and this new one, has been solid. It had to be, given the week off I had whilst spending Christmas away plus the extra enforced lay off due to mangled big toes…..

Monday: travel back to Stellenbosch, 70k bike (in pouring rain!) with 20mins jog off

Tuesday: swim 6k aerobic, bike 90k

Wednesday: swim 4.5k aerobic outdoors (brrr), bike 40k wi 8*4mins hard – 20min jog off, run 15k easy

Thursday: bike 70k aerobic, swim 6.7k (Happy New Year set!), run 30 mins steady

Friday: bike 130k hilly, run 15k solid wi 3*8mins hard

Saturday: swim 5k solid wi 1500m broken TT, 70k easy, run 12k wi 10k nasty hard (no w/u!, 2k w/d)

Sunday: bike 95k solid wi 3*15mins TT, run 8k off with last 10mins race pace, swim 2k easy drills

All in all it totals up to just over 24k swimming (7.5hrs), 560kish biking (19hrs) and only 65ks running (5.5hrs)…… as I have been having to be careful on the volume with my toe.

Highlights were the long ride on the Friday, the swim sets on Thursday and Saturday morning where I surprised myself and the solid run in Jonkershoek Park. – This is an exact 10k loop and is flippin’ hilly. I ran 36.40ish which is as quick as I think I have managed according to the diary from last year!

2 weeks to go to the SA 70.3 in Buffalo City, East London. Lets hope the form comes………

Caught in the act ….. that there on my lap is a pie. A chicken pie. I think if nothing else, South Africa has an affinity with Scotland in its love for the Pie. The things is I would never usually eat a pie at home.  Funny really that when I ride the 4 Passes route – all 128 hilly K’s of it – I feel that eating a pie is justifiable. I blame Will Clarke to be honest. For he started the trend this time last year!

I forgot to bring my camera along for the ride, so I have stolen the pics that Dan Hugo snapped. The ride was completed alongside Dan, Mari – my housemate, Johhny Kritzinger – who’s house I lodged in for a month during my stay in S’bosch last year, and we also had Christoph Sauser along for the first hour. However he turned round when the hills began at Sir Lowry’s Pass (the 1st Pass of the ride) – these multiple World Champions huh!? I should note that he rode it solo the day before in 4 hours and 10 minutes … which could well be record time. Myself and Will Clake may attempt a two-up to challenge that time in Feb when he pitches up…….

Some views that Dan took of the ride below:

And finally – the last descent dropping us back into Stellenbosch; Hellshoogte – representing the ‘4th Pass’:

Gav surveying his mtb playground

Although Gavin Noble and I have been living and training out of Stirling for a lot of collective years, we tend not to manage to train together that often due to our different racing schedules. Gav decided to travel to Stellenbosch with his mountain bike this month, so we have mostly only been logging the run miles together (him more so than me). During these runs I often learn nuggets of wisdom. - Our tempo session this morning was one such time………

As we ran through a dairy farm just behind the university here, we were stopped briefly by the farmer struggling to move a cow with its calf across the track. On our 2nd lap through the farm, I pointed out said cow and calf now safely in the field. Gav then asked if I had heard the story about the Farmer, which I hadn’t:

“One day a calf was born, and the farmer went into the barn to lift the calf up, put him down, and leave. The next day the farmer lifted the calf up once again, and yet again on the third, fourth and subsequent days. Everyday lifting the calf up for the next few months, until eventually, the farmer was lifting a small cow weighing over 100kgs. – All he had done was lift a little bit more everyday”.

‘So, we’re just lifting the calf everyday’, Gav assured me with his usual grin before starting the next interval.

- I’ve seen my first South African spider – a Rain Spider I am told. I don’t really mind what it’s called, it just means i won’t go anywhere near the bathroom for the rest of the day!!

- I fell over running in the park on the gravel, trying to keep up with Gavin I may add. This resulted in wounds akin to a bike crash. Thankfully I avoided one of those this week, although I am sure I used up one of my 9 lives in doing so. My heart rate went through the roof and I somehow perfected the art of a fish tail skid on my time trial bike (not recommended) in order to stay upright.

- I had almost all my hair chopped off in an attempt to feel less hot whilst training. So far so good (on the training front, perhaps not on the looks front).