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!
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The day I had been training for had finally arrived. It was that inevitable day of taking on my first triathlon race. Sure, it was just a sprint race, but to me, it was a whole lot more than that. It was the culmination in a few months of rigorous intense training, hours spent smelling of chlorine, tan lines (yes I get them), orange flavored gel breath and the consumption of a lot of oats and honey.
Trying to remember all of Johan ‘JB’ Bronkhorst’s advice from the day before, I checked in my bike, hung up the bike and running transition bags and then casually made my way through to the Trifactri team Gazebo. Familiar faces were all about. A lot of supporters had travelled up from Johannesburg to Sun City and everyone knew it was my first race. The questions and comments had been flying about, ‘are you ready for this?’, ‘just have fun’, ‘don’t forget to smile for the cameras’ etc. I nodded in nonchalant approval. Those butterflies that were floating about, suddenly felt like gigantic bats fluttering about in my belly. It all started 4 years ago with my first triathlon 5150 Bela Bela. Ironman was never ever in my mind to do as I thought who can do a 3.8km swim, 180.2km bike and then run a marathon afterwards, this must only be for the pro’s. No normal human can go through this?
So I started with a few Olympic distance events not that I was good at all, battled probably the first 2 years to brake 3 hours on an Olympic distance. I eventually got the courage together to enter my first 70.3 East London. I could not do this by myself and who better to do my first one with, my wife. She was not keen at first but also agreed to enter (well I just entered her and let her know afterwards). So training was going on but not much to write home about. In December of 2015 I rode between Christmas and New year in the Cradle to get a few long rides in and I saw a group of people in pink and blue coming past me. Boy they flew and I pedaled so hard just to catch up with them and started to chat to a guy named Richard Gaugeler. We chatted from Lion and Rhino park to the first stretch on the caves rode where he had to do Intervals. But in that time he mentioned how awesome this group of people is and how they encourage one another and push each other to their limits. So, I’m an Ironman. I know it because Paul Kaye said it. He’s the voice of Ironman here in South Africa. As you run down the red carpet to the finish line of an Ironman race, it’s announced “Geoffrey Smith, You ARE an IRONMAN”. Every age group athlete has fantasized that Ironman moment and hears those words in their head while imagining it over and over. On many long runs, bike rides, or pool workouts I played out the red carpet moment, crossing the finish, hearing those words. That moment would be an ultimate moment of this journey
Before I started triathlon, I always followed the sport in awe of all the athletes. Chrissie Wellington was an early favourite of mine, especially after reading her book. She wrote that her motivation always came from a poem by Kipling – IF. It really is a remarkable piece of writing, do yourself a favour and read it.
‘If you can dream—and not make dreams your master’ Ironman was never a dream of mine. It was just impossible. 3.8km swim, 180km cycle and 42.2km run. Ha that’s only reserved for the heroes of our time! But then I met one of my own hero’s, Lucie Zelenkova. After training with Luc for 3 years, she instilled the possibility in me to take on the challenge. At first I thought she was mad! Da last thing I remember was Wednesday about lunchtime, den its all pretty blurry till I got blood back in my head about Sunday evening... just kiddin...not!
It started off Wednesday arvi wita 4km swim incl alota !'s & death by flapin arms. Thursday we dida morn ride inda rain wit sum good intervals ridin back down Brondal bumps & ashort mountain hike/brick run afterwards. To make sure we wer hungry for dinz we hada swim wit more !'s & death by flapin arms set. Triathlon. My wife and I did our first triathlon as a team. She ran, we canoed, and I road my bike. The Great Race in St Albans Bay, Vermont. 5k run, 3k paddle, 12k bike. It’s a fixture on the July 4 weekend in northern Vermont. The year was 1982. The event was 2yrs old at the time. It’s still going strong. In October of that year, I watched Julie Moss crawl across the finish line of the Ironman Championships in Kona. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbWsQMabczM IF you haven’t watched this footage, you MUST. I was one of the millions who watched this on TV in 1982 broadcast on ABC by Wide World of Sports! 35 years ago. Needless to say, Triathlon caught my attention as did the Ironman idea.
