Johan Jordaan

129 Days and counting (down)

2011-02-01T10:48:00.002+02:00

Today marks 129 days to go. Very odd number to be celebrating, so I decided to celebrate the fact that I love my mountain bike instead. I went for a 52km ride today before breakfast which got rather hectic. In the week I never ride offroad, because of security issues (people actually get highjacked while out riding their mountain bikes in Gauteng), so I went out with a group of roadies (road cyclist). Turns out Tuesday is the day they all go testing each other with so nasty fast riding. I loved it even though I was suffering just a little bit. Average HR for the 52km ride, 155 BPM. Not high? Well consider that I was cruising 7km to our meeting point with my heart rate not going over 120 once. That is included in there. I also stood at the meeting point waiting for the ride to begin for 4 minutes, my heart rate at 75BPM. That is also included in the 155BPM average. I think you can say I had fun.

52km month to date

140 Days

2011-01-21T10:36:00.001+02:00

The last 14 days didn't go quite according to plan. I haven’t been able to train as much as I want do to some issues with my skin, which has been keeping me out of sleep. But I started training again on Wednesday. I am not myself on the bike after so little sleep and training, but at least I’m riding. This morning I got a taste of what it feels like to get dropped (something I haven’t tastes very often in the last few months). What made it ultra-hard this morning is that I didn’t get dropped because of physical shortages, but because I simply didn’t have the willpower to keep going. That is very unlike me and causes me some concern for next weekend’s race. I hope I can keep it together.

Stop the Testing

2011-01-19T14:11:00.001+02:00

I never use to believe this, but i am starting to think that, professional sportsmen and women should not be tested at all. They should just be told what is banned, but never tested.

The reason I believe this, is because so many people waist so much time, testing the top cyclist and athlete in the world, yet the public makes up their own mind about who is doping and who not, irrespective of the test results.
the fact that certain people get caught, does not serve to prove that the test is working, but somehow in the public eye, it is clinical proof that the test is not working
The idiotic saying , "where there is smoke there is fire" still carries much more weight, than the most expensive scientific testing available.

To further support my point, there are huge sporting industries build in the US for instance, on sporting events where doping tests are never or seldom carried out, yet those sports only do better than the ones where testing is a priority. Those sports influence culture in a negative way, because it is such dumb sports, games really. if we could get cycling to be as "healthy" as American football, and influence culture, we would do very well. I say, stop the testing.

154 days to go

2011-01-07T16:39:00.001+02:00

I am planning to go to Nederland in June (leaving on the 10th) for a cycling holiday. I have dreamed of cycling in Nederland since I started cycling about 7 years ago. The objective is to go and have fun on some of the roads where the world’s top cyclist fight out some of the most prestigious races every spring. To make the trip worthwhile, I am going to need to be fit and lean. I need to at least look like a cyclist and I’m working to get in shape and even starving myself, for a cyclist that means eating only slightly more than other people.

I’ll be visiting my good friend Rik and we will attempt to also see nice stuff and not just ride our bikes, but ride our bike, we will. So far the plan is as follow.

Saturday - Nuenen and Cyclocross
Sunday – riding near Hulst
Monday – Paris with the TGV
Tuesday – riding in Zeeland
Wednesday - sightseeing
Thursday – riding in Ardennes
Friday – riding in Limburg
Saturday - sightseeing and Cyclocross
Sunday – Amsterdam

As is clear from the plan, cycling is a big part of the holiday, so apart from starving myself, I am also planning to some more cycling and a faster pace, in the coming months than in the years since my crash, which is almost 3 years ago. Starting this Saturday I will be riding 5 days a week with one long ride each weekend. This weekend my long ride will be the Babbas Lodge race (70km offroad). I’m not really planning to race, but I know myself well enough to realize that I will most likely get involved in things once I’m there.

My view on doping in sport

2010-10-07T11:56:00.001+02:00

The base of all physical ability in endurance sport has to be the amount of power you can generate sustainably. Mentality and technical ability are supporting factors, but if you cannot go fast in the first place, no amount of technical ability is going to help you sustain speed that you didn’t have in the first place, nor will a good mentality help you go faster, if your body can really just not go any faster. It is for this reason that dopers always try to enhance their ability to generate more power for longer times.
The basic measure for physical ability in endurance sport is the VO2Max. It measures how much oxygen an individual can use, for every kg of muscle weight he has. The average healthy man will have a VO2Max of 48. A top Endurance athlete will have a VO2Max of over 80, some cases close to 90. How much of a difference is that? I’ll try to clarify.
When an athlete trains exactly right, follows a healthy diet and sleeps enough, over time, the maximum difference he can make to his VO2Max is between 10 and 15%. It is possible to see no increase at all, in spite of training real hard. In many cases the only difference an athlete will see in his performance after training for weeks, is due to technical improvements and improvements in mentality. Frequently you will see that on a course where technical ability plays a small role, that an individual shows no improvements even after months of training. But best case scenario remains at between 10 and 15%. I have encountered one guy that trained hard for 18 months. Monthly he did a time trial over a 40km course to test himself. After 18 months his average speed was exactly the same as what he started with. A few subtle changes to his training program yielded significant improvements in just 3 months.
Now assume you have a few individuals of different talent, but with the same technical ability and the same mentality. Well start with Bob. He is an average healthy male with a VO2Max of 48. If he were to train perfectly, like a professional athlete, and eat healthy and sleep enough to sustain his training. He will eventually get to a VO2Max of 55.2. Now we have John, he is a slightly talented guy with a VO2Max of 58. In his untrained state, he will be a better endurance athlete, than Bob, even after Bob has followed a professional level training program for years. So you could forgive John to think he is talented. Fact is he would most likely win quite a few races in his junior years. If he then follows the same training program, diet and sleep habits that the professional athlete follows, also for years, he will eventually have a VO2Max of 66.7. I encountered two guys, one was similar to Bob, the other similar to John. They were both use to racing. The John got an injury and couldn’t train for more than a year. He had a race against the Bob, which was having the best training year of his life. The John won. Now we have Paul who has a VO2Max of 68. He is a very talented individual. When John reaches his top fitness level achievable to him, Paul will be better than John, even in an untrained state. Paul will most likely encounter very few people in his life that is better than his is. If Paul now follows the same training program for years, with healthy diet and enough sleep, he will after years of training achieve a VO2Max of 78. He will be able to mingle with the professional athlete of our world. Now we look at Fabian who has a VO2Max of 86. Even in his untrained state, he will relatively easily mingle with professionals. He will need to adjust to the feeling of pushing himself hard (mentality), he will need to gain the technical skill to travel at speed, but he will have the physical ability. Once he gains those skills, he will be much, much better than Paul. The likes of him comes along only once every 10 years or so. Purely physically speaking , what Fabian can do in his untrained state, is impossible to achieve for Paul. For John and Bob it is so far removed from their reality, one could forgive them for thinking that it is simply not possible. They will however be entirely incorrect. What is completely impossible for them is very much within reach for both Paul and Fabian. What is impossible for Paul, is simply a matter of hard work and dedication away for Fabian.
Now Barnard Kohl might claim it is not possible to win the Tour without dope, and partially he is correct. If Barnard Kohl shares Pauls abilities, it would be impossible for him, yet, he is a very good cyclist and in fact better than most people he will encounter in his life. But he is simply not talented enough. To claim that no one is talented enough is very arrogant, and ignorant. We know that Greg Lemond achieved a VO2Max of 89 before EPO was invented. We know that the young Lance Armstrong had a VO2Max of 86 when he was 16, before he was a professional athlete, and at a time when he was dependant on a single mother. This was also before EPO. There was no doping influence on that figure.
If a cyclist such as Kohl has done everything he can to achieve the highest VO2Max possible, he can now start looking at EPO and drugs like it, that will increase his anaerobic capacity. There are very few ways to achieve this.
1. Increase the blood’s ability to transport oxygen thus getting more oxygen to the muscle, and enabling the muscle to do more work. Effectively pushing up your VO2Max. EPO and CERA does this by creating more red blood cells in your blood. The % of red blood cells as a part of your blood volume will increase.
2. Increase the amount blood by taking a blood transfusion.
3. Take a blood transfusion of only red blood cells (same effect as EPO). You cannot manipulate the blood in any of these 3 ways, without changing the values of a group of 9 parameters that are checked as part of the blood passport system. Increasing one value will have effects on all the others. Not only does each value have legal ranges, but they also have to be in certain ratios to each other. Any doping method that does not influence these values will be ineffective in endurance sports, because every process ultimately depends on the availability of oxygen.
If we abandon the fight against doping, and say that it is a free for all, then people like Kohl will do well in a sport which no longer tests the physical ability of the athlete, but rather the ruthlessness of the athlete. If we believe Mr Kohl that it is impossible to win the tour without doping, then we are encouraging the practise of doping, by essentially claiming that it is the only way to reach the top, and by suggesting that it is possible to get away with it. The increase of doping positives in the time since the doping passport has come into effect, if proof, that it is not possible to get away with it. Anyone using the level of performance of any athlete as “proof” for the fact that athlete dope, simply doesn’t understand how much better the best athlete is than the average.

God is God

2009-10-08T20:05:00.002+02:00

Who are these people that make it their mission to defend God? How arrogant do you have to be to think you can stand up and defend a God, that not only has an intimate knowledge of who He is, but also of who ever you are trying to convince that god is real. God is working in a person's heart, with inside knowledge of what makes that person tick, He knows exactly which part of Him will find a accord in this person's heart. He has all the advantage. Yet, some people thinks that they can fight with people, win them over with arguments over dogma and persuade the unbeliever to follow a god, that they themselves clearly has a very limited knowledge about. That is not servant hood, but blatant arrogance.

So you have a mandate to go to all the world, tell the good news, and make disciples. How is it good news to tell people only about impending hell, people who's hearts may not have been prepared for the message of Christ. People will not be able to accept this God that you are talking about, mainly because of your inability to live the Christ life. People who will once they have encountered you, will be a 1000 times harder to convince of the goodness of God, simply because you took your mandate, and only read the part that put you in a position of power. Make disciples. OK, so you want to disciple people? Who's disciples? Jesus? Show me the way by showing me your love. Show the way by showing you humility, show the way by showing your obedience. Show the way by taking care of the orphans and the widows. Show the way accepting people like Christ did, without reservations. Show the way by not counting up sins, show the way by trusting God, not only for yourself, but also for those that you so forcefully are trying to convince that God is indeed God. Show the way by telling the good news to those who's hearts have been prepared in love by God himself. Echoing the message that your actions and your love, and your God have already established in their hearts. You can only agree with God, you have no authority of your own. You are everything that you are, because God is who He is. You have a position of servant in relation to God. Never forget that He Is God.

Great ride in Groenkloof

2009-09-26T16:53:00.004+02:00

Had a great ride in Groenkloof today. Wimpie and Brood joined me. I was suppose to loosen up the legs for tomorrow's ride, but I soon realized that there was not much to give tomorrow. Then in the 2nd lap of Groenkloof, I found out that my rear disc pads are finish. No stopping! No racing!

The ride on Nokia Sports Tracker

Long day

2009-09-24T21:43:00.001+02:00

It’s been long day, starting with good bye and ending in a migraine. In between there was the highlight of doing a nice ride in Groenkloof with good friends and playing with my boys and fixing my bike’s hubs with my dad.

Christmas

2009-09-02T22:12:00.001+02:00

Lately my wife and I have been talking about the responsibility we have to show the world the Love of God. Not the typical churchy big smile with little impact; the sort of laying down your life that impact another.

What if every wealthy South African family were to take in a homeless child, one of this little ones that knows no home, no love, no security, no hope, no dreams. The ones that have experienced hunger, despair, abandonment, abuse, desolation and the death of every dream that they might just have left in them. What if every wealth child got a homeless brother instead of a play station? I tell you one thing, we’d all start looking at the world a lot differently. Suddenly the homeless child still out there is a stark reminder of where the one you have taken in could have been. The one in your home becomes a message of hope, a testimony of what is possible if people allow God to change their hearts. Suddenly every Christmas becomes a true Christ celebration, because one in your midst have a physical realm experience exactly like Spiritual experience we call salvation, one that was taken from the darkness and pulled into the light of homes, like we were pulled from the darkness of our slavery into the light of his salvation.

What if I started?

Blood is thicker than water, or is it?

2009-09-02T06:51:00.003+02:00

In the bible the Spirit is often symbolically referred to as water. So one could say that the author of the saying that blood is thicker as water was saying that one's spiritual connections is less significant than ones blood relations. This however contradicts the word in that Jesus clearly valued his spiritual connections more his family relations. We too should put our acquaintance with God before our traditions, what does God ask off us? What do our traditions ask of us, which do we do? The scripture says, there is now therefore no Greek or Jew, not slave or freeman, no man or women, because we are all one in Christ. Paul puts your position in Christ higher than anything else, and here is why. We are in new creation, in the likeness and image of God, no longer son of man, but child of God; we are born off His spirit, being (continuously) transformed into His likeness every day. Shall we then indulge in our tradition which are so often so against the will of God. I say no. Spirit is thicker than blood.

Nokia Sports Tracker Beta

2009-06-28T20:03:00.001+02:00

Sunday Training Session. SO MUCH FUN!

