Big race week

Something always happens in the week leading up to a big race. Last time in January before the Attakwas national marathon mountain bike race it was a breakdown of my drive train. Fortunately it was just a matter of adjustments and some fine tuning and all was good and went fine. This time it was the valve of my inner rim tape lining of my tubeless wheels that broke on Tuesday. I was also desperately trying to track down the tyres I was wanting for Saturdays race in Sabie as I only had dry tyres and I knew Sabie was going to be very very wet and muddy! Most of this wouldn't be too much of a hassle, however, working full time doesn't leave me with much time to be able to sort these things out.

In amongst all these happenings, I was also hoping that my new bike I had ordered would arrive before I headed off to the other side of South Africa! Fortunately for me, my trusty mechanic Roland was on top of everything! I had managed to find the exact tyres I wanted and the minute my bike arrived Roland was putting it together. This allowed me to squeeze in one quick easy ride on Thursday to make sure all was good. Obviously new bike comes rain! Some of the first rain for a while in Cape Town!

So I got a new Felt SIX Pro. WOW! What a beautiful bike it is! It weighs a whole 2.5kgs less than my old Scott! Sadly, with hardly any riding on it yet I had to stick it into my bike bag and onto the plane!

Sabie is a very long way away from Cape Town! We spend pretty much the whole of Friday traveling! First the two hour plane trip to Joburg, then the 4hr car trip to Sabie. Its always such a pleasure to have friends and family to help you out along the way! Joining me on the trip from Joburg to Sabie were the two most important women in my life and my most loyal supporters, my mother and girlfriend Jayde.

Arriving in Sabie was like arriving in paradise for me! There are just endless mountains! It is magical, truly a mountain bikers playground! However, the feeling of "this is going to be a very tough race" started to creep through my body! But with this comes a sense of excitement and the feeling of "I just want to get on my bike and start the race now".

Usual pre-race routine followed:
1. set up bike
2. easy spin to loosen the traveled muscles
3. register
4. eat supper
5. sleep

Bring it on!

System shutdown and a bad day

Saturday, 20 February 2010 saw the hottest day over the Western Cape region for the current 2009/2010 summer. It also happened to be the day of the Xterra South African Champs in Grabouw, which is part of the Global Xterra Tour.

I have never been one that takes to the heat well! And this was yet another confirmation. I was really looking forward to this race, although I was still doing it for fun as I haven't been preparing for it due to my lack of swimming and running. I figured I had a decent chance of a top five and if all goes to plan even a podium finish. I was basing this estimation on my recent performance at the Western Province Triathlon Champs where I proved that I could still swim by exiting the water in the top five about a minute or two behind the leader and then go on to run a 37min 10km. What I believed favoured me even more for this race was that I would be able to make up better time on the mountain bike leg!

Last year at this event I took part in a team where I did the mountain bike leg, as I was still recovering from my operation and was then starting to do more mountain biking. On that occasion I started the bike about 4min behind the leader and ended up riding through the field to finish the bike a few seconds behind the leader. Ok, the bike was the only part that I was doing and I didn't have to still go out and complete the 10km trail run. However, I was going to apply a similar tactick this year in the full event, such that I would go as hard as I could go on the bike because that is where I would make up the most time.

Well, races don't always go according to plan!

It started off according to plan, as I had a very decent swim coming out of the water and heading out onto the bike with my wonderful girlfriend shouting a gap of about 2min behind Kent and Dan. However, that was pretty much the end of my race as my body rebelled against the extreme heat and simply shutdown! The minute I started out on the bike I felt dead, but this often happens in triathlon races and I thought it will come right and I'll get into my rhythm shortly. This never happened and it only got worse! I had ridden the route during the week before and then been through it on my computer as well as in my mind a number of times leading up to Saturday. I knew it very well. However, on Saturday during the race I felt like I had never done the route before! I struggled to find the right gears and couldn't focus properly. I began to wonder how I was going to be able to get through the run! I ended up taking each small section at a time in order to simply get through it and just finish the race, as I am not one to pull out of a race no matter who passes me or where I am coming!

I ended the bike leg 9 minutes slower than what I did it in during an easy training ride the week before! Then came the run, and that was all about just making my way to each of the water points that became water stops! Before the first water stop I tripped three times! The highlight of the entire event for me came at about 4km into the run. I knew there was a river crossing, but in the previous years the river was never as deep as it was this time. It was awesome! I spent a bit of time there having a complete dip in the refreshing water to cool off. After that I had to walk the up hills as I felt like I weighed 100 kilograms (respect to those that take part in endurance sports and weigh that amount!), walk the down hills as they were very steep and with my lack of focus would have probably fallen somehow. The rest of the time I just had to plod my way to the finish.

