New and exciting times ahead

For all the years I've been competing in triathlons and cycling I have never had a coach. At times I've had a running coach purely for running and a swimming coach for squad swimming, otherwise I have simply been my own coach for cycling and triathlons.

There have been numerous reasons for this. Most notably is that I am a science student at university and therefore I enjoy working and exploring data, statistics and data analysis methods. Thus I'm very analytical and enjoy applying the methods I acquire from my university work to my sports training. However, in order to be able to do such things one needs data. This is no problem for me as I have kept a log of everything I have done every day of my life for the past 9 years! From the amount of sleep I get a night, to my body weight every morning and obviously everything associated with the kind of training activities I did each day and race performances. This has provided me with loads of information which I have used to fine tune my training over the years.

Now that I am only concentrating on one discipline (cycling/mountain biking), I have come to realize that it is quite a bit harder to do the fine tuning necessary for my performance to reach the highest possible level, especially in a rather competitive sport where at times only small things can cost you not only a podium position but a top ten position! I have found that there are so many influencing factors and began to doubt myself more often and simply felt the need for some guidance at times.

I always thought that I have become very good at listening to my body and being aware of how I feel, and thus always thought that it would take an outsider a little while to get to know me. However, I am pleased to be completely mistaken as within the very first week I am amazed at how my new coach knows me! I can now definitely see how important it is to have someone telling you what to do and not just deciding for yourself.

I also had quite a few suggestions from some people telling me that I needed a coach to provide me with the extra edge and for one I would like to thank my amazing wife for helping me make up my mind and finally go through with it!

So from now on, I'm under coaches orders!

Slanghoek off-road triathlon

I decided to delve into my roots and take part in a triathlon. Being a mountain biker and ex-triathlete, an off-road triathlon sounds like the perfect thing to do for some fun this time of year.

With minimal swimming or running training finding a time and place in my cycling training schedule my objective apart from having a fun race was to simply go out and ride the bike leg as hard as I possibly could to get some speed work in before the last race of the season in two weeks time. Therefore the objective for the swim and the run was simply... hang in there and survive!

Survive I did in the swim and exited the water about just over a minute behind the leader. My lack of triathlon participate over the last two years came to show in the often forgotten 4th discipline of triathlon... the transition. I made the amateur of all amateur errors and lost my bike in the transition that resulted in me running around the rather large transition area like a lost fart in a thunder storm (in my defense the officials had, however, allowed the participants of the shorter route who were starting later into the transition area to rack their bikes, which meant that there were lots of people all around the transitions area). Otherwise all was fine after finding my bike and I headed off in pursuit of the 4 guys ahead of me. I managed to catch up to the leader after 6km and continued to keep pushing the pace. From what I could tell I had built up a sizable lead going into the run.

I felt good on the run and was most please with how I was going until I got to 7km. The run ended up being just under 13km and I started to take some major strain after 7km. I started to get very stiff and my muscles were hurting. However, "hang in there and survive" to the finish I managed and topped it off with first place by just over 10min!

As I write this two days after the race I feel as if my entire body should be wrapped in plaster-paris in order to limit my movements as everything hurts so bad! In conclusion to run 13km at full pace without any training is not a good idea.

Seweweekspoort mtb race

This years edition of the Seweweekspoort mountain bike race attracted some big names to the start line as it occurs just 2-days before and serves as a good warm up race to the Cape Pioneer Trek 6-day mountain bike stage race taking place in close proximity (which is exactly what we did last year).

They made a slight change in the route this year and added in an extra 2km loop of jeep track to make the total distance 82km of great mountain biking in the Klein Karoo region of Ladismith. There was quite a wind on the morning of the race, which didn't make the going any easier.

