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I am a finisher - by Paulo Fonseca

6/29/2017

Six years ago, I was living in Mozambique. I am missionary and I was making a project to suport 300 poor kids with food, medicine, school and sports.

I am atlete since 1992 with 32 marathons, 1 ironman and 1 Conrades in my curriculum. In 2011 I had a huge dissease, called Malaria and almost died. I stayed in coma for 16 days.

Therefore, god healed me but i still weak to do sports mainly long distances. I thought that i never would do a marathon or ironman again.

In january 2017 I decide to begin train again even knowing my limitations of health. Were 5 months and i was ready. Im finisher ironman 70.3 in Durban in 6js and 5 min and Im so happy.

I dont win the race but I earned a lot of new friends.

Thank you god.

Thank you my new friends from Trifactri team.

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Winning loves preparation - by Jade Nicole

6/28/2017

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I’m still on cloud 9 after winning the Standard Bank Durban 70.3 Half Ironman, my first big win as an athlete. It’s been an incredibly journey so far this year, where the long hours of training and the extra effort put into working on my weaker areas are now finally paying off. Its never easy to be on top form all year round, so selecting key races and wanting to be at my best for that specific goal is the way I like to do it. When I look back to what I put down at the beginning of this, and what I wanted to achieve, I can tell you I am on my way to achieving the goals I have set out for myself

Leading up to Durban wasn’t so smooth. I had a few niggles that decided to play up a week before the race, which had me doubt my abilities. I wasn’t in a good headspace at all and this made me extremely nervous just knowing that I’m not going to be able to give this race my everything, but the mind is a powerful thing and said no more negativity, just stay focused and rest up.

The race was a non-pro start, so this gave the age groupers an open opportunity to showcase what we had. The swim start is always manic and getting to the front is always important for a good position coming out the water. I swam a 28min/ 1.9km coming out 2nd Female and had a super long run to my bicycle into T1 (the transitions were different this year being in two different locations). The bike being my strongest discipline, I was feeling solid and took the lead passing Lauren Dance and managed to open up a nice gap between the other female competitors. The wind wasn’t favorable so it was a tough hilly 90km cycle out there.

I hit the run feeling like my legs had something left in them and got into a comfortable pace for the 21km very flat, fast course.

The Sun Coast promenade run is very deceiving and you think flat means easy, but once your out there, you realize that the legs get no time for recovery and you jarring that course all the way to the finishing line. I could the see the girls Gabi and Natia as we passed each other on the 2-lap course, which kept fighting all the way. I held onto the lead and finished my race in a time of 4hours50min.

Being on the top step of the podium is a very special thing and to see all my energy I put into the sport achieving results is what keeps me purpose driven. At the end of it all, I do this because I love it. It makes me push my body to unknown limits everyday during training and racing. I sometimes think to myself, what am I doing out here, running 21x800m, swimming 80x50m and putting my body in the hurt locker like it’s a normal routine. It is never easy or everyone would be doing it, the rewards are so sweet and I’m super blessed.

Thank you to my coach Lucie and team for the huge support, it can’t be done alone. When your out there putting in the long hours of training and having the motivation from your team, it really is a great feeling, even under pressure, its awesome! I’m planning on doing my first overseas race towards the end of the year to test my abilities and give me the opportunity to race with the top athletes. The best is yet to come.

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The race that was not a race… - By Di Kelway

6/15/2017

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There was a common trend in the advice I was given leading up to running the London Marathon, my first marathon, ”enjoy every minute”, “once in a life time event”, “it is not a race”, “embrace the experience”, “you will just love it”…and on it went in the same vein.

I was very unsure how I was going to embrace/enjoy/experience/take in the sights/be around 40,000 runners AND still run 42 km – my word that’s a HUGE ask. Anyone who knows me knows how I feel about races and people. Lucie kept telling me I was going to be fine, my team members kept telling me I was going to be fine, so this time I really thought I would try my best to just enjoy the event!
The morning arrived, we met the group downstairs and Bruce Fordyce (#namedropping) took one look at Chris (my husband) and I and said we had too many clothes on and we were going to overheat on the run. It was rather cold outside and expecting to reach a high of 12 degrees, but we decided to listen to our new friend Bruce (I mean he must know these things!!) We race upstairs, stripped off and got ready once again (somewhat chilly).