Shared via AddThis

Road ahead

2009-06-06T20:05:00.002+02:00

If you have read my blog before you might know that I am a cyclist.
You might also know that I had a huge accident on the 5th of March last year. That accident was the end of an era. Before the accident I did many many kilometers of cycling on the road,
many of it alone. I had complete confidence that I would be ok. You know bad things always happen to other people. Well not actually. Someone has to be the other people and last year it was my turn. It's not a turn you see children fighting over at the park, but someones
got to do it otherwise we will all have nothing to fear or worry about and things might just become so simple that we manage to sort it all out. And then what!? Life as we know it will stop and we will all turn into a shallow bunch of grownup children like they have in Hollywood.
Then we will start playing bad things happen to some off us and then you'd get a turn to play the misfortuneate instead of being the misfortuneate and it will all start looking a lot like real life
except less authentic and somehow even more sad since there would be nothing to learn or gain from your turn and it would give you nothing more than a silly excuse to be a baby.
But that isn't what I wanted to write about. What I do want to say is that indeed something bad did happen to me and for a few months I did use it as an excuse to be a baby. But unlike the pretend world, my experience did leave me scared and it did offer an opportunity to reflect on life. I did all that and that is an entire different blog for a different day. I also reached a point where I now can go back to my normal routine and ride many many kilometers on my bike, and since two weeks ago, some of those are done on my road bike.

Fountains XC route

2009-05-03T13:27:00.001+02:00

A year ago just 3 days before my accident I did a race at the
Fountains XC circuit. It's one of the hardest in South Africa and
truly measures up to international standards as far as difficulty is
concerned. That day I crashed a lot. After a while I just started
laughing at myself.
Yesterday I did the course again and it is still unbelievably
difficult, in fact they added a few nasty sections. I enjoyed
yesterday and I didn't crash once. I was also much faster than last
year without really trying, but I still lack some real pace on that
difficult terrain. I've grown very much, but still have more to learn
than I've learned so far.
Today I'm resting at home and planning my next off road ride. I'm not
sure when or where it will be but I'm looking forward to it. I know
it's going to be great fun, what else could I expect?

--
Sent from my mobile device

Weekend

2009-04-21T04:45:00.003+02:00

I had such a nice weekend in a rural part of South Africa near Standerton. I took my bike along as well and managed one training ride. It was only 32km but the roads are so bad that it felt like 60km. Today I did two 42km rides. Tomorrow I'm planning a 50km ride. I'm hoping to finalize my training for the week by Thursday because I have a race on Sunday.

My weekend session

Training so far this week

2009-04-16T17:52:00.001+02:00

I did some riding this week but not nearly enough. I had to good rides yesterday (86km in total) and on Monday I had a very easy ride focusing in technical ability. Tomorrow I’ll have to settle for 50km as that is all that I have time for. I might just go out on the road bike. If I can get my head in the right place. Since the crash I have been really scared of the road bike. This weekend I’m visiting my family on a farm. I hope to go for some nice riding while I’m there. I am not sure if they will have proper tracks, but then again I’m not all that dependant on tracks riding the MTB.

Weekend Cycling

2009-04-14T20:47:00.003+02:00

This weekend I introduced my brother to mountain bike cycling. He loved it. It was a good day for a first off road ride. There was on mud, it was reasonable cool for African standards and we had enough time to enjoy the outdoors. Strangely we didn't see much wildlife. We did see the smallest zebra that I have ever seen. It couldn't have been older than a week. My brother was quite good on the downhills but the lack of rhythm of off road cycling took it's toll. He was huffing and puffing much more than usual. I do think that he bug bit him. He called early today to find out when we are going again.

Bikes

2009-04-09T13:30:00.003+02:00

What I dream of riding

What I'm riding these days

High Cadence

2009-04-08T20:44:00.002+02:00

For the last few days I have really focussed on getting my normal riding cadence higher. When I still did road cycling I use to ride at between 90 and 95 pedal strokes per minute. After I switched to mountain bike cycling my cadence has declined to 80 to 85. The difference sounds small but the increased strain on my knees was very big. Now I'm focussing on doing 90 to 95 again and I can feel the difference already. My recovery seems to be much faster. My legs hurt

less. The first few rides at high cadence was much slower than my usual rides. I wasn't to bothered by that because it was just training, but today I managed a ride back from work at very high cadence and in a time I would usually expect to ride while really grinding much bigger gears at a much higher cost to my body which takes much longer to recover from.

I did two 42km rides today. Both felt slow, but the afternoon ride was actually quite fast.

It's getting uncomfortably cold in the mornings now. Winter is just around the corner.

2 sessions

2009-04-06T19:40:00.002+02:00

Today I did two 42km sessions. Both should have been recorded and uploaded to Nokia Sports Tracker but the GPS on my phone is as reliable as the South African Government. Anyone that keeps an eye on the news of Southern Africa would know that, that is setting the bar very low. In fact it's basically still on the ground. The sessions were very good yet easy sessions. The aim was low impact base work because I have had a few very hard sessions in the past weeks.

Training Session

2009-04-03T17:45:00.002+02:00

This morning's ride was longer than my usual morning rides because I won't be training tonight. It was a good ride. 50km with my brother. It was quite cold. I didn't feel strong because I haven't recovered from Wednesday's race. Tomorrow morning I'm doing a few hours off road in a social ride.

Race report

2009-04-02T21:19:00.002+02:00

Last night's race was great fun. I battled to get going again, the warmup was a problem, but I really battled with starting in the dark. It's much simpler to get use to the course in the light and then get
use to the dark. The course is also very different when it's dry, and that is besides the course changes. The new sections isn't easy, especially in the dark. I don't have the official results yet but I'm sure it's somewhere in the top 10. I see on the result sheets that I didn't race at all in Feb or March. I'll have to make up for that in April and May. The new bike is a complete joy! Trek did a great job.

Training

2009-03-31T20:05:00.002+02:00

Today's two training sessions weren't really hard at all. I did a slow 42km in the morning with another 42km in the afternoon with some hard intervals in it. The weather is perfect for cycling in Gauteng (South Africa) at the moment. It was 11 degrees this morning and 25 in the afternoon.

Wednesday afternoon ride

2009-03-26T23:03:00.002+02:00

Wednesday afternoon's ride was fast. I don't really know why but I just felt like going fast and it sort of just happened. It's a great feeling when your legs just work, breathing is easy and deep and calm. I haven't felt like that in a while. So far this year when I was riding good, it was all in the legs. Wednesday it was also in the breathing and I'm sure if I still had a heart rate monitor I would
have been suprised.

Morning Ride

2009-03-25T10:23:00.000+02:00

Today’s ride was very good. It was great to be alone and just let my thoughts run. The weather was great. Nice and cool!

Double session days

2009-03-19T21:57:00.002+02:00

There double session days are very hard, especially if you have two in a row. I need to get use to it because it looks like I'm going to have back to back double session days on Tuesdays and Wednesdays for the next few weeks.

Afternoon session 18th March

2009-03-18T19:00:00.001+02:00

The ride home was hard. I simply didn't eat enough. I went back to my
original suspension settings halfway through the ride. He I wanted a
hardtail I would have bought one. Sure stiffer settings are faster,
but it's also harder on your body.

--
Sent from my mobile device

Afternoon session 17 March

2009-03-17T19:54:00.001+02:00

I had a good ride today. I felt strong and eager to go fast. I haven't
had that feeling in the last 2 weeks. I got caught in the rain. Not
much of a storm but I managed to get really wet before I got home.

--
Sent from my mobile device

Tuesday 17 March Morning Ride

2009-03-17T07:40:00.000+02:00

I think I’ve got the suspension properly setup now. I had a rather good ride this morning. It’s was cool, but the sky was clear and the sunrise was amazing.

Friday Training Ride

2009-03-17T07:39:00.000+02:00

Today’s ride was very easy. I did 57km in rather cool weather for this time of the year. I won’t be riding much this weekend. We are going on a weekend break.

Strength

2009-03-12T22:23:00.000+02:00

In 1948 a girl was born, a lovely child from an ordinary home in South
Africa. She was the middle child off three daughters. She had a good
loving father and mother and lived a picture perfect life for the
first few years until she lost her mother to breast cancer when she
was a 13. Shortly afterwards doctors discovered that she had a leaking
heart value. Even today this is considered a very serious situation
and in the early 60's doctors told her father that she was unlikely to
survive into adulthood. She became weaker and weaker and when she was
16 she was taken out of school because there was no point in making
her suffer through school with such a limited future. After a year at
home her younger sister was packing her suite cases for her her grade
11 year. She couldn't just look from the side. When her father was
loading the luggage into the car he noticed that she had packed her
suite cases as well. She cheerfully told him that she was going back
to school. Her doctors was not supportive but no one could stop her.
Later she started looking stronger but her father kept getting
cautionary advice from the doctors. He was told not to expect to much,
that she would certainly not reach 30 and that any long term plans
would only disappoint. She refused to back down, she finished school,
then college, then became a teacher. She fell in love and had her
heart broken but her courage never faltered. In 1981 she taught the
first of her younger sister's children in grade one and the other in
1983. She poured her life and courage and strength into the lives of
the children that came through her class. She became a central figure
in a school community over the 30 years, touching the lives of 100's
of children. Helping to build a school that stood proud in a city as
one of the best in the country.
Today she heard that she will have to get a heart value replacement.
Her strength bought her enough time for medical science to catch up
with her condition. More than enough. And in the time that she had to
wait, she change lives around her, even a community and perhaps even a
city. But tonight she has no courage. Tonight she needs a prayer.

--
Sent from my mobile device

11th March afternoon session

2009-03-11T20:21:00.001+02:00

I felt reasonably good today. Legs was good, a little empty towards
the end. I'm still not eating enough. Tricky thing to sort out.

When I got home Christiaan was already sleeping. Lian was running
around the house in his underpants because he painted and spilled some
paint on his cloths. He is very in love with robots at the moment
thanks to WALL-E.

--
Sent from my mobile device

Morning Session 11th March

2009-03-11T07:45:00.000+02:00

After two days off I did this morning’s ride with completely new suspension settings which I don’t like. If I wanted a hardtail I would have bought one. I felt good. I didn’t go terribly fast but I did feel like there were tons in reserve, not like last week where I didn’t go fast and felt like there was nothing in reserve.

Read Colossians a few time now in the last two weeks. It’s a rich book. It’s good to read it, think, then read it again, then think some more. I think Romans is next.

Race Report - Babba's Lodge 35km MTB Race

2009-03-09T07:33:00.000+02:00

I woke up feeling a little ill and not in the mood for a race at all. I had a good breakfast, drove to the race, entered, unpacked my bike and still didn't feel any better. Then I went for a warm-up ride and suddenly felt hope. My legs felt good even when I felt bad.

I managed a better than usual start, getting onto the first off-road section in 7th place. I was still feeling slow and heavy but managed to keep up. The first few kilometers are dead flat and not terribly technical apart from one sandy corner. My heart rate felt very high, I couldn't get a proper breathing rhythm and suddenly I didn't feel like racing anymore. Going into the next corner the guy in front of me made a mistake and I was rather surprisingly good in the sand and suddenly I was 5th. I decided 5th was worth defending and 4th was worth chasing. That is when my race started.

I got 4th place a few km later when the guy ahead of me took the complete wrong line into a very technical section which I remembered from the previous race. I think this was a mistake because this guy sat on my wheel for a very long time. I noticed he was suffering on every hill so I made peace with him being on my wheel until the real technical hills of the race, and as expected I got rid of him in those hills, and found my way into 3rd.

The last section of the race is a decent from the rocky hills and a flat ride to the finish, but with exceptionally deep sand. I did much better in this section than last time and I managed to keep my lead right into the last km which is on tar. Somehow I managed to loose about 150m in the last km and then I got beaten in the sprint by the same guy that was sucking my wheel all that time and another guy that I didn't see once in the race. He must have had a great finish.

After the race I got really sick. I started the race with a migraine approaching fast which explains why I felt so bad the whole morning.

Friday Morning Workout

2009-03-06T11:34:00.000+02:00

Today’s workout was much better but not great yet. I did a 50km easy ride with the MTB to just get the legs going. I’m racing on Sunday so I wanted to just loosen up the legs.

I’m a little nervous about the race. It is a hard race and I know how much it’s going to hurt, but I want to do well. Looking forward to giving it everything.

Afternoon Session 4th March

2009-03-04T21:59:00.002+02:00

I still didn't feel super this afternoon. There was a reasonably
strong wind that slowed me down but my time on the road was still
actually well within limits. My legs just feel heavy and slow. I think
I'm not sleeping enough.

--
Sent from my mobile device

Training Log 4th March - Morning

2009-03-04T08:31:00.000+02:00

I did the trip to work this morning. It didn’t feel very good at all. I felt slow and like I had no speed endurance. The time was very average and quite surprising because I didn’t feel average at all.

Weather was great. 14 degrees with clear skies no wind.

Average is Good

2009-01-09T12:42:00.001+02:00

Today I sit at work, totally satisfied that I have a reasonably successful year behind me, a very challenging year ahead of me and more direction and purpose than I have had in at least all off my adult life. Life is suddenly very good. Suddenly all the mediocrity is not just bearable, but the cornerstone of life in perfect balance, or at least as close to perfect balance as I have witnessed in my adult life. But let's start at the beginning.

