Unusual way to Celebrate

This past Saturday was our 17th wedding anniversary and we drove more than 500km to celebrate.

DJ had a dance competition and we drove to Bloemfontein for her to participate. Not your typical wedding anniversary celebration but hey, what you'll do for your child.

She did great and got a 1st place in Freestyle and a 6th in Slow dance. We finished later than expected on Saturday and instead of driving back to Witbank we changed our travel plans and stayed an extra night.

This gave us the opportunity to celebrate our anniversary and also DJ's dance results.

On the training front it is going better by the day and I am slowly getting back into things after my two week lay off due to flu.

This weekend is going to be a real challenge and one I probably regret come Monday.

I am doing a 175km road race on Saturday and a 40km Mountain bike race on Sunday.

The thing is I've entered this event some time ago and was doing OK training wise to do a reasonable time but getting flu didn't help at all. The race is in Kim's hometown and we decided to make it a weekend, when I entered some time ago.

Too late to change the family plans now, just need to SIU.

Another Curve Ball

We recently received some bad news about Kim's brother, Niel.

Niel has been diagnosed with Kidney Cancer and that at the age of 41!

We got the news before my sister's wedding but didn't want to upset and spoil the wedding, so we kept it to ourselves. He did undergo surgery to remove some of the cancer that has spread and they even had to break two ribs do get to the infected area and to remove it. He is now better after the surgery and has recovered in such a way that they could start with radiation to see if it will help.

If it doesn't help they are going to remove one of the kidney's. On the positive side the cancer has only affected the one kidney and the other one is still clean.

We are visiting him as often as we can as he now lives with his fiance and not with us anymore. They stay in Boksburg, about 100km's from us.

Get better soon Niel and we are praying for you.

I've been struggling with Flu the past couple of weeks but I said to Kim if you think about Niel and his set back you don't even wanna complain about having Flu. The only downside is I haven't been able to train for the past few days but hey it's Winter and maybe the downtime will do me good.

Picture is of Kim, her brother Niel and sister Marle at Marle's birthday on the 20th of February

Back to Normal, sort of

Last weekend was my sister's wedding and after months of planning the day was gone in a flash.

Luckily everything went well and we had a lot of fun. Apart from Heloise being late more than an hour but I must add that it wasn't her fault. Let's just say there was some miscommunication with the hairdressers and let's leave it there.

I knew that Gerhard had a lot of patience but waiting more than an hour just confirmed it. A very big thank you to my friend Warren who let the ceremony, it was great. Not that often that you get a lot of compliments for the ceremony and message from the Pastor. Thanks W!

It was a very emotional day for me as had to stand in for my Dad who passed away five years ago. Bringing Heloise into the Church and also saying something about the Bride's parents wasn't easy but it was a big honour and I know my Dad's would have approved.

We are still waiting for the official wedding photos while the two are on their honeymoon in Mauritius but Yolandi, a friend of Gerhard, Heloise and also the daughter of Debbie, who is Kim's friend took some lovely pictures. I've posted it on my Face book page

We had a great Mother's day breakfast the morning after the wedding and then it was back to normal getting all the things back to Witbank. Gerhard and my Mom surprised Heloise with an Ice cream wedding cake and it this big three layer cake. The guests could only finish one layer, so we are having ice cream for the next, I don't know how many months.

The company that made the cake supplied us with a freezer to transport the cake and when I picked it up Friday afternoon the owner asked me how far is the venue. I said between 1.5 and 2 hours. His words: Try making it in an hour.

Not that easy when you have to face Pretoria and Johannesburg traffic on a Friday afternoon. With DJ as my co-pilot we did the trip in 1h15. Coming back after the wedding with what was left of the cake was a breeze as it was Sunday morning and no pressure of a perfect cake.

Only problem was finding enough space to store that amount of ice cream. I had to use a saw to cut the cake in smaller pieces and Eddy had a blast and a sugar rush from all the ice cream that was waisted and also helping to clean the back of the truck after I finished.

The past weekend DJ had two dance competitions, both on the same day. We are still new to this dance thing but organizing two competition on the same day by the same governing body doesn't make sense to me, maybe someone at SADTA can explain this to me. At the one venue in Pretoria she did her Freestyle and Slow dance competition and then she had to do her small group competition in Centurion about a 30 minute drive.

Another hectic day as we had to wait for her to finish her couples section, then we jumped in the car rush to the other venue for the small group to dance. Then we had to rush back to Pretoria for her to dance again.

The program was so tight and as we arrived back at the venue they were at item #121 and DJ had to dance item #120. She was devastated as it was the slow dance section she missed and also her favourite dance routine.

To see my girl that way just broke my heart. I told her to make the best of the Freestyle item and make up for the section she missed and she did. She danced her heart out and made me so proud.

After all the drama she had a great day finishing 1st in the Couples and the Freestyle items. Well done DJ!

Training wise I had to put it on the back foot due to the wedding and just as I thought I'll get back into full training I'm down with Flu. Not good and so frustrated but what can I do, just need to rest and recover this week. Luckily we are now in the off season so no major races I am missing.

Long Weekend and a lot of Traveling

This was another long weekend and boy did we do a lot of traveling.
Saturday afternoon after my 3h30 brick session we went to visit Kim's brother in Benoni, about a hundred kilometers from Witbank. We haven't seen him since he moved from Witbank, which was about two months ago. We really miss him since he moved as he was staying with us and it took some getting used to with him not in the house anymore.

Sunday we drove to Polokwane, 300 kilometers from Witbank and visited my sister and also spend some time at my Fathers grave. My sister, Gerhard and my Mother joined us and we had some fun during our journey.

DJ fooling around with the camera

The road was very busy coming back as a lot of people returned from their holiday. A lot of people made it a mini vacation with two long weekends in a row and took the three working days off in between.

Today me and DJ went to the second Trail run in the series of five and it was just as much fun as last week.

When I checked the official results last week, I saw that DJ came first in her age group but during prize giving last week they gave another girl the first prize. I decided to send the organizers an email and they rectified it today, giving DJ her 1st prize from last week.

She had another great day today and finished 2nd in her group. What made me really proud is that she improved her time by more than 5 minutes and completed the 5km trail run in just under 30 minutes. I teased her and said she didn't give her best last week and was just fooling around.

The next event is towards the end of June and she is now super pumped to improve her time and said she is going to train really hard this coming month

I had a great day today as well and finished 2nd in the 40+ group and 6th overall. The route was different from last week with a lot more twist and turns and more sandy jeep track, river beds and short bumps/"hills" making it really challenging to find a rhythm.

My legs had a good workout and on a few occasions I had to play some catch up to prevent the body from running away from the legs.

Before the race I said to myself I want to run a sub 4min/km race but I didn't know that the route would be more difficult but I could still improve my time by one minute from last week.

I finished the 17.2km race in 1h10:43, so close but I am happy and my pace was 4:07min/km.

This week is the final arrangements before my sister's wedding this coming Saturday and as you can imagine a lot of stress in the household. Going to be hectic but I believe everything will turn out OK and if they don't so be it. Just like an IM race, if something goes wrong you re adjust and move on, nothing you can do about it.