The Boston Marathon is unlike any other marathon race. You board a bus to Hopkinton and spend several hours anxiously waiting at Athletes' Village alongside thousands of other excited and nervous runners. Although running 26.2 miles is the familiar part, the Boston Marathon (similar to a few other events like the London Marathon) has a logistical component with the wave starts and needing to arrive 2-3 hours before the race start. Most runners will begin running between 10:15-11:30am. That gap between the morning "pre race" meal and the start is where many runners get it wrong. Despite being physically prepared, there's a chance of either under-fueling and hitting the wall early on, or over-eating and fighting GI distress through the Newton Hills. If you are running the Boston marathon and you have concerns about how to fuel and hydrate on race morning, this blog gives you a simple timeline for breakfast, village fueling, and pre-race hydration so that you can perfor...
440 miles, 48077 feet elevation gain and 39:39 hours of riding. Cape Epic was so much more than riding our mountain bikes for 8 consecutive days. There was a huge logistical undertaking of making our way from Meerendal to Montagu to Stellenbosch. The prologue started at Meerendal Wine Estates on Sunday. Karel and I had a start time of 11:30am. Shortly after we finished (and showered/changed/ate) we made our way ~2 hours to Montagu (so thankful for our friend Elrika for driving our SUV for us to get to stage 1 and then returning to the car rental in Cape Town. Otherwise we would have taken the race shuttle). From there, we spent 3 nights at Montague before (transitioning) biking to a new location. We then spent another three nights in Greyson before (transitioning) biking to our final location in Stellenbosch. To keep things simple for us riders, all we had to do is show up. The Cape Epic staff and volunteers took care of the rest. Our suitcases and bike bags were stored away...