When I was 17, I had big dreams, very big dreams, and my biggest fear was that I would end up being average. There was only one problem. I had no idea what it was that I wanted to be above average in. I loved so many things. God and His word, the ministry, athletics, accounting, engineering, physiology and writing. I could do any of those, but being a child, I wanted to do all of them. I felt like I would be betraying myself if I chose any one of those. That is how a life without direction found expression in mediocrity which was often interpreted as a lack of passion. But I knew that I was very passionate person. I knew how it felt inside when I was talking about God's word. I knew how it felt when I was winning a race. I knew how it felt when I solved an engineering problem that was to hard to solve. I knew how it felt when understanding physiology translated into improved training methods. I knew that my passion was a consuming fire that burned up my potential, my ability to commit, and eventually the first decade of my adult life.

The one thing that I was more passionate about than life and all its numerous opportunities were love, the cornerstone of Christianity, and my love first found expression in a friendship and relationship with my girlfriend and sole mate which eventually became my wife and the mother of my two beautiful boys. And it was in an effort to provide for this beautiful family, in the daily rituals of commute, work, commute, eat, sleep that my passions was quenched just enough for me to be able to make sense off this puzzle that we call life. Slowly passion made way for obligation and in this obligation I had to use the tools that life gave me. I didn't have the uncomfortable misfortune of having to choose one of my passions and betray all the others, I had the fortune of being presented opportunities that inadvertently forced a choice, or rather a surrender to focus on some of my passions, rather than all of them. Over a number of years I started to see and appreciate the blessing in everything I do have rather than feel the frustration and pain of not being able to live all my passions and have all the glory of being so much more than just average. It's being average that gives me time to spend with my family. Its being average that gives me time to look down and appreciate all I have rather than look up and forward all the time and covet what others have.

It's being average that gives me time to still dream and start 2009 with goals. My goals are now much simpler, much more defined, bite sized steps to a legacy of love, passion, joy and Godliness. I could have been so covered in the obligations that grow from unbridled childhood passions, that my ability to dream and find new passions could have drowned in a see of responsibility.

Your Tongue

2008-05-15T16:49:00.002+02:00

It’s a dagger cloaked in your affection

I look into your eyes, begging for instruction

I humble myself as your apprentice at your feet

And you stab me in the face

Your dagger strikes painfully

Shall I come and sit at your feet again?

I trust you as a friend

I take you into my closest council

None of my matters are hidden from you

When I am weak I find refuge in your home

And you stab me in the heart

Your dagger strikes painfully

Shall I come and sit at your feet again?

You call me closer

You seek my companionship

I keep my distance

I hide my face and my heart

I will not be stabbed again

Your dagger strikes too painfully

Shall I come and sit at your feet again?

Face the facts

2008-05-14T13:59:00.000+02:00

On the Sunday 2^nd September 2000 I bumped into my old coach from university days. It’s was many years since I last did any running or training and I was horrifically out of shape. I had just completed my first 3 year stint at a bloodsucking IT job, which not only destroyed my social life, but had also sucked life right out of me, the little life was left after a 3 years battle with depression. I was in need of something that could remind me who I am and what made me feel alive. Jan Barnard (a bronze and silver medalist at the 1954 and 1958 Commonwealth Games) asked all the usual polite questions you ask old acquaintances, and then he cut to the chase. “What is stopping you from being at the track on Monday”? I had no excuse. I have been thinking about going back to the track for months, but I never actually went. The next day I was on the track, training and living. The months that followed were the final step in recovery. It was the final chapter of living through depression.

After my accident from a few weeks back, I’ve been asking myself some hard questions, but not quite committing to an answer. Then one day last week, I remembered Jan Barnard all those years ago. Suddenly I realized that if I would bump into him this weekend, and he asked me the questions I’ve been asking myself, I’d need to commit to my answers. He wouldn’t accept it any other way. So why wait until I have that conversation? Why can’t I give myself those same answers with the same commitment? It’s time for change.

Accident

2008-05-07T17:02:00.001+02:00

9 weeks ago my life nearly ended abruptly and prematurely. I was on a training ride when bread delivery truck decided to use the road like a race track and came around a bend in the road on the wrong side of the road. He was heading in the opposite direction I was heading in and hit me straight from the front. Somehow, I only broke my right hand and I had some pain in my neck for a few weeks, and my right arm wouldn’t work very well for 3 weeks. Other than that, I am fine. My thoughts have been a rather interesting rollercoaster ride. One day I’m never going to ride a bike again the next day I can’t wait to get my bike replaced and for my body to heal enough to go riding again. The one day I’m convinced God saved my life the next day I’m angry because the accident ever happened. It was like that for a few weeks, and then I was calm wondering what I was supposed to take from this experience.

I did ride my bike again, and I’m training again like normally, but I am rather nervous on the bike when I ride and I’m in loads of pain after a ride because my hand will just not heal. I’m now 100% sure that God indeed save my life, but that he is using this accident to also get through to me.

For a few years now God has tried to get me to speak to Him in the way that we spoke before my illness, before I became angry with Him. For a few years God allowed me to believe but to be silent and even angry at a stage. The anger subsided and made way for understanding, then remorse, then a deep longing to have the relationship with God that I once knew. But it never felt the same again. It never felt natural again for me, a man to talk to God like I use to talk. I felt so silly sharing my thoughts, my needs, my desires, my understanding of who He is, with a God that knows everything. God that knows everything about me, while I still haven't figured out the most basic things about myself. What could I possibly say that God didn't know. My most secret thoughts are so open and clear to God, more clear to Him than even to me.

For years God has tried to get me to see that in discussing things with Him, He isn't supposed to hear something he didn't know, but I am suppose to admit what I have never admitted even to myself, I am suppose to find clarity for what I have never understood, I am supposed to find closure for what has been hurting me by voicing it, hearing it, feeling it. In the end it took a big hit in the head by a bread delivery truck to knock some sense into my head.

Transport

2007-11-14T15:35:00.000+02:00

The Past

The Future

40 Things (some about me)

2007-11-12T10:03:00.001+02:00

1. I am married to my best friend Adele

2. We have 2 beautiful boys, Lian (4) and Christiaan (2)

3. They both look like me but in different ways. I can't put my finger on it but the resemblance is very strong.

4. Being a father is not easy for me. I love my boys, but I'm very nervous that I might be too strict or not strict enough.

5. I live in the Republic of South Africa.

6. I was born in 1976.

7. I started going bold when I was 16.

8. I'm getting a little tired of my hairstyle, which is best described as the absence of hair. There is so much more one can do.

9. I'm not bothered one bit when someone makes fun of my bold head.

10. I have the perfect job. The hours fits in with my life and the money goes almost all the way to the end of each month J

11. I love cycling and I am rather good at it. Currently I cycle anything between 240 and 400km each week.

12. I almost never ride on weekends because that would interfere with my family life.

13. I sing tenor in my church. My wife thought I was a tenor so offered that I would join the church band as a tenor, but I'm really more a baritone. Now I sing tenor and on some songs I sing bass.

14. I've had the same favorite song since 1992 and it's a church song called Pure Heart by Lenny Leblanc. I dream of being able to sing like him. I tone deaf person once told me that I sound just like Lenny Leblanc and I like remembering that as coming from someone that knew what he was talking about.

15. I love cats and horses

16. I became so allergic to animals in the last 5 years that I can not come near a cat or a horse.

17. I was born allergic to milk and sugar

18. Milk forms a huge part of my recovery diet after training sessions.

19. I try to cut down in sugar intake.

20. When I was a junior my mother never missed one of my races and my dad only ever missed those that we during normal business hours

21. He once drove from Middelburg to Brakpan (about 100km) in the middle of the day to watch me run a race and had to go back to work afterwards in Middelburg. I won that race. I had no choice.

22. I'll never forget that and I will strive to do the same for my children.

23. I'm more scared of spiders than anything else including snakes and Lions

24. A lion once bit me with harmful intent - it was a baby but it hurt more than I can explain

25. A black rhino charged at me in a game reserve while I was on a hike

26. I was knocked of my bicycle by a bus when I was 14

27. I had 2 crashes in the last 24 months of cycling; during the last one I hurt my shoulder real bad.

28. Moments before each of those crashes (including the bus incident) I knew that I was doing something stupid and that it would turn out bad. Now when I get that feeling I back off.

29. When I get focused on something I get so focused that I irritate myself and everyone around me.

30. My enthusiasm for God has never faded but it got an entirely different flavor over the years. I've gone from charismatic in your face offensive to apologetic but unmoving to silently frustrated with the world to hopeful to unapologetic honestly outspoken but not overbearing. I like where I am right now.

31. After 24 of being a Christian I am now more convinced than ever before that love is the best form of evangelism. Love for the world and for fellow Christians. There is NO place in the church for judgment. Judgment is the greatest threat to the true Gospel. Not that God is fazed or surprised by it. Anyone naïve enough to think he can "defend" Christianity by doing anything other than serving in love, has a very poor understanding of what Christ came to do on earth.

32. My wife is also my high school girlfriend. I am more in love with her after 15 years than I have ever been.

33. Years ago I wanted to be a farmer.

34. A few years later I wanted to be a physiotherapist

35. A few years later I wanted to be a pastor that specializes in music. Currently I am closer to that dream than every before, and want it less than ever. Not that I have it within reach, it's just closer than ever.

36. I am a software developer. That was never been on my list of things I want to do, but I have become 100% content with my work. I kicked against it for years.

37. I have a very short attention span on days when I do not cycle. I think I might have ADD.

38. I love bass guitars, and guitars. I can watch guitarists play for hours. I tried to play bass, but I really sucked at it and it made me so nervous to be on stage that I actually have to say, I hated playing bass.

39. I am a no church building kind of church advocate, but I also recognize the value of larger celebrations. The think for me is that the building is only a tool. The people are the church and the celebration should be an expression of each person's personal life of worship.

40. I get sad when I think about how little time the average father has with his children. I see my children about 2 - 3 hours a day in the week. I find it hard to understand how anyone who has a choice, could choose to pursue a career, knowing that it will reduce the time they have with their children, especially in the first 5 years of the child's life.

News

2007-11-02T09:15:00.000+02:00

I’m doing really well at the moment. I seldom have time to write but I’m sure there will be a time again when I’ll more time, or maybe I should get internet at home. Now there is an idea. J I bought a new bike a few weeks ago. A Schwinn Peloton. It has a carbon fibre frame and a Shimano 105 groupset (10 spd). It weighs in at 8.3kg with my old Easton wheels. I replaced the original wheels with the old Easton wheels because my Easton wheels are by far a better wheel than the ones that comes standard with the bike. Last week my Fiat Uno (which I’ve had for over 10 years and have done 250000km in) broke again. I say again because I basically spend twice the cars value in repairs over the last 18 months. I decided t rather sell the car so now we have only one car in the household. In SA that is not a good thing because the public transport is very dangerous and actually useless to anyone with any alternative. I have an alternative in the form of a bicycle so now I’m cycling to work 3 days a week (totaling 240km). It has changed my training schedule somewhat and in spite of the fact that I am preparing for my favorite race of the year, I’m basically doing only base training at the moment.

My buys are doing very well. They are a joy to me. Some days they drive me crazy because they don’t eat as much as I would like them to but generally that is my biggest worry with them at the moment. They have now discovered that they can play together and that really is nice.

Just Fine

2007-06-05T12:54:00.000+02:00

It has been a week since my crash (well at about 17:00 today it will be a week) and I’ve managed to do some 180km since then, all without incident and a in relatively painless state. Looks like I will be fine. ;-)

1st Real Crash

2007-05-31T09:15:00.000+02:00

In October 2005 I had a fall with my bicycle. It was a slow speed crash and I didn’t really get hurt. Only scary part was that I very nearly ended up underneath a huge truck of the variety with more than 18 wheels. Other than that I have ha no crashes with my bike in the little more than 3 years that I have been riding. Until Tuesday. On Tuesday I had my first real crash and honestly it is over rated. I wouldn’t suggest that for entertainment for your next weekend. Two days later my shoulder is hurting more than right after the crash and last night my hip also started hurting. It drained all my strength. My subsequent rides have really not been a lot of fun. A car wanted to cross the road down which I was traveling at 37.9 km/h (I check the graphs of the data that my watch records). The driver (not a cyclist) had no idea that bicycles could go that fast (good think I wasn’t really hammering it) and thought that I was far away enough to cross. Well he wasn’t. I hardly had time to apply my brakes and basically hit his car without slowing down at all. My left shoulder and hip took the impact with most of the impact on my shoulder. AMAZINGLY my Easton wheels didn’t damage at all. My frame is also fine. I think I might need to go for x-rays over the weekend because everything does not feel 100% correct. My shoulder hurts even when I’m holding my arm still.

Now that I’ve tried high-speed bicycle crashing I am not that impressed by the experience and will try to avoid any further such encounters.

2007-05-22T14:23:00.000+02:00

Guidance

2007-05-16T13:22:00.000+02:00

The problem I have with the whole question of can a Christian this or can a Christian that is the simple fact that it attempts to take the responsibility to be led by the spirit away from the person who is posing the question in the first place. If I ask you if it is ok for a Christian to do this or that, I am not asking God and therefore won’t be listening out for the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Paul says in a number of places (at least in principle) that God has written his law on our heart. It is the law of the Spirit (being guided by the Spirit) that frees us from the Law of Sin and Death. In other words it is submission to the guidance of the Holy Spirit that frees us from the rigidity of the Law of Moses. If you look at the Law of Moses (not just the Ten Commandments) it attempted to have a say in EVERY part of the lives of the Jewish people. In the same way the Holy Spirit wishes to have input in every part of our lives. With our world changing so rapidly it would be impossible to always have a written law at hand for every situation. This is why we need the guidance of the Spirit.

