Two more Lessons

Not long ago I posted 10 Lessons from Kona on things I'll do differently or change somewhat. Not long after the post I realized that I missed 1 very important lesson.

Lesson 11

What ever nutrition you use and train with, make sure you have them available on race day. During the bike part of an Ironman race I trained to use Mars bars as part of my nutrition to fuel me. I didn't know that Mars bars was not something you get in the US and therefor I didn't take a lot of them with me. Only in Kona I realized that I will need to make another plan as I could not find any.

Luckily Bryan Payne helped me and notified me that Milky Way is the "Mars Bar" of the US. Although it didn't taste the same it did the job on race day.

So remember to never assume and take ALL your nutrition with you if you race in a foreign country.

Lesson 12

Well this is not really a lesson in general and will probably not be applicable to you all, only to someone who Blog, Tweet and Phone his family a lot while he is in a foreign country and is on Roaming rates.

I did mention when I was in Kona that my cell phone company phoned me and gave me a wake up call on my international roaming bill that was climbing at the speed of light.

Well NOTHING prepared me for the bill I received yesterday. Apart from my normal mobile phone expense, which is high due to the nature of my business, there is an additional R9726 ($1300) for roaming. I knew it was going to be high but never thought it will be that high.

Three weeks abroad and what do you expect. I don't even want to think about what I could have done with the money but that's the price you pay for keeping in contact with your friends when you are not in your home country.

So lesson number 12, decide before you travel abroad if you want to stay connected and pay the price or be "off the air" for the entire trip and maybe buy $1300 worth of Tri gear.

Apart from the Mobile shock this week, I am slowly getting back into the groove and are now really itching to get back into "full time" training. So far I've only been keeping myself busy but I feel that I need to and want to start training again twice a day.

At first there was no intention to train, then the mind wanted to train but the body said no way. Now the mind is really getting irritated and anxious to get going and the body says OK lets go.

I guess this is a sign that I've recovered and are ready. My official training for Ironman South Africa starts on the 7th of December and I think I will slowly start increasing the training to be ready and motivated to go 100% comes 7 December.

Today's training:

Run: 35 min, 7.2km, 142 bpm, 559kcal

Bike 1h15, 40km, 130 bpm, 1046kcal