It was one of those days for me where I maybe wasn't feeling quite as good as I would have liked (simply by comparing to how I've felt in a few past races in recent weekends) and I suffered throughout the entire race! The attacks happened from the start and the race split up into pieces! In mountain biking (and road racing), if you snooze for one single second you can be caught out and miss a split in the race and end up way out of contention! As the race got a little more established and we exited the first section of jeep track and were then heading along the gravel road through the poort, 4 guys including my team mate from Blend, Stu and I found ourselves making up the chase pack behind the two leaders of David George and Kevin Evans from team 360Life. We all rode hard and almost caught up to them as we exited the poort on the other side.

The loop on the other side of the poort proved to be rather challenging due in part to a section of the track that was submerged by a very full dam alongside. This saw us trying to ride through Karoo bossies and I managed a slow motion flip over my handlebars to land on my feat. The race once again spread out here and on our return through the poort Stu, Ruan Du Toit and I chased hard and caught up to the leaders.

We then remained as a lead group of six until David George put in an effort and surged away from the group. I was really suffering and was only just hanging onto the group. As David increased his lead on the 5 of us I knew the last big climb at 73km would be the race decider. Unfortunately I just didn't have the legs and as we hit the climb our group split up completely and remained that way until the end.

David George managed to take the win 30 seconds ahead of his 360Life team mate Kevin Evans and Ruan Du Toit making up the podium. Ben-Melt Swanepoel crossed the line in 4th 2min after the winning time followed by Stu a few seconds behind in 5th and then myself another 39sec afterwards in 6th place.

My hardcore wife, Jayde, continued her excellent mountain bike racing exploits after her successful Karoo to Coast and completed not the short route option of the Seweweekspoort, not the medium 45km route but the full 82km marathon distance! Shortly after finishing it was time for us to head straight back to Cape Town to sleep a couple of hours only to wake up at 4am to get out to Wellington to race the One Tonner 152km road race with my Double Century team!

MTN Marathon mtb National - Crater Cruise

Never failing as probably the most competitive mountain bike race in the country for numerous reasons, my second year back in Parys for the Crater Cruise was different from the previous year in that it was even more competitive than ever before! It really does live up to the expectations of a final event of an annual national series fantastically organized by Advendurance.

I remembered the route very well from last year as well as how the race usually pans out. Thus my game plan was to just sick in the bunch with a decent position for the first few tight sections and then make it over the main technical climb just before the half way point with a strong group. This I managed and as the race began to split into pieces up the climb I was well positioned with a few other top guys. Unfortunately for me I had to stop at the top before descending the other side of the climb to pump up my back tire as it had lost a fair amount of air and I wouldn't have been able to descend down the rough track with it that way. At the bottom of I saw a small group of about 3 guys 1 minute ahead of me and I was isolated as I couldn't see anyone behind me.

So with 60km still to go I pushed on at a solid pace and still never saw anyone catch up to me from behind and the gap to the guys in front of me remained around the 1 minute mark as I got the time splits from my amazing number one supporter (my wife).

I was able to catch up to and pass two guys along the way and finish exactly 11min after the winner Kevin Evans (who won the race for the 3rd time in a row!). I was happy with my performance and felt I had a solid race. Unfortunately I was not happy with my position as I didn't improve on the previous year and finished 17th. However, when looking over the results from the day I am a little more satisfied due to the large amount of competition and small time gaps separating the top 20 positions! I can honestly say that I have never done a mountain bike race in South Africa with such a strong field before! This is great for the sport in the country!

A big thanks has to be mentioned for Jayde, my wife and my number one supporter who did a fantastic job in seconding me and being there with me, it always makes a huge difference!

Karoo to Coast 2011

It was time for one of my favorite mountain biking races of the year, the Karoo to Coast from Uniondale to Knysna. This race has grown incredibly over the last few years and must surely rate as one of the most popular mountain biking races in the country. This is my third time back doing it in a row and after just missing out on the podium to finish 4th last year with a broken chain towards the end http://davemorisonbiking.blogspot.com/2010/09/karoo-to-coast.html it would obviously be nice to try get onto the podium. However, this would be my first real test after recovering from my knee injury http://davemorisonbiking.blogspot.com/2011/09/where-have-i-been.html and thus my true form relative to the other competitors was uncertain. There were a number of top riders lining up this year, most notably Neil MacDonald and Waylon Woolcock of the RECM team from Joberg.