Children

2007-05-10T07:59:00.001+02:00

2007-05-10T07:59:00.000+02:00

I am alive and well. I recently turned 31 so now I’m nearing my half life age which is 35 if you consider 70 to be the number of years that God grants us. I am hoping for a few years extra because the first half sure is speeding by much quicker than I hoped. I am currently really busy but I do want to elaborate on my previous post about salvation. Maybe I’ll have time over the weekend.

On Sunday evening I played bass guitar in church for the first time in more than 12 years. It was very nice.

For the past few months I've been cycling less (only 100 - 150km per week) but I'm hoping to pick it up again over the last few months of the year. I'm still in reasonable shape but I can feel that my form in declining.

Salvation

2007-03-29T17:06:00.000+02:00

I believe there is much more to grace than just redemption. Salvation is more than just rescue from eternal damnation. Through the blood of Jesus, not just man was saved, but also the eternal plan that God had with earth was restored. Grace is indeed salvation process, salvation from sin, meaning restoration from the destruction cause by sin. To man, it means restoration back to the initial purpose that God had with Adam before sin. Jesus is referred to as the second Adam, which tells me God had in great plans with the first Adam. Adam was created in God’s image, and Jesus was in fact God in the flesh. This restoration talks of restoring in us, the image of God. To earth it means the restoration of systems, principalities, governance (NO, DON’T READ BIG REBELLION IN ORDER TO ESTABLISH A GOVERNMENT! These things are spiritual!), to the systems and practices as God has intended it to be. In man, this is a process in which both man and God plays a role. We must renew our thought pattern every day. We need to be cleansed by the washing of the word. We need to seek the Kingdom of God. We need to be holy, because Christ is holy. And then we need to have faith that God will complete in us the work he has started; the work being forming Christ likeness in us. Earth (including the physical planet and nature, as well as the systems of this world) needs to wait on the sons [mature children of God of which Christ is the first born] to be revealed. When ever a son, or even many sons of God is revealed in the earth, principalities fall, systems change, and governance in the spiritual realm, is restored little by little. But there is a day when the sons of God will be revealed in multitude! The impact will be enormous and no man, no principality, no system, not one thing under heaven, will remain unchanged. Like a massive wave leaves nothing unchanged in its path, so will the wave of the glory of the Lord bring destruction to the ungodly systems and principalities but life will spring forth from the living water once it covers the earth.

Life went on

2007-03-22T08:55:00.000+02:00

Almost two years ago I posted this entry on my blog.

“I sometimes look at people’s lives and I am amazed at how we let trivial things take centre stage. We define ourselves as supporters of a certain team or as wine lovers or as church goers. We take precious time out of our real lives to watch other people live their fake lives on TV. Our own lives don't wait.

On each last day of the quarter in primary school we use to watch a movie. It was always one of a selection of about 3 movies. The small children can't sit through an entire movie and they needed to change the spool, so there were always one or two breaks during the movie.
The trivial thinks that we so value in lives, are our breaks from real life but unlike those school movies life doesn't need a spool change. It goes on with or without us paying attention.

During the last month I had to face some frightening thinks, my oldest son was rather badly burned, my wife's pregnancy took a beating due to the stress related to that, and then she got ill days before Christiaan was born. After Christiaan was born we were told that his umbilical cord had only one blood vessel instead of two, which indicates a higher than normal risk for kidney dysfunction and bad or no hearing. We had tests done and everything turned out fine. Days later we found out that my wife’s 89 year old grandfather had lung cancer. During all this I've just become more and more aware that relationships is what really matters. You quickly forget about the trivial things when you need to hold your 21month old boy so that the doctor can clean his burn wounds, or when you are facing the possibility that the new life you are holding in your arms could be less perfect that what it appears to be, and could face some uphill battles that you'd need to witness from the side. At that moment not even a wine master would taste the difference between wine and water and no one would notice a football score. Real life is all that matters!”

Now two years later I can celebrate the fact that little Christiaan is healthy with perfect hearing and no kidney problems whatsoever. My lovely baby is quickly turning into a boy. He already tells us that he is not a baby. He speaks much better than most 2 year olds, but I guess of you have to compete for a turn to speak in a house like ours, there is no time to battle to learn to speak. I can also praise GOD that there is only very little visible evidence that Lian burned 2 years ago and that he is now a boy, with all those boisterous features. The baby Lian is gone forever and in his place is a bundle of wild energy. He climbs and jumps and runs and talks, and screams at the top his voice all day. He is so lively and so wild. It is marvelous to see how wild boys can be, and yet so fragile, so sensitive and so caring. Grown men are not allowed anymore to be wild but expected to be caring, and expected to show their fragile side, but this little man in the making is wild, caring and fragile. The three balances each other out.
Oupa Hertzog as we use to call him was miraculously healed from the lung cancer and he witnessed the first months of Christiaan’s life, but sadly he passed away 9 months later, but with much less suffering than would have plagued his life if he had to fight cancer. Only 9 months later his wife (Ouma Suzie) suddenly passed away, but still life goes on. A new era has come, one without the daily prayers of Ouma Suzie and Oupa Hertzog. One without the daily reminders of their lives devoted to God. But still life goes on and we thank God for the good set of footprints that these to lovely people left for us, footprints that leads straight to the cross.

God has done great things for us in the last two years but most of all; He gave us each other to love and to care for. Life goes on and I love it.

Liberty Ride for Sight

2007-02-20T09:29:00.000+02:00

I have been training for two specifies races for the last 4 months. The Pick ‘n pay Fast one, the race I reported on a while ago, and the Liberty Ride for Sight which happened this weekend. The Liberty is a very hard race in the sense that it is a little longer than most other open division races in South Africa, and also it starts out flat for 70km, then has three very steep hills all between 3 and 5km long before it is flat again for about 35km to the finish. This is specifically why I targeted this race. I’m not the slowest person on hills.

The night before the race my youngest son Christiaan got ill and kept us up most of the night. I slept about 3 – 4 hours which is less than half of what I was hoping to get. Then on race day I woke up with a pounding head. I often get migraines when I don’t sleep enough. Because I have been training for this race I decided to give it a bash in any case.

I got to the start fairly late which means I had to start with about two thirds of the bunch ahead of me. When the gun went off I found myself blocked behind some slow people but after the first two corners I had open road ahead of me and moved up to the front just in time to neutralize the first move of the day. 3km into the race and my heart was already pounding at 180 beat per minute. For the next two hours my heart rate was constantly between 170 and 180 beats per minute. The bunch was glued together and we were basically 4 guys pulling the bunch along for 70km. We made numerous efforts to split the bunch to form a smaller group that can cooperate better but failed. Then at 70km the first big hill of the day was on us and I happened to be at the front. 10km earlier I had noticed that the bunch did get drawn out on a small little hill when the pace was high so I decided to blow it wide open on this 4km pain fest that faced us. I drove myself up this hill as hard as I could and with about 300m to go I glanced back with my heart rate way up at 188 and saw that the bunch was shattered to smithereens with only two guys hanging onto my wheel and a group of four or five guys a good 300m back. The two guys with me then attacked and I had to really dig deep to respond but I managed to go over the top right behind my two new compatriots, who went on to take first and second place for the race. Unfortunatly I had to pull of the road 3km later. Head pounding and sick with pain I had to admit defeat. I was standing next to the road for about two or three minutes with the shattered pieces of the bunch already speeding past when I decided to at least finish the race. It took me about 10km to get back into a rhythm and then all I had to do was keep the rhythm going for about 40km. I managed to catch many of the strugglers of the original bunch, most of which promptly jumped at a chance to be pulled back to the finish. After riding either alone or at the front of the newly formed bunch for 40km I managed to finish 34th out of 158 starters.

It was by no means fun, but I’m sure the experience will serve me well in races to come. My aim was to finish the 116km in 3 hours and I managed to finish it in 3 hours and 16 minutes (including the time I stood next to the road).

Future

2007-02-16T10:54:00.000+02:00

Please forgive the political undertones of my post today, the intention is really not political, but my questions are honestly what are tugging at my heart today.

Suppose you lived in a country where crime has spiraled out of control and violent crime is so common, that murder doesn’t even make it into the papers anymore. Suppose that illegal immigrants had more rights in your country than you had, even though you and your ancestors have been in this land for the last 300 years, roughly as long as any of the “local” people except for the Koisan which have been roaming this land since basically the beginning of time. Suppose your neighboring country shares vast part of its history with your own, and in the last 40 years have been reduced to rubbish with everyone except the government and its officials starving as we speak. Suppose your own country shows all the signs of following the same path.

Yes I’m talking about the Republic of South Africa and Zimbabwe.

Do you leave? Do you search safety for your family in a different country? Do you seek a future for your sons elsewhere, where perhaps they will have the same rights as what they are suppose to have in South Africa? Do you stay and trust God to protect you? Do you stay and trust that our government won’t repeat the errors of the Zimbabwean government, which our government has to date, not criticized about the human rights abuses and economical folly that is currently the chief example of bad governance world wide? At which point do you consider the signs adequate to uproot your family and start a new live elsewhere? Does God want me to stay here? Does God expect me to brush away countless murders and deny the danger exists? Do I owe it to my parents who will not easily leave this country to stay for the sake of witnessing there old age and being ready to help them when one day they might become weak with age? What is worth more for my children, a future in a 1^st world country with 1^st class citizenship, or a relationship with godly grandparents?

Elephant in the middle or town

2007-02-13T12:01:00.000+02:00

Yes it was a circus. It isn't true that wild animals roam the streets of South Africa. At least not in major cities.

Report on The Fast One

2007-01-30T14:22:00.000+02:00

On Saturday the 28^th of January I competed in the Pick ‘n Pay Hyper to Hyper race which is known as The Fast One. It’s a 104km race which is mostly flat with only one harsh climb in the first 10km and there after only moderate climbs scattered in between some fast flat sections. In South Africa we have a lot of really big races with thousands of participants, many of which are quite serious about cycling and even more of them that simply ride for the challenge of finishing. The Hyper to Hyper is one of the 10 largest races with 9000 people entering this year’s event. To make some sense of all this, the race is divided into three main sections, which in turn is divided into many smaller sections. First you have the Professionals followed by the licensed riders, followed by the open seeded riders. The Professionals are divided into 4 groups (Elite Men, U23 Men, Elite Women, Elite U23 Women). The Licensed riders are divided into age groups, Vets A (30 – 35) Men, Vets B (36 – 40), Vets C (40 – 45), Vets D (45 – 50), Vets E (50 – 55), Vets F (55 – 60), Vets G (60+) with some female vets groups as well. Then the Open group riders are seeded according to previous performances From A – Z and the AA, BB, CC – ZZ. The 2 biggest SA races draw 40000 and 28000 cyclist of which every single one is timed, receives a certificate if they complete the race, on which their position overall, and within their age and gender groups are displayed. Each subgroups start 5 minutes apart containing anywhere between 200 and 500 cyclists. I started the Hyper to Hyper in the F bunch in the Open group. In order to license at my age I need to get a C bunch seeding or better.

The race was not disappointing but not really exciting either. My goal was simply to ride the fastest time possible in order to move up into a higher category. Since the race is mostly flat I knew I’d be suffering later on and I planned to stay out of any action in the initial stages. I hoped for a strong group to ride with but after the first short hill I was a little worried. The first hill is short and steep (about 1km @ 6%). 3 guys set a fairly good tempo and they literally dropped the group without trying. I decided not to show myself in the first 3km so I stayed in the bunch. This hill was followed by a short flat section and another hill of 4km @ 7%. On the flat section everyone got together again, but I moved forward to be ready in case anyone attacked on the next hill. Halfway up the hill I was bored, totally comfortable and already the bunch was blown to pieces. I attacked and drew out some guys that tried to go with me. The road got steeper and I attacked again opening a gap of about 10m with no trouble. 7 guys came back to me and I attacked again. I reached the top with a lead of over 100m and a downhill of 500m followed by a short climb of 1km followed by a 5km downhill. By the time I hit the bottom off the 5km downhill we were 7 guys from my bunch left with the E bunch about 300m ahead. A tandem from the Social Tandem bunch which started just ahead of the E bunch came past at about 60km/h and I was to slow to react, 2 of the F bunch guys got on it's wheel and I knew that if I didn't close the gap to the E bunch quickly I'd never see them again. The 5 guys from F that was left were all suffering and no one reacted. I pretended to be finished but still no one else reacted. When I saw another hill coming up I broke away hard to try and get within striking distance before the next hill. This worked well. I joined the E bunch right on top of the hill with 2 of the 4 F bunch guys on my wheel. The tandem and the other F bunch guys were also in the E bunch so I stayed with them. Then after another 10km another tandem joined the E bunch bringing with them the 2 other F bunch guys. This grouped stayed together for about 30km when we turned into a strong headwind up a hill off about 2km @ 3- 4%. At the top we were about 30 guys from E and F bunches with 1 tandem. We caught the strugglers from D bunch shortly after that, passing them, some of them joined us. At times this bunch was going way to fast for me and I dropped out but I fought my way back into the bunch every time, and at times I was wondering what they are waiting for. With 20km to go we joined the actual D bunch. This new monster of 200-300 cyclists quickly caught momentum and I struggled to keep up @ 55km/h on flat roads. Next thing the road made a quick downhill of only a few hundred meters but the bunch went down it at an unbelievable speed. I stayed in the bunch almost to the bottom but I just lost about 3 or 4 meters by the time the road became flat again. That was it and I knew it. I fought hard but there were no more hills except for the last 1km and the speed just stayed between 50 and 60km/h. 2 or 3km later I was 50m behind the bunch and I never closed the gap again. My speed dropped to low 40's and it seems their speed also dropped but not enough for me to catch them again. When I turned for the last 1km which was a nasty little false flat, the bunch was 500m ahead of me. I finished with a respectable time and I should move up a bunch for the next race. I think there were 4 or 5 F bunch guys ahead of me, which managed to stay in the D bunch.

