For my Friend

Early this morning when I took Eddy out to do his business, I had a look at the sky and it didn't look promising. A 6 hour bike ride was on the training plan but I didn't want to ride in the rain.

The clouds were thick and I decided to do my ride indoors on the Computrainer instead of going out with the club at 7am. I decided to reshuffle my schedule and to do my Gym and Swim session in the morning and then the dreaded Indoor ride followed by a run in the afternoon.

So I went back to bed and watch some rugby on TV before I had to get started if I wanted to finished at some decent time. Funny but about three hours later the whole day became so clear and all the clouds disappeared, nice going Johan, doing your bike ride indoors on a warm sunny day, way to go!

I also had my own swim coach today in the form of my daughter, DJ. She went along when I went to the gym and while I was doing weights she was practising her dancing. When I did my swim after the weights she was finished and joined me at the pool.

There was no shortcut, she was counting the laps and even during the rest periods in between I had to leave on the exact time or she would tell me I need to go and I must hurry up. At one stage she said I only did 6 laps of a set and not 8 as supposed to. I said I did 8 and she said no you did not and made me do another 2 laps.

When I did my 100's she said during one rest interval, "you know it takes you a whole 1:30 to do 4 laps, it's a bit slow" I wasn't impressed as I think it is really fast from where I'm coming from.

OK, before I continue I just need to clarify something. We are not immigrating to Ontario Canada. Few people asked me about this as I said we will be immigrating in about two years time. Bryan Payne left a comment on a previous post and asked were are we moving too. Knowing that his a real sport I said Ontario Canada, I think he lives close by. In fact we are moving to the East Rand area where I work, in two years from now.

If it was 15 years ago I would have immigrated but we are at such a stage in our life's that immigrating is not an option anymore. If DJ comes to me in 10 years from now and wants to pursue her future in another country, especially the US, I won't stand in her way.

Now seeing that I decided to do my bike ride indoors I decided to do the new Ironman St George course on the Computrainer. Being some sort of number/statistical freak I decided to analyse the profile of the course. I've done this with IM South Africa's bike course and know exactly how the course pan out and it has help me a lot on race day.

The following few paragraphs is for Bryan http://www.trainingpayne.blogspot.com/ who's doing IMSG in four weeks, if your are not into numbers or is not doing IMSG you can stop reading.

Bryan if you don't wanna see what the IMSG bike course is all about you can also stop reading. I personally like to know what I am in for but others like the surprise element.

The course on Computrainer has the first 36 km out and then one lap of 72km but on race day you gonna do two 72km laps.

As you said it is a hilly course and I can second that, it is very hilly.

The first 6.5km is flat and then you will have 2.5km downhill(dh).

From 9 to 12.3km it's uphill between 3 and 4% gradient.

Then it's dh again until the 15km mark.

This continue until the 28km mark(rolling hills with no major hill)

At the 28km mark you will encounter your first hill with a gradient of between 5.5 and 6% and it last for 7km until the 35km mark. The last 3.5km of this hill is at between 2 and 3%.

From 35km to 39km it's dh with some flat sections.

From 39km the climb starts at a steady but not to bad gradient of between 1 and 3%. This last until the 74km mark with a short dh at the 50km mark( about 700m)

At 74km you will encounter your first hard hill with a gradient which starts at 6% and builds up to 9.5% and drops again to 6%. The hill is 1.5km long.

From 75.5km to 78km it's a flat section.

At 78km waits another hill of 2.5km with a 6% gradient

From 80.5k to 90.5 is a steady climb with gradients vary from 1.5% to 3%.

From 90.5km to 108km it's dh with the gradient varying from -1% to -5% and there are some short flat sections in between.

This is the end of lap one and you will have to do the hill again for a second lap( the same info as from km 36).

I did write down every and any bump and little hill but as I said I am a bit of a number freak and decided not to post all the little detail, will be a very very long post.

Hope you find it helpful but remember as the saying goes: "The best advice ever given to me was not to take advice form everybody".