To say Ironman was a dream 35 years ago is not completely accurate. Frankly, I never thought I’d be this close to entering, let alone entertaining the finish of an Ironman. To think I’m 35 days out (as of last Sunday)……I always treated a full Ironman as a fantasy. Even after completing several half IMs, a full IM seemed out of the question. It was December 2016 when one of my best friends (and my personal trainer), Jade Nicole, finally convinced me that doing a triathlon would be a great new sporting challenge for me. I had just come off a fantastic field hockey season and I had made the decision to retire from high level competition, having been competing in hockey at all levels for just over 18 years. I was open to tackle new encounters that would test my body, mind and spirit in a different way. I figured triathlons would be an interesting ‘out of my comfort zone’ challenge to take on.
Having known Jess Dignon from my hockey past, I contacted her and after our interview, I had joined Trifactri in their beginner training programme, with Jess as my coach. We discussed, that given my triathlon experience (0%), work, study and other sporting commitments, a sprint in May at Sun City would be an ideal race for my first triathlon. I was suddenly caught up in the hype of training, trying to hit the daily ‘greens’ on my Training Peaks account. After a further discussion with Jess and Lucie, I signed up for the training camp in Nelspruit, to further improve my fitness and skill base. In 2015 it was decided that the Full Ironman was going to be on the cards for me again in 2017 with my first and last race being in 2014. To enter and compete, or rather complete the 2014 Ironman was done purely because a friend had taken part the year before and I figured ‘If he can do it I can do it’!
Training for the event was pretty poor and we didn’t really have a plan going into it, I think my mountain biking and Trail running back ground was the only thing that saved me on the day, but I managed to complete the race and said the following year I would train and have a better race. It has taken a little longer than expected to get back to the big race. So there I was about a year ago. I have done a few of these 70.3 and 5150 thingies and I was getting comfortable with the training regime and the lifestyle. But, there was something missing. I have previously chatted to some 70.3 and 5150 friends, and a few inspired me with their achievements. Mostly, because they were of a slightly “bigger frame” and “carried a teenager around” – much like me. It has always been on my bucket list to do an ultra-type of sports event. Comrades was even contemplated, but there is too much running involved. With all of this is mind, I took the plunge and entered for the full in PE this year. What an achievement??!! Well I thought so, my bank manager not as much.
So after Durban 70.3 I started to train a bit harder- apparently full is a bit tougher than a 70.3. I was with another coach and suddenly got to know what the hype is about Training peaks and Strava. Unfortunately I had insight and got a lot of gossip from the Trifactri camp the whole time (Brother in law and his Kona buddies!!!). I was continuously told about the excellent training and team spirit that I am missing. It had to come to some point, and whilst I was being thrown with ice (instead of it being given to me) at Midlands, I realised that I am missing out – I needed to step up my training. I was meeting my friend Vanessa for a drink at Huddle Park golf club when I read Helen's post on FB. It was the 28th October last year, I had just vaguely recovered from Kona and like a typical addict I had to find a way to feed this triathlon monkey on my back. I remember thinking that this would be the perfect way to take a break without really taking a break...what a great plan! I could give something back to the sport without having the pressure of competing. So I responded to Helen, and after some back and forth we agreed to meet. Now let me just say I'm not sure what I expected; maybe a sweet, coy, partially sighted lady who has been waiting her whole life for me to guide her to her first Ironman finish...haha...but as Kim would say, "A cup of tea with 2 sugars is sweet...!"
When I got home I said to Kim, "Yoh! This women is feisty!" To which she replied, "Oh, and you're not?" Yes Helen is feisty, and why shouldn't she be? She has fought many a battle in her life and she is a survivor. I remember it was 3 days before my birthday in November when I finally had the guts to commit to my goals for 2017. I had been putting off getting myself a coach for a while before I decided it was time to finally call up Lucie and talk training.
The past 12 weeks have been some of the best training I have ever done and can’t even begin to tell you how Lucie has transformed me into the triathlete I am right now. There have been early morning wake ups before work to swim, long hours on the road, tough repetitive kilometers on the track, but it’s so worth it. To see the hard work pay off is something so sweet. This was my third Buffalo City IM70.3 and boy oh boy it never seizes to unleash the conditions on us athletes!