I'm happy because I managed to hang on to the bunch even though the course didn’t really suite me at all. I knew I'd have a hard time on the flats which is why I made the most of the hills at the start. I averaged 38.8km/h over 104km which is more than I hoped for. My time would have put me in 27^th position out of 280 riders in the C bunch. It’s time to get a license.

Weekend

2007-01-22T09:06:00.000+02:00

I cycled 76 miles (122.6km) on Sunday after a week of very little sleep. The route is mostly flat except for a very hard climb of 3km followed by a fast decent of 4km. It was very hard to keep up with the group in the flat sections (which was everything other than the climb and the decent) as they were constantly going @ 40 – 45km/h (25 – 28 mph). I hope that next Sunday’s race which covers 40km of the sale route will be easier after some good rest. I got home and I was rather tired. This morning when I woke up I was all but fond of the legs I was sporting. I’m sure they’re not my legs because my legs don’t hurt as much.

Along the route we passed an accident scheme where a drunk driver killed a cyclist on a flat straight road with a 2m emergency lane. It sent a silence over the entire group which hung over us for the rest of our ride. The accident must have happened only minutes before we passed that place. How is it possible that this December alone 1500 people died on South African roads and still people think it is fine to speed and to drive while under the influence of alcohol? How many people need to die before the penny drops? I sincerely hope that the driver of that car will spend the rest of his life behind bars, just like the family of that cyclist will spend the rest of their lives as prisoners of the void that his absence left.

I also played guitar this weekend for the first time in more than 5 years. I enjoyed it but my fingers didn’t really. Maybe I’ll play again tonight. I think I must.

Lian

2007-01-17T15:39:00.000+02:00

My oldest boy, Lian, started going to kindergarten this year and I’m really stressed out about that. I just can’t believe he is that big already. It seems like yesterday that I was so completely unphased when taking this baby home. 100% sure that even though I didn’t have a clue what to do with 2.6kg (5 pounds 11.5 ounces) babies or how to take care of them, my wife would know exactly what to do. I soon found out she was as terrified as I was suppose to be, because they really didn’t have secret “how to care for newborn babies” classes in school. Well we managed together and now he is off to Kindergarten. It sometimes feels to me that I’m going to be posting a blog about him being off to University and I’ll realize that the time passed so quickly that there was hardly anything between this post and that post. It is crazy!!

Dreams 2

2007-01-11T10:46:00.000+02:00

I think a lot about the nature of dreams and the foundation of successfully living those things that you are brave enough to dream. The foundation is always sacrifice. Even when Christ dreams of reconciling the earth with His father He ends up sacrificing Himself in order to see a dream come true.

When I was 16 I dreamed of being a loving husband and father, a successful athlete, a pastor and many other things. Later I dreamed of being a great bass guitarist but more about that later.

When it comes to being a loving husband and father I made all the necessary sacrifices and actively chose to live the life I was dreaming of. When it comes to being a great athlete I made many of the sacrifices and I worked hard at it with great dedication but no conviction. I was training like a champ (at least in terms of volume) but not living like one. I didn't eat like one, I didn't sleep like one, I didn't plan like one and I ended up not racing like one. I had the dedication but no conviction in my heart that I could be a great runner. I came so close, but my mindset robbed me. I never chose to be a pastor and I never became one. I had the dedication and the conviction to become a great bass guitar player, but ZERO talent. In persueing this one dream, I might have sacrificed a few others.

What did I become? Only what I chose to be and also had the talent to be. You see in life we often choose by not choosing. By not choosing to be fit, you choose to be unfit. By not choosing to be extraordinary you become ordinary. Many times the difference between stars and normal non stars are not their ability but the choices they make.

The reward for living your dream career is having an intimate knowledge of its ugly side.

2006-12-13T12:59:00.000+02:00

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.
- Galileo Galilei

Intolerant

2006-11-28T10:23:00.000+02:00

A world view shaped by belief and grace, grounded in Christ could easily look intolerant to the outsider. This is actually inevitable.

To those who do not understand grace even the most liberal guidelines shout condemnation and it looks like prerequisites designed to exclude those who are not perfect like Christ. It is only natural for a mind tainted with a legalistic powerless imitation of the truth, to feel inadequate. It is after all because we are all inadequate that Christ is our only hope. In this the Christian's seeming intolerance is amplified. Why only Christ? What about the many that does so many good things but do not believe in Christ? I do not know. I only know one thing and that is Christ the Son of God, crucified, risen, exalted.

By His own testimony the Truth, the Way, the Life.

I can not believe that in half measure because then I make Him a liar which means I don't believe Him at all. So if you can’t accept that I believe differently from you, then maybe you are the one that is intolerant.

Dreams

2006-11-24T08:55:00.000+02:00

For many years I've looked at other's lives in amazement and with a little envy. I watched how my wife had the strength to dream, and make her dreams come true, I watched how my varsity friends became the engineers they dreamt of being and I watched how some friends became the tools in God's hands that they dreamt of being. Al along my own dreams slipped away from me, maybe because of the arrogance locked up in the magnitude of the dreams, maybe because of a lack of will power, and maybe to some extent because of factors out of my control.

There was one dream I was never willing to give up on, one that I would sooner die for than see it slip out of my hands. I dreamt about being a husband for my lovely wife, about giving my every day in this relationship and about seeing the fruit of that decision. Yesterday on my way home, it suddenly dawned on me. I am happy. I am so extremely happy and blessed that no words can describe what I feel. It suddenly became clear to me. For the first time in my life, I'm living my dream.

Thank you Adele for being my wife, and thank you Lord for my two lovely children.

It feels great to live a dream.

455km in one week

2006-11-17T16:33:00.000+02:00

At first I thought that I handled the 455km that I cycled last week very well, but a week later (and only 120km) I know that 455km in one week on top of a fulltime job will leave me tired enough to oversleep 3 times in one week. The plan is to relax about that and focus on recovering for Sunday’s race. I’m doing the Highveld Stereo Pick ‘n Pay cycling challenge. It is the second biggest timed cycling event in the world with 28000 people doing the race last year and it is estimated that 28000 will be doing it again this year. It is a great experience and every South African cyclist should experience it at least once. In 2008 I hope to do the largest timed cycling event in the world, the Cape Argus Pick ‘n pay cycling challenge. The route is not as hard as the 94.7 route, but it is the most scenic route you can imagine and it includes the world famous Chapmans Peak Drive (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chapmans_Peak). I won’t be able to do it in 2007 since the 40000 entries were all sold out within less than 2 weeks, and it wasn’t during 2 weeks that I had cash to enter any races.

Wish List

2006-11-16T16:06:00.000+02:00

It is strange how amazingly kind people in South Africa can be. You always hear in the news about how high the crime rates in South Africa are and how corrupt our government is. While that is al true, there is a beautiful side to the people of this country.

Every year between late November and mid December, one of the radio stations in Johannesburg do a show that they call the Christmas Wish List. The listeners send wishes in my mail, email or fax and then the Highveld Stereo “elves” choose wishes that are most deserving, or most likely to be within reach for the radio station to make true.

In 2003 a mother of a 10 day old baby sent a wish for her boy. The boy was suffering from some heart defect and required very expensive surgery. The people live in Zimbabwe and they knew that short of a miracle their son was sure to die, since the Zimbabwean economy along with all public services had already gone down the drain thanks to Mr. Bob Mogabe. They required R1000000 (which at that time was around about $150000. The Highveld Stereo people decided to give it a shot and they called some large organizations. Within a few days they had the money. Sadly the boy passed away on the same day that the mother was informed that the Radio Station could provide the money needed. The money was still put to good use. It was given to a an African Children’s Cardio Surgery facility which was started by some prominent figures such as President Mandela, in response to this case and some research that showed that less than 1% of African children that require heart surgery will have access to it. That one wish paid for 8 children’s lives to be saved.

This year’s wish list will run from 26 November to 15 December some time between 8am and 9am each morning (GMT +2). So be sure to tune into www.highveld.co.za for some heart warming stories from Africa.

Law

2006-11-11T19:46:00.000+02:00

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Johan Jordaan <jjordaan@gmail.com>
Date: Fri, 10 Nov 2006 07:15:52 +0200
Subject: Law
To: johanjordaan.liberty@blogger.com

When it comes to law in the bible I love how Jesus steps one step back and
say, hey guys, what was the idea behind this here law? Lets rather read it
through the glasses of love than the glasses of condemnation. If it wasn't
for Jesus opting for the gist rather then the letter of the law, we would
all be in some mighty deep doodle.

The gist of the law was that we should all act in love at all times,
subjecting our own desires to the desires of God the Father and His son
Jesus and the Holy Spirit and in doing so covering those that we interact
with in His love so that He could be glorified. Instead the students and
professors of law of the day went and wrote some extra laws to "clarify"
what the gist of the initial law was. messing up the entire gist and
reducing it to loveless monotony void of any purpose. It had turned into a
form of godliness lacking any power.

PW Botha died

2006-11-02T08:09:00.000+02:00

P W Botha @ Wikipedia

Weekend Cycling

2006-10-26T07:53:00.000+02:00

This weekend I did one KILLER ride from Benoni (where Charlize Theron comes from) to Heidelberg 50km South of Benoni and into the Suikerbosrand nature reserve. Once in the reserve the route becomes one BIG monster with huge hill after huge hill. This continues for just less than 60km.

The hardest race that I have done consists of 900m climbing in 94km. The Suikerbosrand route incorporates 1100m of climbing in the last 55km alone and a total of 1400m for the day.

I would have been fine with the ride if I knew what to expect but I thought it would be much easier than it really was. I attempted the 106km ride with a grand total of 700ml of energy drink. The guys who knew the route drank a total of 2 – 2.5 liters. Needless to say the 34 degrees Celsius heat combined with the complete absence of wind on the last 5km climb didn't wash down so well with NO FLUID with a dash of fatigue already setting into my legs!

Lobola (part 1)

2006-10-10T14:44:00.000+02:00

I have recently had the fortunate opportunity to help a friend with his Lobola (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobola) negotiation. The week after the negotiations (which were successful) I attended my very first Tswana wedding. It was indeed an interesting experience. In Tswana culture the entire village is welcome at the wedding. At Rik and Eunice's wedding there must have been well over 200 people, including his parents and godparents which game to South Africa especially for the wedding and the negotiation.

The negotiation didn't start off to well because, (I think) the family was not impressed by the offer we made, and they were also not impressed by the way in which we negotiated. They wanted us to be less dominant in our approach. Once we figured that out things went much better.

The village of Madidi (North West of Tswane (Pretoria)) in South Africa is extremely hot and there isn't much shade. I had to wear a jacket (blazer) as a sign of respect for the family. At about 12:00 I couldn't take the heat anymore and I asked permission to take of the jacket. Luckily the family agreed.

Why did it eat it?

2006-09-22T12:28:00.000+02:00

In Thursday morning I went cycling up my favorite hill in Johannesburg (or just east of Johannesburg) called Fishershill. I’m fond of Fishershill because it helps me clear my mind. I was busy kicking some serious but when suddenly out of nowhere my rear wheel ate my rear derailleur (the thing that changes the rear set of gears). The derailleur snapped in half and that with only 200m of Fishershill left.

Elite Sportsmen

2006-09-19T10:26:00.000+02:00

I find it incredible that so many people view the performances of elite athletes as impossible to achieve without the use of some doping program. I am by no means an elite athlete but I can see how even my performances will be unbelievable to a couch patato if I could train just half as much as Lance Armstrong or Jan Ullrich. I cycle 4 – 6 hour a week and I live at 1500m above sea level. I started cycling 2 years ago but for the first year I did no more than 200km a month. I easily ride a very hilly course climbing 700m vertically over 60km at an average speed of 35km/h in a solo attempt. I do 4 – 6 hours a week mainly because I get ill if I do too much. But in high volume weeks when I do 12 hours I'm still fine while a year ago I was sure to get ill after a high volume week. At that point a high volume week was 6 hours. It is totally possible to increase your volume year on year for 5 years and eventually hit 20 – 30 hours a week and be fine with it.

If I just look at what difference two or three weeks of 10 hours per week makes to my performance I can imagine that a pro tour athlete that does as much training in one day as I do in one week, could go as fast at 45km/h. Add a little talent to the mix and you are sure to hit 50km/h.