I ended up finishing the 10km trail run in a time of 1hr12min and a total time of 3hr07min. My performance made me think a lot about when I'm watching the Tour de France and see some of those guys suffer and go through bad patches. Once finished the race, my muscles weren't sore or stiff and I didn't feel like I had done much! This is purely because I simply couldn't push myself hard like I normally do as my body just wouldn't function. Temperatures exceeded 40 degrees Celsius at times during the event and I'm grateful to have finished ok, as there were three fellow competitors that had to be hospitalised! The event medics were really made to work hard! There was even a mention the next day in the Sunday Argus, as well as the radio news report on Monday!

The big question?

I would really like to know the reason why the organisers decided to move this race from April two months earlier in the year to February? I know that it was a temperature anomaly that is completely out of the organisers control. However, February is the hottest month of the year in the Western Cape and without the temperature anomaly it most likely would have been well over 30 degrees Celsius especially in the Elgin Valley region. Another thing is that the race started at 11am. This meant the I would have been out on the course from 11am to 2pm, the hottest time of day, while some of the other competitors would have been out in the extreme heat until 3 to 4pm! That is a very long time to have been out in those conditions and very well done to all those who stuck it out and completed the entire race! And well done to Dan for an amazing performance under those conditions to take the top honours!

Lighthouse 2 Lighthouse mtb race

The 2010 Lighthouse to Lighthouse mountain bike race was a first for me. It was one of those races I've always heard about and thought it would be nice to do it. It is also one of those races that doesn't seem to attract a large field of top riders, however, a few good riders always turn up but you never know who they are until you standing on the start line.

This time it was the whole Fairbairn Private Bank team, a newly formed team from my very own multisports club - ATC Multisport against myself of Blend Properties. They have put together some decent mountain bikers that are competing in many of the regional races and some of the national races as well.

Day 1: (85km)

The race started from right underneath the Danger Point lighthouse at the tip of Gansbaai and headed in the direction of Cape Agulhas, the most southern point of Africa. There was a Northwesterly wind blowing, which meant a tail wind for the entire 85km of racing! There was an easy tar section for about 4km, which was nice to get the legs moving after the 2hr30min drive there without much of a pre-race warm up! The tar then lead into a rocky jeep track along the shore where a front group of riders formed. We encountered a short beach section before hitting a long, straight flat stretch of tar road for about 12km. During this time we had a group of nine riders, four of which were Fairbairn Bank riders. We took a left turn in the direction away from the coast and were now on a heavily corrugated gravel road. With this came the first climb of the race and the end of the group of nine riders! At the top of the climb was two Fairbairn Bank riders, Cornelius Muller and Louis, and myself.

Not far from there after just over an hour of riding, we encountered another climb that was a little more rough. I rode a steady pace up there and when at the top I looked behind me to see that I had opened up a substantial gap on the other two riders. At this point I had to decide whether to ease up and wait for them to catch back up to me or to just carry on riding relatively hard and see what happens. My only concern was that it was rather flat and they would probably work together to bring me back. After a while of riding in the front I had built up a gap of 3min on the two Fairbairn Bank riders. This gap turned out to be nothing compared to local knowledge as we entered the Agulhas Nature Researve! This is where the sand really started, which is one of the aspects this race is famous for. I was struggling through the incredibly soft sandy jeep track having to get off my bike and run some sections then get back on my bike to only have to get back off again to run! about half way through the reserve I all of a sudden saw Louis come flying past me. He had done this race before and knew that you can't ride on the jeep tracks as the sand is too soft but there were paths that had been cut out from people trying to ride off the jeep track over the years of this race. They are difficult to spot as all the vegetation there was burnt to the ground and the paths are not clearly visible unless you know they are there.

I quickly got onto these paths and caught back up to Louis and followed his line. My hardtail bike did pose a very rough ride through the burnt vegetation as I followed Louis riding smoothly seated on his full-suspension bike. As soon as we left this section of the reserve I managed to open up a gap on Louis only to get lost with lack of route marking and local knowledge. Louis thus caught back onto me as I got back on track again just as we entered the beach. WOW! I've never done a mountain bike race where you have to ride some much on the beach! It was truly amazing! Though tough at times when having to ride through the rocks, however, bringing the only bit of technical aspect into the race, which was good.

Again, I opened up a gap on Louis and was now just riding along the coast expecting to see a marshal or signage to tell you when to go up off the beach. During this time Cornelius was trailing and Louis had broken his rear derailleur. After a very long time on the beach and a few slowing down and unsure moments where to go, I stopped and thought that I must be going wrong. I looked back to see Cornelius starting to cut back inwards off the beach! I had to quickly run through the dunes and bushes to meet up with him! This was very frustrating as it was just too much of getting lost towards the end! We then ended up riding back to the finish under the Cape Agulhas lighthouse together. A nice gesture from Cornelius was to have them put my name first on the results as I was in the lead for most of the way and got lost many a time over! The lack of route marking and marshals towards the end was largely due to the fast pace (29.3km/hr ave spd) and finishing time (2hr56min) of the race aided by the tail winds and the organises therefore not being ready in time as they have to travel a long way round from Gansbaai to get to Agulhas.

