Thanks for taking the time to consider investing in my EXTREME experience.
This World AIDS Day (1 December 2009), I'm going to be raising money for Doctors Without Borders / MSF (see http://www.msf.org/) by being really super EXTREME!
I've invented my very own triathlon. My friend Scott will be joining me - for the fun of it all, to make sure I complete everything, and as three time Ironman, to challenge the hell out of me. Needless to say it's been a serious and eventful training period. Together we will rock Cape Town as follows:
6:00am: We will get kitted up. For me this means wearing a bandana as well as 'HIV positive' t-shirts all round [ed: karate outfit proved an impossibility]. We will eat an EXTREME amount of raw food and carbs, supplemented by the previous night's braai and carb session, and then get going.
7:00: We will meet at Long Street Baths, where cheerpeople (men and women welcome), organised by my friend Lesley, will be to cheer us on and collect extra donations from outside. We may even have a little media coverage! This collection of heroic individuals will witness the two of us swimming 100 lengths of crawl. The pool is 25m, so that means 2.5 kilometers of non-stop swimming. At least one other person will join us in the pool at this leg of the race, and hopefully we will have a great turnout to document.
8:00: Next we will bike around 40/50km from the baths up through Deer Park to Tafelberg Road, down the M6 to Hout Bay, and up to Constantia Nek and then Kirstenbosch. This ride involves at least two rather large hills / small mountains, probably 300m high each. I've done this particular leg once before, and it definitely hurts. While in Hout Bay we will eat fish and chips at Fish on the Rocks, which is the only lunch EXTREME enough.
10:00: Finally, we will RUN (or attempt to RUN) up the back of Table Mountain at Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens. I will collapse more EXTREME than I was before (difficult though that may sound at this point I know), Scott will wipe the first few drops of sweat that have accumulated from his brow, and MSF will have a little more money for tackling HIV and providing emergency health care and advocacy around the world. Hope to be done by 12:00, but thinking anything before 1:00 (6 hours) would be great time.
Please support this madness!
ADDITIONAL NOTE:
According to the International Triathlon Union this is somewhere in between the distances involved in an 'Olympic Triathlon' and the even crazier 'Ultra Triathlon'. However, I reckon the presence of mountains in my triathlon pushes this into a new category of 'EXTREME' [with capitalization for respect].
[1 Dec 2009]: We made it, and exceeding all expectations!! Scott and I (and Rich, in the pool) hammered the intended course in 6 hours exactly, raising over £500 (R6,000) for MSF. There were some testing moments, but one way or another we were going to finish and that's what we did. Thanks to everyone for their kind donations, help and support for the new and exciting World AIDS Day Cape Town EXTREME Triathlon. May there be many more to come.
But of course we couldn't have done it without the encouragement and canvassing skills of the wonder brigade of cheerleaders (Long Street Baths didn't know what hit them), those who helped out at the previous night's carbo loading / pompom making party, and those who met us along the way and at the finish line. You all rock solidly.
Some of the first pictures to come out are up, and more to follow shortly. I will add a proper list on Facebook soon also, but first I must sleep. Huge love to you all ~ John.