About Floyd Landis

2006-09-14T16:03:00.000+02:00

1. If the UCI doesn't trust the French lab, why did they use that lab?
2. If the UCI trust the French lab why did it break its own rules by releasing the result of the A sample before the B sample was tested.
3. Why did WADA set the T:E limit to 4:1 while 2% if normal clean men are above that?
4. Who decided that 3/1000000 parts synthetic testosterone is natural, and why?
5. Who decided what level of carbon 13 is natural? What is the error factor here?

2006-09-11T16:41:00.000+02:00

I find it really interesting how different people handle the finances
in their marriages.

In a world of liberated women that work in jobs that pay as much as
what men earn (and even more than men earn due to some interesting
laws) my expectation is that things would not work as they did 50
years ago.

50 years ago it as simple. Than man in the house was the sole provider
and in many cases it caused the attitude like BB King says, "I earn
the cost to be the boss". Today however in some households the wife
earns a little less than the husband, often due to the fact that she
works half day in order to look after the kids in the afternoon. Some
households the wife earns nothing because she looks after the kids and
household fulltime. And in some homes the wife earns more than the
husband.

I've come across five different ways of handling the finances.
1. The husband is the responsible person and what ever the wife earns
is hers to spend on herself.
2. The husband is the responsible person and what ever the wife earns
is used for vacations or other non essential things but everyone
shares an equal part of the extra cash.
3. What ever either party earns is paid into one account and all
expenses are paid out of that account and all surpluses are shared.
4. Each person is responsible for a certain set of expenses and
manages those. My parents worked in this way. My father paid the big
stuff and my mother paid for school (which was cheap when I grew up)
and the domestic and cloths for everyone.
5. The husband takes everything and decides what the money gets spend on.

I know of two households that I'm glad I'm not a part of.
In the one the husband brings in about 70% of the cash but he manages
100% of it. His wife traveled to work with me a few years ago and she
had to ask for money when she wanted to buy the most basic stuff like
a jersey! He however bought incredibly expensive toys every month.
Stuff like a GPS and a mountain bike and scuba gear. His reasoning was
that they should share the household cost equally. Since he brought in
more than she did, every sent that he brought in more than she did was
his to spend on himself. The problem is the basics (which he chose)
was so expensive that after it was paid only that surplus that
belonged to him was still in the bank account. She didn't have R5 to
spend on herself.

Another person that I know pays ALL the household expenses and his
wife spends 100% of her salary on her. He recently asked her to
contribute R2000 per month to the household expenses. She flipped
because her money is her money and in her mind, it is the husband's
duty to take care of the family. When all the expenses are paid the
husband has very little money to spend on himself. The wife still
expects flowers and dates to be paid out of that little spending money
that he has.

Which one of the five is the correct way?

Ouma Suzie and Oupa Hertzog part two

2006-09-06T21:40:00.000+02:00

Ouma Suzie was the central force of love that glued the family
together. Everyone loved and respected her. As a young woman she put
aside her own aspirations to have children of her own, or to have a
few more years alone with her husband and adopted a child in need of a
loving family. In addition to her adopted son, she had 5 children of
her own. She knew the pain of having a child pass away. Two of ouma's
children passedaway before her.
In the 14 years that I knew ouma I only heard her complain once. One
day shortly before Oupa died she was tired and hopeless and desperate.
56 out of the nearly 58 years that Oupa and Ouma was married, Ouma had
to care for either a child or a elderly mother or a elderly spouse. It
was her hearts desire that Oupa would outlive her mother and on that
one day, it became clear that Oupa wouldn't. She longed for just a few
months of privacy after 56 years of selfless sacrifice.

Ouma loved unconditionally, lived selflessly and prayed faithfully. At
81 years of age her general knowledge was better that most people half
her age. She had more responsible than many 30 year olds have courage
for, including caring for her 100 year old mother fullltime. When Oupa
and Ouma was still alive every one use to think of the trio of Oupa,
Ouma and great grandmother as Ouma Suzie and the old people. It was
all to easy to forget that she too was over 80.

She was an inspiration to us all.

Cycling

2006-09-06T17:25:00.000+02:00

I cycled today for the first time in more than two weeks. It felt
great to be on the bike again. I did 65km before work @ 33km/h
average. That puts my kilometers for the year at 4177km.

Ouma Suzie and Oupa Hertzog part 1

2006-09-01T21:58:00.000+02:00

In 1992 on the 19th of June I started dating my wife Adele. It didn't
take long before I met her grand parents. Ouma (Grandmother in
Afrikaans) Suzie and Oupa (Grandfather) Hertzog. His name wasn't
really Hertzog but when he was a boy he use to play that he was
General Hertzog, and old South African war hero, and the name stuck
through his entire life. His real name was Ritzema Jan Phillip de
Beer. Oupa Hertzog was the great grandchild of the man which inspired
the name of the world's largest diamond mining company, de Beers. The
most famous hole in Africa, "Kimberley se gat" which is a 1000m deep
hand dug open diamond mine, use to be the farm of great great
grandfather de Beer.

But it was by no means their linage that made the de Beers amazing
people. What set them aside from everyone else was their love. Oupa
and ouma excelled at loving every soul that crossed their paths. They
loved in a tangeble life changing way. From the first day I met Oupa
and Ouma I was accepted into their lives as one of their own grand
children. I'll never forget the first time oupa cut my hair. For me,
that was like a form of initiation. In the back of the Esselen street
stand under the veranda, oupa set up the chair and the clippers in the
late afternoon summer sun. He cut my hair and all the time he was
talking and telling me about how good it was to belong to Jesus. He
didn't once ask me if I too belonged to Jesus, it was all to obvious
to oupa that if anyone had crossed paths with Jesus that he or she
would have given their lives, and if you haven't, then he will show
you the Jesus that he was talking about, rather than telling you about
him too much.

Oupa Herztog told the story about Jesus firstly by loving his wife
Suzie. He loved faithfully her for 59 years and ever in the last few
months of his live when his mind was not as clear as it use to be he
looked at her one day and he said, "I wish I could get a lovely wife
like you." He was delighted to find out that he did indeed have such a
lovely wife. He also told the story about Jesus by loving his
children, and their children and their spouses, and the grand
children's spouses and the great grand children. He prayed for
everyone every night of his life. Some times he would get a little
confused and put the wrong wifes with the wrong husbands in his
prayers. He often paired me, the husband of his grand daughter, with
Frieda, the wife of his grand son. That prooved all the more that even
a spouse of a grand child was just another grand child to him. I loved
Oupa Hertzog as my own because he loved me first.

Sad day

2006-08-24T21:58:00.000+02:00

Adele's grandmother passed away today. She was 81 and lived with her
mother that is turning 100 on the 4th of September. Great gran always
asked who would take care of her when her daughter passed away. We all
thought it was a joke but today her biggest fear became reality.

2006-08-23T10:14:00.000+02:00

JP at the top of Bedfordview Drive

Hillbrow Tower and JHB CBD from the top of Bedfordview Drive

Lian And Christiaan on building material wrongfully stored in a park close to my house.

Sandton from the top of Bedfordview Drive

An old Minedump close to te Benoni CBD. It use to be about 3 times that size but they are reprocessing the dump to find more gold. Modern processes are much more effective than in the old days.

Benoni CBD. Charming little town that Charlize Theron comes from, don't you think?

JHB CBD from the top of Fishershill. Fishershill is a great place to do strength training on the bicycle.

Great North road in Benoni. Ths road is beautiful in summer when the trees are green. I'll try to remember to post a picture of that in summer.

Family

2006-08-18T13:34:00.000+02:00

http://www.sacyclingtours.com/images/FamInHermanus.JPG

Sad little excuse for a sport

2006-08-18T12:53:00.000+02:00

Two things bother me about the SA cricket team's return from Sri Lanka due to concerns over some terrorist activity.

Firstly the fact that South African public has a problem with the fact that the guys chose to return to the relative safety of South Africa rather than stay to play cricket (in a poll 48% people were against their return). Is a game more important than the lives of the players?

Secondly, and more importantly the fact that the return of the players go more news coverage than the terrorist activity which led to their return. In none of the articles did any one of the journalist even hint at acknowledging the tragedy that the Sri Lankan people are faced with. No concern, or sympathy or anything. It's like for them; the premature end of the cricket tour was more tragic than the terrorist acts that caused it. Today I am glad that I have never been a cricket supporter. It's a sad little excuse for a game with sad little supporters. Go cycling, doping and all.

Hold me back

2006-08-16T17:23:00.000+02:00

It appears I have made some progress in controlling myself on the bike. If you know Johan Jordaan you'd know that attacking at any and every opportunity is weak point of my cycling. You never, almost, have to worry about seeing me attack with 200m to go with a powerful sprint because by the time the bunch reaches 200m to go, I have attacked 10 times and gone in every single break. When it's for the top of the mountain that we are racing you know I won't be the one because I'll be the guy dropping every one at the bottom without any regard for who is in the race, and then when it counts I have already given my best shot. Worst of all is I ride like this in every training ride as well. I realized that this style of riding wasn't going to get me any good results but I just can't help myself. I'm like a dog chasing the postman.

A few weeks ago I told a good friend that I was tired of being so out of control and set some rules for myself. Mostly these rules involve not giving 100% in every break in every training ride or even in races. Also not to ever average a higher HR in a training ride than what the purpose of the session would allow. If it's LSD we are talking about the HR should show afterwards that it was LSD, I have often finished rides planned as LSD with a time trial like HR. For about 6 weeks now I didn't allow myself to have a HR of higher than 150 (average) after any training session.

This morning we were riding a training ride, but it was a little race like because it's close to the end of winter and more and more people that have been training indoors are coming out to test themselves against the other guys before the real races start. At the bottom of a 2km climb @ 4% five guys went off the front. I was chatting to a friend who was a little surprised to see me not chasing. At some point he said that I had left it too late. That is when I actually started chasing, not allowing my HR to go over 180, I closed the gap with only about fifty meters to go. It was nice to still have something left towards the end of the climb.

Indoor and @ home

2006-08-15T08:20:00.000+02:00

For the millionth time today I just couldn't get myself out of bed to
go ride on my indoor trainer. When you're use to riding on the road
then a trainer just doesn't work anymore because it is simply to
boring!

Last night I had to do some work at home and at one point Lian came
and sat on my lap while I was working. He looked at the screen for a
few moments and then as if to say, "dude get a life", he just jumped
of and went to eat yoghurt in the kitchen. I mean to a 3 year old
anythink looks cooler than writing code.

It appears to me that my wife was freaked out just a little bit last
week. She went to see what home schooling was all about. We have been
thinking along those lines and I must say we both liked the idea very
much. Since Adele saw what it was all about though, she hasn't been
that keen on home schooling. I'm ok with that. Now we just have to
find a good school where the standard hasn't been lowered too much
because of the new school system and where the people aren't rasist
but not to liberal (read ungodly) either. If you don't stand for
anything you end up falling for everything.

I just checked my milage for the year. 3999km. That is excluding the 500km or so that I did on the mountainbike. If I knew I was that close to 4000km I would have done an extra km on the weekend. :(

When fun is no longer fun

2006-08-10T10:27:00.000+02:00

Yesterday I planned to go ride with a group of guys that I have joined a few times before. They wanted to do a long ride so it sounded like a great plan. I was however just a little bit to sleepy before bed to make any kind of decisions or calculation or do anything else that required my brain's involvement. Instead of setting my alarm clock for 5:20am which would have enabled me to be at the shop at 6:00am, I set my alarm for 5:40am which would enable me to start cycling at 6:00am if I really rushed through every part of my preparation. So when I woke up at 5:40am with a refreshed brain, I instantly knew that I had a problem. I decided to skip breakfast and bargain on the glucogen stores in my muscles and liver to be nice and full after a week of no cycling (except for the trip with the boys). Well they were nice and full, but I still managed to be late for the groups' departure. So instead of riding at the back of the bunch with a full stomach like I planned I ended up doing a complete different ride, 70km completely on my own. It was great fun but the old glucogen stores didn't last for ever. With 5km to go I realized that all was not well. The last 5km felt like an eternity. After the ride I was so preoccupied with the resulting muscle damage that I completely that I managed to consume almost nothing but meat yesterday, which wouldn't help at all to replenish those raided glucogen stores.

This morning's ride was a festival of pain! After just 30km I was completely empty! The 20km home into a headwind was pure torture. When I got home fifteen minutes later than usual I was shivering like crazy and I could hardly stand.

Tomorrow I'll be riding only 40km but I am eating like I'm doing 200km tomorrow. I sure don't want a repeat of today or yesterday. My leg already hurt so much I am not sure I can deal with more.

General

2006-08-07T13:19:00.000+02:00

The Family Life

Yesterday I took Lian and Christiaan cycling. Lian sat in the kiddies chair and Christiaan in a special backpack on my back. They loved it. We have cycled like this before but not for as long as today. I bought them each an ice lolly on the way and quickly realized that letting a 16 month old baby handle his own ice lolly while sitting in a backpack on your back is not a smart thing to do. So I decided the only option is for us to go eat the ice lollies at my aunt's house nearby. I got the idea she really enjoyed the visit.