The day I entered this race is the day my journey shifted a little bit. I was reading so many reviews on the race and chatting to everyone that has done it, about this unknown mountain lying ahead. The more people painted their portraits of the race the more excited I became to be able to take part in this Buffalo of a race.
I did what most competitive people would do and checked the times of the previous year’s podium finishers… and there it was – a little bit of a sparkle. A gap in the time where I knew I could possibly hop in. Immediately contacting Coach Desi that is always readily available with firstly...calming the little excited nervous athlete and then a short powerful message that reads “it’s doable”. Well it’s like getting your training peaks and looking at it with big eyes and thinking – if coach thinks I can do this then I better do this. I’ve always been interested in doing a triathlon but didn’t know where to start or how to go about it.
In July I decided that it was now or never, I had been following the Trifactri Facebook page for a few months and decided to contact Jess to find out more about it and I joined the team. I am a bit of a race junky so I entered a few triathlon races before my training had even started, my first race was to be the Sun City Global 11. I had never swum in open water before and the week before the race Jess took me to Emmarentia dam for my first swim. Have you ever had family members or ‘non-tri-friends’ look at you like you’re actually just stupid. I mean, “Why would you WANT to do all this training?” or “Why would you want to get up at 4am every day just to swim/cycle/run?” and “why go to all that effort?” Well, YES, we have all had THAT look. So WHY they ask? The answer is simple:
I wrote a blog yesterday about how I LOVE racing – I do, more than anything. Then last night I lay in bed thinking about everything I, as a triathlete, fit into my daily routine and I know this applies to most of you – no matter what your end goal is: finishing an Ironman, breaking a specific hour mark in the Ironman distance, completing your first triathlon – whatever it may be.
Most of us get up at ungodly hours when the majority of the population is still in ‘lala land’. We fit in that early training session, get kids ready for school, give the ‘better half’ their share of love, fight traffic, work all day, fight traffic, do homework with kids, make dinner, clean around house, try make time for the ‘better half’, then often work again and then try get 6-7 hours sleep before it all starts again. This blog is not so much about the one race I have just completed - 70.3 Xiamen, China, but the thing that keeps me motivated from race to race and keeps that desire to compete alive - I simply LOVE racing! Yes, and I won't lie, I enjoy beating others I race against!
I am a person who lives life from goal to goal - I set myself goals in my personal life, at work and in my sport, and I will stop at nothing to achieve these set goals. They hardly ever come easy and some take time and I suppose there is one relating to triathlon that has taken many years. My incredible wife, Sharon, wrote an article on Facebook after I completed Xiamen, about how she is a firm believer that ‘life is a journey and not a destination’. Kona 2016
It’s now almost a month since I competed at Kona and I’m still struggling to find the words for this blog. A few days before the race there was a post on facebook, I think it was by Brett Sutton saying that it should be treated as “just another race”. But I think that’s just about impossible for most of us that were there. It is very difficult not to be overwhelmed by the enormity of the occasion. It is very difficult not to overthink the whole thing. I arrived in Kona 10 days before the race and my sole focus was to get used to the conditions; to eat well, to train and to REST. My build up to Kona this year was extremely stressful; physically, emotionally and financially. But I don’t really think that this is unique to me. Any Ironman age grouper will tell you about the sacrifices it takes to race well at an Ironman race combined with the stresses of daily life; and each athlete has a unique set of circumstances that they are dealing with. The only thing I could think about was that there was no ways I was going travel halfway around the world (without Kim!), train so hard, spend all that money, sacrifice time with friends and family, to not have my very best possible race. Last year, I finished the race with some “could haves” and “should haves” and as I said to Lucie before the race, I wanted to finish knowing that I had done everything within my power to put my best race together. I had always dreamed of Kona, and had read so much about the race, the course, the athletes, Huggo’s, the undie run, and so on. What I didn’t envisage was how tough writing about the race would be. Unlike my only attempt at racing on the Big Island, this is my sixth attempt at this race report.