We reached the start and the first thing that I see is a sign for FEMALE URINALS – ummmmm…. Being rather nosy I had to go and see what this was all about. I grabbed another girl and off we went.

My word I don’t think I have laughed so much going for a wee. At the entrance you get handed a fold up cardboard thing, called a P-Mate, to aid the use of a urinal like a boy.
The levels of laughter erupting out of this square in the middle of the field were hysterical. Some ladies got stage fright, some missed the P-Mate entirely and some just couldn’t even attempt it. I am happy to report I was successful, although I did laugh the whole way through.

After that experience I just knew it was going to be a fun day. Two minutes before the start, clothes are flying everywhere. People take off their track tops/jackets and throw them over the fence (these are collected for charity); it looked like a graduation ceremony. And suddenly WE ARE OFF…. thousands and thousands of people, my word so many people, runners and spectators everywhere!

A very fascinating aspect to this marathon is the blue line. This line is the exact distance and the objective is to keep to that line as best as possible.

The elite runners pretty much run on the line the whole way. The rest of us just need to make sure we are always ahead of the blue line cleaners who come up behind the last runners and clean the blue paint off the road to ensure the road is clean soon after the race. With that knowledge off I went….

It was way, way more than I ever dreamed it would be. I enjoyed every single one of the 26 miles. I loved seeing the red and white balloon mile markers. Wearing a South African running top I got a lot of support and encouragement. It was difficult to actually run in the beginning, as the three start areas all merge at a point, but with all the excitement around, it was difficult to be grumpy.

A few miles in, I hear people shouting HUMP, HUMP, HUMP – I was rather confused as I didn’t know this running term. But once I ran over the speed humps in the road I realised they had marshals indicating where the speed humps were – giggling once more I skipped along.

Every mile there are St John’s medics standing with their hands out – once again I was confused, but with so many people I couldn’t really see what was happening. A lot of children along the way count the number of times runners touch their hands and there is much excitement amongst the children. I did plenty of high fives to add to their numbers. So you can imagine I was a little confused with the Medics. I decided to get closer and see what was happening as people kept stopping there. To my amazement, all the medics had big clomps of vaseline on their hands for the runners in case you missed a spot. I thought this was such a brilliant idea. Clearly I had not done any long distance running as all of this was new to me.

For me the experience felt like one continuous party – plenty of people, music, food and alcohol – what more do you need. The noise was unexplainable, it was so loud. From mile 0 right through to mile 26 it was so loud – a combination of people and music. I stopped and took a lot of selfies as I was determined to remember everything. Running over Tower Bridge was a highlight as I knew I was half way. I felt good, I felt strong and I was so happy to be there.

I met up with friends, enjoyed a hug and a banana (and a selfie) and off I went.

When I got to the 32 km point I felt rather emotional as that was the furthest I had ever run, so anything after that was new to me.
Coming through the last tunnel (about 20 mile mark) I heard Bruce Springsteen playing on the sounds system – I had a little dance as it was a great song. The crowd clapped, cheered and shouted for South Africa.

With a skip in my step I continued alongside the Thames homeward bound. I wanted it all to slow down as I didn’t want the experience to end. Next was the Big Ben selfie and round the corner to see the Queen at Buckingham Palace.

On my training runs I had practiced running with my phone as I wanted to record the last bit of the run. I curtseyed to the Queen, pressed record and recorded the last 500m trying to absorb the last few minutes of this amazing experience. And then it was over!!

I DID IT - I had run 42.7km (I didn’t stick to the blue line) and it will go down as the best experience of my life!!

Could I have run faster – YES
Would it have been as memorable - NO
Experience - PRICELESS

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I am a finisher - by Paulo Fonseca

Winning loves preparation - by Jade Nicole

The race that was not a race… - By Di Kelway

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