It was a magical moment for me. I don't get to spend as much time with the boys as my wife so when I have time with them it is most often at the end of a day or at the start of the day when I should be getting ready for work. It is often during these few precious minutes that Lian looks at me with those big green eyes and say, "please don't go to work today, let's rather play." As you can imagine that is the worst part of my day when I have to explain to him that I have to go to work.

Previously when I worked in Johannesburg and my work hours was 9:00 till 18:00 we had this little conversation every single day. I dreaded it every morning. When I finally moved jobs and could work better hours He stopped saying that because he knew that I'd be back in time for us to still play outside before the sun went down. For the last 3 months now I've been working 9:00 to 18:00 again and suddenly the old plea for m to stay home is back. The difference is I now also have Christiaan begging with his big blue eyes. He can't say it in words yet, but the face says it all. That is why I am SO delighted that I'll be working 8:00 till 17:00 again from the 1^st of September. When I work until 17:00 in Centurion I can be home before 18:00 which is perfect. It gives me an hour with the boys before they become really tired and somewhat difficult as small children can be when they are tired.

The wife is lovely as ever. She started doing part time work again and I'm glad she has something that she can get back to when the children go to school in a few years from now.

The cycling

Well, that isn't going to hot for the last 2 weeks. I visited m parents one evening and the dog and cat hair got to me real bad. My lungs have not been happy ever since and then last week I had to go to my cousin's birthday dinner at my aunt's house and there the dog hair really got to me. I haven't done real training since but it looks like I'll be on the bike tomorrow morning. I'm looking forward to it and I just hope I didn't loose too much. I worked hard through the winter and I hoped to be in very good shape right now.

Running

In September Rik will be in South Africa and I hope to be able to run a 1500m with him. I doubt we'll find a race to enter as athletics in SA only really gets going round about October. I haven't run since my leg was supposed to be rehabilated, which says exactly how effective that whole deal was. Before that the previous time I ran was in March last year just after Christiaan was born. On that occasion Rik and me did an 8km run but I was so unfit that hardly enjoyed it. I was a hefty 75kg (165 pounds) at the time which is 10kg (22 pounds) more than I ever weighed as a runner and I hadn't done any consistent training for at least 6 months before. I never the less managed a 33 minute 8km but I could hardly walk the next day, or was that week? This time round I'll be reliving the past in a 1500m challenge. I think I've forgotten just how hard a 1500m race is so to remind me Rik and myself will see whether I can run anywhere near the times I use to run. I'm better off than last year because at least I'm fit, even if that is cycling fit. A little cardiovascular fitness never hurt anyone's 1500m performance and also being 10kg lighter than last year will help. 4 minutes 10 is the dream but the reality will probably be different. I don't plan to do ANY running before the actual event, lest that messes up my leg again and I don't get to run with Rik at all.

Last week I mail posted to my blog but the post never got published for some reason. I'm posting it exactly how I wrote it below even though the facts have now changed since Floyd's B sample was also positive.

On sports and cheating, ok maybe if Floyd Landis is guilty I'll have to eat my words or some of it, but as far as I'm concerned accusing someone of cheating before you have ALL the facts is nonsense. That makes you a cheater in a way because you are picking a fight that your opponent has no way of fighting because his only defense is his word of honor and that is exactly what you are steeling from him if you say he is guilty and leave him defenseless.

The facts of the Landis case.
1. His A sample tested positive for a physiological anomaly. The testosterone and the epitestosterone levels are not similar enough. The ratio should be below 6 to 1 according to most medical journals but according to the sporting body that governs cycling (the UCI) it must be below 4 to 1.

2. The epitestosterone should be less than 200ng/ml and it was.

3. Even if both samples are positive that does not mean he cheated because even though the UCI set the limit to 4 to 1, 0.8% of non doping males will be over 6 to 1.

4. Any other "facts" claimed such as that the ratio was 10000000 to 1 is false and speculation at this points as the laboratory that tested his sample is not allowed to give this sort of information to the media until both samples were tested.

5. It is possible to test whether the testosterone was naturally produced by his body or if it is synthetic. Claims that this is already confirmed positive is highly unlikely to be true because only the lab that did the A sample test will know this and leaking out such information could cost the labs dearly in lawsuits. It would also put a very big question mark over the labs professionalism. The chance of the lab technician knowing that he was working with Floyd's sample is ZERO since only the cycling body would know which sample belongs to which cyclist.

Further more I'd like to just point out that cheating in sport is not limited to cycling. It is however true that the very nature of the sport makes it more attractive to dope" than most other sports. There aren't very many sports where the athlete is active for 5 – 7 hours in any one competition at more than 70% of his maximal ability. In cycling this is common. In the three grand tours this is the case every day for 3 weeks except for 2 resting days, during which the cyclist will be on there bikes for 3 – 4 hours in any case. The resulting stress on the body is HUGE. Cyclist burn more than 1000 Cal per hour which means in 6 hours of cycling the cyclist uses the same amount of energy that a non active person would use in 3 days! That requires 1.5kg of carbohydrates to replenish. Add to that the 500ml – 1000ml fluid loss for each hour cycled and you can see that that is a HUGE task. But there is a physiological problem here. The body can only replenish 1g of carbs per minute. So in a day your body can replenish 1g x 60 min x 24 hours. That works out to 1440g of carbohydrates assuming 100% efficiency 24 hour a day. The reality is that no cyclist can do that and they all end up loosing between 5 and 10kg during the tour even though they would typically start off on 4% - 6% body fat. On a 70kg cyclist that is less the 4kg of fat in total! You end up with a dehydrated person with dangerously low body fat.

How would doping help with this? It wouldn't. That is the simple answer. But here is what doping would help for.
Red blood cell loss. Cyclist often finishes the tour with a red blood cell volume of less that 33% even though normally they would start the tour with 42% to 50%. The huge death of red blood cells could result in elevated bilirubin levels which will result in a cyclist having similar symptoms to someone with a kidney disease including a yellow color.

Lower testosterone production. While sports like weight lifting can cause an increase in testosterone production cycling will do the opposite. According to some medical professionals "supplementing" is not cheating but rather essential.

Muscle damage. During the hardest parts of the race the body can't use normal energy stores due to the high rate of demand and instead it will burn muscle fiber which is easily accessible. Cortisones won't reverse this, but it will lighten the typical muscle fatigue pains. Lactic acid that is produced during the day also damages the muscle fibers and causes additional pain. EPO and other blood doping products and methods will increase the red blood cell content of the blood and result in higher aerobic capacity decreasing the production of lactic acid and also rectifying the natural loss of red blood cells caused by endurance sport.

Without these doping substances a grand tour is very damaging to even the most elite cyclist's health and recovery can take months. Towards the end of such a tour most of the cyclists are getting close to or below the lowest safe levels of body fat and red blood cell volume.

This is why I believe a cyclist is more likely to dope than someone practicing a sport where the competition last for only 80 minutes. Your body can store enough energy and flood for 80 minutes of vigorous exercise and sufficiently replenish those liquids and energy over night. Your body can also easily get rid of toxins generated during excessive. The slaughter of red blood cells are MUCH less and manageable and production of testosterone is virtually unaffected but most likely increased rather than decrease due to the exercise.

I don't agree with doping in cycling or any sport. I'd prefer to see a clean Tour de France, even if it means only 20 guys finish and they do it @ 33km/h.I pity doping cyclist because they are trapped in a world that they will eventually hate.

The Gatekeeper

2006-08-04T11:08:00.000+02:00

A few nights ago I had an amazing dream. My alarm clock went off at 4:20 which is the time that I have to get up if I want to go cycling. My training buddy couldn't ride and I didn't feel too great so I set my alarm for 5:40 so I could go into the office early. In that time I had an amazing dream.

I dreamt that I didn't go back to sleep but that I got up to go to the office. As I wanted to switch off the security alarm I was shocked to see that I never switched it on. I thought to myself that that was very irresponsible given the crime situation in South Africa. When I got in the living room area I noticed that I didn't lock the back door, or the front door or even the patio door which is the one we most frequently use. Everything was however ok. Nothing missing, no murderous criminals in our house. I was getting very annoyed with myself for being so irresponsible and risking my family's lives in such a stupid way. When I got to my car, I saw that I didn't even lock it the previous night and that the gate was wide open! My wife's car was also unlocked and a set of house keys was lying on the seat. At this point I was really not happy with myself. I had neglected each and every security measure that every prudent South African knows is 100% essential if you plan to not wake up dead.

At this point I was suddenly aware of God telling me that it is not the alarm or the security company, nor the locks or any other measure that I might take that ensured my safety and the safety of my loved ones, but only His grace.

Snow in Gauteng South Africa.

2006-08-02T15:21:00.000+02:00

Well that is just crazy! On Sunday I was convinced the winter is finally over after 3 months of cold weather. Well boy was I wrong. It actually snowed in Gauteng today for the first time in more than 15 years, second time in my life. Thing is it was to hot for the snow to survive so it melted the instant it touched the ground. The previous time it was the same.

On September the 9^th in 1981 it snowed big time in Gauteng. Must have been 10cm of snow. I don't know one person that were growing up in Gauteng at that point that doesn't remember that day as one of the greatest highlights of their childhood. I think every child dreams of experienceing snow at least once.

Leadership

2006-08-02T07:52:00.000+02:00

Yesterday my brother had the misfortune of sitting in a coffee shop at a table right next to four ginormously confused charismatic preacher boys. The one went on and on for an entire hour about how the entire bible is really just about one thing; leadership. Now there is a whole lot of garbage for you. And then he probably wonders about why people stop going to his church, meantime I wouldn't be surprised if God Himself stopped going since it ain't about Him in the first place. Where two or more gather in the name of leadership, there God probably won't be.

In my livingroom

2006-07-10T16:00:00.000+02:00

For a number of months/years now I've been at piece with God but unable to pray. This followed a period during which I suffered from major depression. I felt, believed that it was because I had chosen against a life in service of God as a pastor. It wasn't that I didn't want to talk to God or felt that I didn't have the right to talk to God; it was more because I couldn't think of anything to say to God. Don't get me wrong, I continuously thank God for everything that I am and have and for his protection and love. But we never just talk anymore.

On Friday evening I watched the Hillsong youth groups United We Stand at one point they sing in a song, "we want the world to know". Their passion and commitment touched me and something in me just agreed with them. We want the world to know that Jesus is the savior, there will be no other, we will shout it out. Afterwards we went to bed and we didn't really make much of this think that had triggered in both our hearts. Adele had the exact same experience. On Saturday morning I got up early with the children and allowed Lian to watch one of his DVD's. Afterwards I put on some Afrikaans music. The first song was about how great the city Pretoria in Gauteng South Africa is. It was so empty and really quite silly to sing the praises of a city, and not the city Zion. The thing of the previous night was still very much in my head and heart. I stopped the song midway and put in worship CD of Michael W. Smith. At that point my wife got up and we sat in the living room with our two boys playing around us, and suddenly the room was not the same anymore. We were both just so incredibly aware of God's presence. We sat there crying our eyes out for about 15 minutes. The children were playing and calm, not demanding our attention. For the next hour waves of God just hit us, in turns, my wife, then me then my wife. Always one of us attending to the children and the other just on our faces before God crying and weeping and enjoying and just basically being completely amazed at how great God was. We didn't have time to talk about our experience until late on Saturday evening, but we both felt the same. I felt that God had removed all the filth and regretful things from the last few years out of me. And now, I'm ready to start living the passion that I had been neglecting for so many months. The passion for an all mighty, loving and wonderful God, which desired just one thing, because everything else he can just create if needed, but our friendship is one thing that he will not force.

It was truly amazing.

Security Guard strike

2006-06-19T12:14:00.000+02:00

Security Guards in South Africa have been on strike since 23rd of March this year about a wage dispute. This is a no-work-no-pay strike but the strikers can’t loose their jobs over the strike. The interesting thing is the average guard gets about R3000 per month (less than $450). They were offered an 8.3% increase. That is R249 per month and R2988 per annum. They are asking and 11% increase which is R330 per month and R3960 per annum. So for an extra R972 per annum these guys are on strike for nearly three month, sacrificing R9000 in income each. Assuming they end up getting the 11%, how many years do they have to work after this in order to actually be better off? Assuming an average of 8% increase in the future, they all have to work at least 30 years to make up the R9000 they each lost this year during the strike.

But there is something way more interesting about this strike than financials. The security guards have managed to vandalize and destroy several government buildings, they have killed more than 40 people during there protests and have managed to basically show that they are the last people you want to call when someone is threatening your life. Best they could do is help your attacker.

PS

58 guards have died in violence associated with the strike, not 40 and the dispute looks to have been settled with the Guards getting 0.25% more than was originally offered. On a R3000 per month salary that is R7.50 per month (less than $1).

The Good Life Explained

2006-06-15T12:48:00.000+02:00

In my view I was obviously sarcastic when I ended "The Good Life" with the statement that life abroad must really suck.

Today one of the headlines in the newspapers is about a woman that got murdered on the N1 highway. The incident would normally not have made the headlines because this type of incident is common but this one has a little twist in the tail. She called the police just before she was killed and asked for help because some men were approaching her vehicle. She was told not to make prank calls to the police. Understandably the police are not keen on people calling just for fun, but numerous people have been attacked on the same stretch of road in the last week.