Day 2: (105km)

Sure enough, being the lighthouse 2 lighthouse, we began day 2 at the base of the Cape Agulhas lighthouse and headed off in the direction we came from the previous day. Unbelievably, the wind had switched direction, which meant that we would have a tail wind for almost the entire way back!

We started out on a flat gravel road before encountering the beach section. It was as soon as we hit the beach where the field was strung out and again it was the two Fairbairn Bank riders, Cornelius and Louis, myself and this time joined by Jan Schutte. I rode through some dune bushes and they got wrapped around my cassette! I thus had to make a quick stop to untangle them. This saw the other three riders get a gap on me and I had to chase back hard as I wanted to catch them before we left the beach because we would then be entering the Cape Agulhas Nature Researve with the sandy jeep tracks again. I needed to be able to follow their paths off the sandy jeep tracks through this section! I managed to catch them before we left the beach and then stuck to my plan of following their paths. Louis punctured, which left it to just three of us at the front. As we left the reserve we went up a bit of a hill that saw Jan drop off of Cornelius and I. This left the race between Cornelius and I as we worked together for a very long way.

70km into the race we took a left turn and headed up a rather long climb. At the base of the climb I put in a steady effort and continued to increase the pace a bit and about half way up I looked behind to see Cornelius had dropped off and was quite a long way back already. This made me go harder as I knew that this was the only place where I would be able to get a gap before the finish as it was flat from then on. Going over the top and heading down to the long stretch of tar road we come out on the previous day, I had built a gap of about 2min on Cornelius.

I thought that I just had to go steady and get off this stretch of road with a comfortable gap and I would have a good chance of making it to the finish in first place. I was starting to get rather tied at this point in time but still had a decent gap. I had a lead marshal on a quad bike behind me while making my way back along the coastal jeep track towards the Danger Point Lighthouse. However, there were a few occasions where the track would split and on one occasion I took the right hand split only to have the marshal on the quad bike go down the left split! I was able to ride down some bushes to get back on track again and was hoping that the marshal would simply drive in front of me so that I would know exactly where to go! However, this was not the case and before I knew it he was gone and nowhere to be seen! After a while I came across some sections that were very sandy and I had to keep getting on and off my bike to run some of them and I couldn't remember that happening yesterday on the way out! I could see the lighthouse right in front of me when I realise that the quad bike would not have been able to have gone where I was and I heard a road above me. I realise that that was the tar road we started out on yesterday so quickly hiked up through the dune bushes and as I got onto the road I saw Cornelius coming along the road right behind where I joined on! I couldn't believe that this could happen in both days and was so frustrated! By this time I was also rather tied and Cornelius came past me with the finish line in sight! I therefore had to settle with second place.

Day 2 saw another fast pace of 29.1km/hr average speed and a finishing time of 3hr35min for the 105km. In the end I was happy with the way I rode and my ability over the two days, however, I would obviously like to have come out with the win!

(Photo's still to come...)

Ideas and plans

Sitting with my computer in front of me on Friday night just finishing off a few necessities before bed time, I was wondering if I should write up something on my blog. With only 5-hours until I had to wake up at 2:30am to travel 2hrs30min to Gansbaai for the start of the Lighthouse 2 Lighthouse 2-day mountain bike race, I decided against a write up and resorted to a quick tweet instead.

I don't think I've ever woken up that early for a race before and the entire week leading up to the race I was still in doubt whether it would be possible! I kept convincing myself that once I'm there it will great and one of those things where I'd say I'm glad I did it. Most sensible people spend the Friday night out in Gansbaai, however, my girlfriend Jayde really wanted to come along and support me, which I'm always very grateful for! She was having to work until midnight on Friday so the option to go spend Friday night in Gansbaai was out of the question.

So Saturday 2:30am it was! A quick get up out of bed (by my standards, which more likely resembles a very slow get up out of bed to most people), trusty Jungle Oats and fruit juice for breakfast (more like a midnight snack!), pack the car and hit the very quite roads in the direction of Gansbaai.

It turned out to be a wonderful experience and one that I'm glad I did. In the end, apart from the wonderful support and great company from Jayde, it was a lot more convenient waking up at 2:30am and traveling through to Gansbaai and having her there than it would have been to not have had her around to help me out with logistics and I have to admit, getting ready on race mornings!

Bla bla

In the beginning... there was light...

I suppose that I have to think of something thoughtful to begin with for my first blog post! However, I'm never really good under pressure when it comes to laying down thoughtful words (something my brother Ryan is exceptional at). Therefore this is simply to not have an empty blog page to start off with for the time being.

There are many things that I could have written about in my first blog, such as my life long story, my most recent races or simply my day I had today. However, as always time is an issue right now as I am about to sit in traffic for about an hour to get home at a reasonable time in order to have a shower, eat supper and get prepared for what lies ahead tomorrow. Training wise it happens to be a rest day from the bike thus leaving me with a short easy swim and run, for some loosening up and cross training, and work of coarse...

So whatch this space

Dave