Since I ate my helmet, (and embraced training technology when we started base training about a month ago.) I have been enjoying training with my Power Tap thoroughly. (Rent your Power Tap today from the folks at Saris/CycleOps, South Africa)
For Valentines’ Day, my coach Ian Rodger gave me 3 hrs at 300 Watts. So romantic.  [...]

After nearly 2 decades of being a pro triathlete, the Caveman finally stumbles out of his grotto, knuckles dragging, to discover the wonders of training technology!
I know I’ll get a lot of flack for this one.  (Ga Von Twitt- give me the best you’ve got!) Especially after this blog post about how backward the Caveman [...]

In search for the holy grail of sports performance, Irish National Team ITU member, Gavin Noble (Dublin Triathlon Champion this past weekend) cranks out the Watts in the lab. This kind of lab testing will give Gav and his coach all kinds of numbers they can play with in training. Tests will be repeated often, [...]

When it snows outside, you have to stay sane somehow!
For the past 11 years, Friday is my day off. Usually I’m quite broken by then and I’ll be dragging most of Friday- till energy slowly returns in the late afternoon. I try to use the rest day to catch up on admin, get a massage, [...]

“It was a dark and stormy night…”
No, just kidding!
“It was a bright and sparkly morning… Six of us - all friends and family- got together for a little informal XTERRA training camp on our farm near Lydenburg, Mpumalanga. Uh, thats South Africa.
These guys are all relative newbies to sport. Sorry Gustav- rugby (even provincial rugby) [...]

Amber and I needed to get out of the condo and daily town life, so we headed up the Cascades and camped at the foot of Broken Top. We camped and trained at 2000m, (the same alt as Tahoe- XTERRA USA Champs is in 2 weeks) enjoying the nice weather and the changing colours of [...]

Amber and I are in the thick of hectic training for the big races of the year. Yesterday she did a 6hr ride (WHY?!? - see why below) and I did a 4 hr ride with a short hard run off the bike. We met up along her way in Sisters, just outside our home [...]

This 4hr ride starts in Reno at 1300m altitude, climbs straight up to 2700m (takes me about 1h40 at 130 heart rate) and descends straight down to Incline Village, on the shores of Lake Tahoe. (1800m)
Fill up the bottles, (penalty points awarded for time spent off the bike) and start climbing back over. About 50minutes [...]

I just added my first page! All by myself. Of course it is about my coach Libby Burrell. It is not finished yet, but go to”pages” click, and take a peek.

On the 7 hr drive back to Stellenbosch after Ironman South Africa, we stopped at Klein Brak river mouth so I could do my last quality run before XTERRA South Africa this weekend. The sun was setting, the sea was thundering unhappily, and Amber sat on the beach, resting her Ironman legs and poking at [...]

One of the many great things I got to do while in PE for Ambers Ironman was exploring the South Africa East coast by mountain bike. Actually it was training, (1h30 ride with 8×20second sprints) but I played with the location a bit and what came out was this amazing ride from Schoenmaakerskop [...]

My 1st cyclocross ride. Stellenbosch, Idas Valley dam, Specialized Tricross S works. Like the rainbow jersey?

Benno (Specialized Team Mechanic) putting my new Specialized Tricross together. http://www.specialized.com/bc/SBCBkModel.jsp?sid=08Tricross

Ryan, the other bike genius, putting my Specialized Stumpjumper 29er together.

Benno proudly modeling the new ladies Specialized Team kit

I’m still on my parents farm near Lydenburg, South Africa, where I spent most of the Southern Hemisphere summer.
Real training started last Monday. My coach Libby Burrell (libbyburrell.blogspot.com) emailed a training program, now there is structure, and less play. Heart rate files are being recorded and emailed with my Suunto t6, logs filled in, [...]

• XTERRA is a strong mans race. An endurance event. Don’t let the seemingly short distances fool you. Forget about 400 repeats on the track and all-out sprints on the trainer. Think sustained power evenly delivered over 2.5 hours or more. Getting from A to B as fast as possible is all [...]