The police not bothering to help the public in itself would also not have made the headlines, since that is common. In one incident a woman called the police when her house was broken into by armed men. They arrived more than 3 days later claiming that they were busy. My brother-in-law arrived at an accident scene a few months ago and called the emergency number. The phone rang for ages before someone answered. After he explained where the accident happened she promptly told him that she didn't believe that there was an accident on that road and got him off. He called again and again and after a bout four tries an ambulance was sent. One of the people in the car died more than 20 minutes later, shortly before an ambulance arrived.

It is events like this that makes it completely impossible to understand that someone with an opportunity to leave South Africa wouldn't grab it with both hands.

Hope that clarifies the statement.

Children

2006-06-13T18:00:00.000+02:00

The Good Life

2006-06-12T17:09:00.000+02:00

Sunny skies more than 200 days a year. A 3 or 4 bedroom house. Domestic worker that comes in twice a week or more to clean the house and wash the dishes and do the laundry. No more than 1 family living in a house. A holiday house in Hermanus that is even more comfortable than the first property. 2 cars per family. Medical Aid that covers all costs in a private hospital. Good food bought at Woolworths just because you can. Private schools for the children and a tertiary education on the horizon.

This is the life that almost every white South African knows and more and more black South Africans are finding out just how comfortable life can be. But there is a price tag on all this. Security.

Along with the good life come fear, grief, pain and a huge private security bill. Almost every South African that lives this good life personally knew someone that had been killed in a hijacking or other violent crime. Almost every one knows a women that had suffered the pain of rape and abuse. The statistics show that one women is raped in South Africa every 6 minutes. Everyone has woken up at night with the panic in there hearts, "what was that sound"? The silence, the minutes afterwards waiting for the truth to reveal itself. Will I die tonight? When you get home late at night you feel the need to call your private security service to escort you home. I have done it, and so have many others. Some regret that they didn't use the service, some regret that their loved ones didn't and won't ever need to again.

My brother left South Africa and returned less that 2 years later because life in the UK is just not as comfortable as in South Africa. In the year since he returned he had lost everything to burglars twice.

Almost every person has been a victim, yet we stay because of the good life.

Life abroad must really suck!

TV in the livingroom

2006-06-05T20:25:00.000+02:00

On Friday night when I returned from work, my wife asked me to meet
her at her grandmother's house. Her great grandmother was watching
television when I arrived. We don't have a TV in our house and I got
such a nasty reminder last night about why we don't have TV in the
house. A TV is in my opinion the most rude and offensive appliance of
all. If this is true, then it becomes even more true when the TV is
found in the home of a nearly 100 year old lady. Firstly it is three
times as loud as the loudest person in the room. It is permanently
on. The old lady still tries to have a conversation with guests even
though she finds it hard to hear what people say (even when there is
no such rude appliance competing with her for an audience).
I also realised that old people have such rigid structure in there
lives, that it becomes difficult for a young family to take the effort
to visit them. They simply WON'T change their routines at all to
accommodate anyone, not even a guest. Whether you are visiting or not
they watch the same shows, listen to the same radio shows. You
basically get a slice of their time during the commercials, but not
during the good ones.

Many churches treat God in the same way, they follow the same program
whether God shows up or not. Now I'm being naughty:-). Where two or
more gather in God's name there He is. But the point that I'm trying
to make is this, some church programs are very rigid. I use to hate
that, but now that I have small children
I must be honest I dread going to churches that aren't rigid in their
ways. It makes it very hard to prepare yourself and the children for
the service if you don't know when it will be over. The one church
close to my heart has services that goes on for anything from 3 to 5
hours. THERE IS NO WAY I TAKE A TODDLER THERE. The truth is it is an
adventure to be in such a service, but God does not need such a
service to do His work in you life. Jesus only needed a moment of the
Centurion's time to change his life and heal his servant. The women
with an issue of blood only needed to touch the hem of Jesus' garment
to have her life changed.
We need to acknowledged God when we gather and appreciate His
presence. This does not mean that we have to keep the service going
forever. Each one carries the Glory of God within himself and can
therefore have experiences with God at anytime. It is my experience
that times with God at your home or in your car while driving to work
is no less significant than times with God in or during a church
service.

Worship

2006-05-31T22:07:00.000+02:00

On Monday evening my wife and I sang at a worship conference. It was
really amazing to do that again after nearly 10 years of not being
envolved in worship. I was really nervous at first but once the song
got past the first chorus I was fine. I was more than fine actually.
When you become aware of God's presence there is really no way of
ignoring it and all nervousness just disappears. Nervousness is
grounded in fear of what people might think of you but when you become
aware of God's presence your focus changes completely and you actually
forget about the people.

Old dreams

2006-05-23T21:40:00.000+02:00

Tonight I was at a practice session at the church where Adele and I
worshipped as teenagers. Adele was asked to lead on two song during a
worship conference that the church is hosting next week. She in turn
asked me to lead the one song while she plays piano. It has been a
while since I did something like this and I appreciate my wife's
confidence in me.
I really enjoyed it tonight. It was good to do the thing that I loved
so much. I felt at home.

Faith and stuff

2006-05-18T09:32:00.000+02:00

Today I started to feel more comfortable at my new job. It is always very hard for me to settle into a new work enviroment, but at my last two jobs I started out not feeling less knowledgable than my colleagues.
I have a tendancy to always feel that people that has more experience than I have in anything, has a secret access to vast resources that I am not priveledged to. That goes for anything from cycling to work and my very brief attempt at becoming a bassist. But in my job I have somehow gained respect from my peers. I don't think I earn it, but I do enjoy it. I also know thst the IT industry is full off clueless people earning way more than they are worth, so simply doing your job makes you stand out.

Life at home is however a little move complex than that. Todlers simply doesn't follow a simple logic approach to life. I often think what makes sense to me should make sense to Lian, but I am wrong. I have so much to learn.

I simply don't have the creative energy at the moment to publish our holiday pictures. My wife took nearly 500 pictures, most of which are nice. So choosing the few that get published, will take some time.
I will sort it out this weekend.

In the meantime a thought. "At first you shape your faith, then your faith shapes you" - anonomous

Back from holiday

2006-05-15T16:45:00.000+02:00

I've been on holiday for 2 weeks in the Western Cape in South Africa. It was very cold and windy during the first week but the second week was hardly winter. We had some nice days on the beach and I also cycled up the Franschhoek pass. I'll try and write more this evening and maybe I can have some pictures on the blog before the weekend.

About..

2006-04-25T13:31:00.000+02:00

... Training

After years of hard training and over training at times I still don't have the discipline to take an easy morning every now and again. I normally train hard every day until I get ill and then I know it's time for a few easy days. The last 3 or 4 months though have worked out quite well. Something always happens and forces me to have an easy day or two at just the right times. The things aren't always great, but at least not as bad as getting seriously over trained. This morning was one such morning. I was planning to have an easy day but then the guy that was riding just ahead of me couldn't keep up with the first 6 guys. I wondered out loud whether I should pass the guy and close the gap but my friend reminded me that we were suppose to have an easy morning. I stayed behind the guy that caused us all to fall behind but eventually I just couldn't force myself anymore and I passed him. By this time we had allowed a serious gap between us and the group of 6 guys that was setting the pace. I went right to work and closed the gap. Just when the gap was closed the fun started and I was sucked right into it. Luckily my friend got a flat tire about 3km further down the road which forced us to abandon the little race that was slowly unfolding. It was interesting to see that we have managed to drop the main group of riders and gain a lead of nearly a minute in just a few kilometers. My friend is not the fasted in the world when it comes to changing a tube so we only got back on the road quite a bit behind the main group and then decided to stick with our initial plan of taking it easy. We just took an easy pace all the way home. Easy days are a vital part of any training program but it is normally not the most fun part of the training program. I like the feeling of slightly sore legs and the knowledge that I've earned the pain. Pain is a good thing and when it comes to races all those sore days that you invested in is the bank of experience from which you can make withdrawals to pay for the effort that is necessary in the race.

... my boys

Last few post have been about the two little men that have been living in our house for the last almost 3 years. First there was Lian and then he was joined by Christiaan 21 months later. The boys are both healthy again after a few weeks of sore throats and high fevers and a stomach flu of note that did the rounds twice. Everyone in the family, even grand parents shared in the stomach flu fun. And this was one of the things that forced an easy morning out of me. Christiaan is however in the process of getting himself 3 new teeth.

... the job

I'm in the middle of changing jobs, or not, depending on some paperwork that needs to confirm a new offer that my current company has made. I've been very happy here but the truth is I get nervous when I see that my contract is almost over and I don't hear anything about renewal. When I got an offer from another company I took it. Now my current employer has shown interest in keeping me here and they have made some nice promises. If the paperwork gets in place, I would probably be a fool not to take it.

... the HOLIDAY!!!

Praise be to the God of Abraham!!! I haven't had a holiday in way to long but on Saturday the wife and the boys and I will embark on a voyage towards the south west. Our destination, Hermanus. My parents bought a house, as a retirement investment, in Hermanus a few years ago. It is a lovely holiday destination and it is not surprising that Hermanus is the most popular place in South Africa to buy property. Even the simplest of houses cost 3 times or more what they would have cost elsewhere in South Africa. Hermanus is a coastal town wedged in between the Atlantic Ocean and some mountains.

Hermanus is famous for whale watching. It is in the heart of a floral kingdom that is unique to the Western Cape and is the smallest floral kingdom in the world and certainly one of the most beautiful.

The Beautiful Boys

2006-04-19T11:33:00.000+02:00

These are the boys that give colour to my life. I'm not going to say that my life was otherwise colourless, but truth be told, they shine so bright that even the lilies of the field are pale in comparison. It is honestly a privilege to know these two boys.

2006-04-18T13:49:00.000+02:00

Lian on the Tractor

This tractor was given to me for my very first birthday. Apparently I never really used it. My children loves it and Christiaan will actually just sit on it even when no one is pulling it. I thik that he thinks it's his.

2006-04-18T09:25:00.000+02:00

Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power - Abraham Lincoln, US president (1809-1865)

Christiaan

2006-04-10T14:35:00.000+02:00

We celebrated Christiaan’s first birthday the Saturday before he turned one year old on the Monday. We planned a much bigger party but due to bad weather we cancelled the initial plans and decided to only take a few children to an indoor party venue close to our home. Christiaan really enjoyed it and I’m sure the other children did too but I still feel sad that Christiaan’s first birthday didn’t get the attention that he deserves. I am writing this as a letter to Christiaan which he can one day read and keep close to his heart when his teenage years arrive and all the questions that comes with that tries to confuse his little heart.

When we found out that Adele was pregnant with Christiaan we were very excited. We made space for him in our hearts straight away and we looked forward to meeting this lovely person that God had entrusted us with. We obviously had ideas in our mind what we thought a little Christiaan would look like and mostly my ideas were founded on what Lian was like. Christiaan was after all a child of the same parent.

Shortly before Christiaan’s birth Lian had the accident with the tea and had to spend 3 days in hospital due to the 2nd degree burns that he suffered. At that point we could have learned our first lesson about Christiaan if we were paying attention. Even though this all happened right about on Christiaan’s due date, he was the patient little man that we now know and waited a few days, until after we had dealt with Lian’s wounds and until after Adele was over the worst part of her flu which she managed to get in the final week of pregnancy. That is honestly just like Christiaan is. He is normally very easy going and will generally be very considerate when we have pressing matters that steels his time. When you need an extra hand to make a sandwich or a cup of tea, you can always put Christiaan down with a toy and he will almost always be quite ok with it.

Once he decided to make his appearance though, he didn’t give us much time. I very almost didn’t make it to the hospital. That too was actually a lesson about what little Christiaan would be like. He will wait his turn, but when it is his turn who ever else is on what ever it is that he is now entitled to have a turn on better get of quick. He is not scared to let know when he is not happy about something. Even though he is calm and friendly, he is no pushover! He is also very swift! But most importantly he is an outdoors man. You see it works like this. Our outdoors cat (the one I’m so allergic to that we make him stay outside because I really should be getting rid of him but can’t bring myself to break his little cat heart) wants to be in the house. Christiaan wants to be outside. So when ever I have to take something outside or go outside without Christiaan, I have to watch two things. Where is Christiaan? Where is David (our cat)? When I believe that I can quickly open the door and get out and close the door again before Christiaan gets out or David get’s in, I have to move quickly. Very often I’d find that Christiaan can somehow crawl the distance from the backdoor (where he probably thought I’d be going out), to the patio door in less time that it takes me to open the door, dash outside and close the door again. It’s miraculous but it is true. He can crawl about 6m in under a second. ^{(Exaggerate warning!!!)}

Christiaan didn’t waste any time once he arrived, he got going with working his way deep into our hearts right from the first moment. He has such a charming smile and the most beautiful blue eyes and he knows very well how to use it. Like his brother he is always busy, crawling over things and around things and climbing up and getting off. He is like a little windup toy, the one moment it looks like he has enough momentum to take him through the night and the next moment tiredness gets the better of him, but he fights the good fight every day. He won’t just accept that he is tired, he will much rather try and see if he can beat the sleep if he just keeps moving. So far he has not managed to actually gain enough momentum to not need sleep anymore but he tries every day. The one thing he has managed to do with all that movement is to wedge himself permanently into my heart.

I don’t mind having him there, in fact having him there, together with his brother and his mother, is what makes living the greatest adventure.