Wedding on the Horizon

It was quite a busy weekend but for a change it wasn't all about Ironman training.

Let me first start by saying that my sister and Gerhard got engaged yesterday. She is so happy and I am so glad for her. Gerhard is really a good guy and they deserve each other. He took her to a game farm for the weekend and had a picnic set out before he asked her.

He did asked me on Thursday if he can marry my sister. She insisted that he asked me and my mother for our approval because my father is not with us anymore. I wanted to give him a hard time but I couldn't and just gave him the normal pep talk to look after my sister.

When they arrived back from the farm today we were invited and had some champagne with them to celebrate. Their plan is to get married in October but if they can't find the right venue they are willing to postpone it to early next year.

DJ had another dance competition on Saturday and we stayed at Carnival City, a Casino and Entertainment complex which was also the venue for the competition. It is close to my work and I think it must have looked funny for some people as I arrived at the Hotel after work but Kim and DJ only arrived about a hour and a half later from Witbank.

I had a 30 minute easy run on my training schedule and with the roads being chaos on a Friday night in the city I decided to run round the parking lot of the complex. It took me just about 5 minutes to do one lap and part of the lap was running past the Casino entrance.

The people must have thought I was crazy from the looks I got, as they were entering the Casino in their smart out fits but hey I don't wanna get run over by some crazy East Rand driver going all out with his car after work probably on his way to a pub or coming from a pub.

One thing I can say is the people in the East Rand area drive like maniacs.

DJ did very well in the dance competition and went through to the finals in both her disciplines. She achieved a 2nd place in the slow dance division and a 6th place in the freestyle division. This has been by far the biggest competition she has entered and I must say I was very surprised but happy at how well she did.

We only arrived back in Witbank at 6pm as I first had to go back to work to pick up the Bus we're using down to PE and I had no choice but to do my moderate run in the dark. Lucky for me I was back in my home town and had no problem with my 1 hour run.

DJ in front of the dealership after I picked up the bus with her new T-Shirt.

This morning after Church I went to the Gym and did my swim session. I was really happy with the way the session went. I then had a 2 hour bike session and me and Kim decided to drive out to the Steel factory from where I could start. Thanks again for being driving behind me Kim for the 2 hours, I know it must be so boring, appreciate it.

The session was a 15 minute warm up, 1h30 at Ironman Race pace with a 15 minute warm down. The problem if I start at home is it takes me a good 30 minutes to get out of the city with lots of stop/starts, so I felt I would get more value out of the session if I start outside of town. I also used this session as a trial run and fitted the bike with my race wheels, all the race gadgets and I used my aero helmet.

At first I struggled somewhat to get going but after a while I could maintain my Ironman pace without any big hick ups. There was also a strong headwind going west, as if nature wanted to remind me of what's waiting in PE, the windy city.

I could also use the 15 minutes warm up to see if everything was fine with Matilda after I got her back from the bike shop on Thursday. Must say Marco and Liam at Cycle Tech do an amazing job and the bike was perfect.

The only thing I could hear was those Zipp wheels singing underneath me, with Matilda as quite as a Church Mouse.

I am not working this week and will get everything ready for our "Road trip" on Wednesday to PE.

Below is a short video Kim took while I was out cycling. I call it the slalom section. It's a short 200 odd meters section of road but with a sharp decline. There is very little traffic on this piece and I always go "slalom" with my bike. If the wind play along, some days I can reach up to 70km/h.

Today I could only get to 62km/h but it so much fun. As I always say you must have fun while training and racing or you might as well stop doing it.