My IMSA performance of 9:51 was fairly acceptable, considering some time away from training and racing for 2 years. But I was still a little surprised to be heading down the steps onto Dig Me Beach to start at the Ironman World Championship. I was feeling fairly neutral heading into the race. After some decent training and guidance from friend, superstar (she’s led Kona for the first 2 and a half hours before!) and coach Lucie, my swimming, biking, and running times and power were all much improved since April. Part 1 - Ironman Sweden
Well Ironman Sweden was unplanned, planned race. I think I had already entered the race in March this year. It was a race which was always on my bucket list and this year was PERFECT YEAR TO TICK THIS off the list. But…… I then did Ironman Brazil in the May and it didn’t go anything like how I wanted it to. I had bad day all round. Race day the weather was miserable – pouring with the rain and I just simply didn’t enjoy the race at all. The last thing on my mind was doing another Ironman soon, so Sweden was forgotten. All I wanted was bit of break, maybe late season Ironman? (I can’t finish my career on such a low) but definitely didn’t relish the thought of training through the South African winter. Patience ............. A word that lies in the middle of "Dreams" and "Reality" - by Garron Mosley10/18/2016 Patience A word that lies in the middle of "Dreams" and "Reality". In 2014 I left the Big Island of Hawaii with a clear thought in my mind that I would NOT be back. It was a once off, a privilege to say I raced on the same course as the best in the world. I'd done what I thought at the time was my best. In terms of where I was I'd given my best. I'd never worked so hard for anything in my life and the result was my fastest Ironman, on arguably one of the most challenging courses.
It was mid 2015, about 9 months later, that I realised that I could possibly do it again. I didn't just want to race on the same course, I wanted to compete. In doing so the gap between Dreams and Reality would need to shorten by some margin. I needed to set mini goals and hit those on time in order to ensure I would be competitive.
Urgent 6th November 2016 Trinity Event is the CGT Triathlon Team Selection for 2017 SA Tri Championships. TSA have yet to provide a date for the SA Tri Champs 2017 but TSA have now mentioned that there is a possibility that the SA Championships may take place at the beginning of February 2017. This although not confirmed by TSA puts CGT in real spot of bother as we have time constraints with regard to the selection of our teams, the time required to order and manufacture kit and finalise the payments for kit / event. As such we have no choice but to do the following in respect of our CGT Triathlon Championships and the selection of the CGT Provincial Triathlon Team,
7. Event Info and Entry - Click Here 8. RACE CATEGORIES: KIDS fun EVENT - 8 - 11 JUNIORS - 12-13 / 14-15 / 16-17 / 18-19 SENIORS - 20-24 / 25-29 / 30-34 / 35-39 / 40-44 / 45-49 … etc., (in 5 year Age Groups up to whatever Age. ARE YOU READY TO COMPETE? Regards Central Gauteng Triathlon Committee I’m on a plane somewhere above the Rockies at the moment, and I’m slowly trying to pull the pieces of my race together. For now, I’d like to let you know what the experience is like before and after the race. I’ll get to the experience of the race in the next post The World Championships have been coming to Kona since 1980 (the first two were held on the more populous and smaller island of at O’ahu). This means that the operation is slick. The impressive transition area is housed on a very small pier – less than half a rugby field in size, and the finish line is on the main beachfront road – Ali’i Drive. The whole setup is undertaken on Thursday, and by Friday morning, the bike check-in opens.
The last few days have been very busy with activities and getting ready for the race. Then the exhibitors have taken over large parts of the town with some of the kit in the triathlon world. And we’ve had our first few official athletes event.
Race week: Training wise, I’ve managed to tick on okay. There are some slight niggles that always seem to work their way into your system come race week. Some are genuine and will probably pass in a few days, but often they are manifestations of nerves, stress, intimidation or just demons in your head. Sitting on the beach, or overlooking the lava fields (whatever suits) is a nice way to get you focused. Talking expo and gear, I thought I’d include a little bit about what I’m taking into the race and why. This may be a bit boring for those wanting to hear about palm trees and turtles, but it may be of relevance for those wanting to race in or get to Kona. I’ve included this section down at the bottom. |
Authors:Where Trifactri athletes get to tell their side of the Swim, Bike and Run Archives
May 2018
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