I knew the beginning part up the Ou Wa Pad was going to be the usual killer and things would settle a bit thereafter. My plan was to keep it together and try hang on for as long as possible without going to far into the red. About halfway up I could feel I was starting to fall off the pace a bit and then simply put my chain into an easier gear stayed calm and rode a steady tempo. Shortly after, the few guys that had started to pull away began to split up and I slowly started to real them in before the top of the climb. At the top of the climb I found myself in a group of 5 riders chasing the two RECM guys who managed to get a gap over the top.

Now that the first obstacle was done, it was time to recover and settle into the race before encountering the remaining 1400 meters of climbing still to come. After descending the pass and as we began to climb out of the valley, the two leaders were only just visible in front of us. I went to the front of our group and set a steady tempo up the climb. About halfway up I looked back to see that two of the guys had dropped off and we were left with only three of us now to chase. However, our chase was not succeeding and hearing a few sketchy time gaps along the way, we weren't making up any more ground on them.

At 57km, I started to get itchy feet and pushed the pace a little. This caused our group of three to split up. I thought it was still quite a long way from the finish with just under 40km to go with quite a lot of climbing still to come to be isolated, however, I felt good and decided it was time. From then on I put my head down and rode flat out.

I started to get a little tied going along the Kom se Pad section with about 20km to go. I couldn't afford to ease up too much but I had to try conserve a bit on energy otherwise I would blow going up the last daunting Simola climb. At one stage I glanced behind and could see Ruan du Toit. I kept it together and put in a few harder efforts now and then and by the time I started dropping into the valley before climbing back out up to Simola he was out of sight again. I was able to ride up the Simola climb at a solid pace and from there it was simply freewheeling 80km/hr down the road and into the beautiful town of Knysna.

My pacing throughout was perfect to hold onto third place. Unfortunately I wasn't able to catch back up to the two leaders, but in the end I managed to pull back about a minute and a half on them after going solo around the 57km mark. Otherwise it was a very successful come back race and I look forward to the next few weeks of racing!

Next up is the Oudtshoorn 3-day mtb race starting Friday!

Making a come back

I decided after building up my training for the past 6 weeks I wanted to do a training race to see where my level is at. I was wanting to do this before the Karoo 2 Coast mountain bike race later in September, as this is normally quite a competitive one. This would also help me to get a rough feel for what I can expect of myself. So I loaded up the bakkie with my racing steed including Jaydes trusty mountain bike and we headed for Caledon to take part in the Staalwater 60km mountain bike race held by AMA Rider and Dirtopia.

What a fantastic race it turned out to be! The route designed by Meurant Botha was awesome and much more interesting than I had expected. I also didn't expect to see some names like Erik Kleinhans and Christiaan Kriek on the start line, which meant it was going to be a proper race and a lot harder than I had in mind being a come back training race.

Christiaan provided a true welcome-back-to-racing from the gun with a cross country mountain bike like start. The pace soon settled and after a steep climb at a solid tempo it was only Erik, Christiaan and myself out up front with no-one in sight behind. We rode nicely together until the climb with about 15km to go to the finish. I was basically on my limit and hanging on when the gradient of the road suddenly kicked up round a corner and Erik dropped a gear, stood up and powered his pedals. Being on the limit I was unable to respond and Christiaan managed to go with him leaving me behind. As we went over the top of the climb I was a few seconds behind and tried to catch back on to them, however, they worked well together and rode hard making sure I wouldn't see them again before the finish line. Therefore I ended up crossing the finish line about 2min behind them in 3rd place.

I could definitely feel that I didn't quite have that upper level of performance in me to match the other two throughout the race, however, I was satisfied with my performance at this point in time. This turned out to be a very successful trip for me as it provided me with exactly what I wanted, a great race on a decent course with good competitors providing me with a bench mark from which to build in the coming weeks of training and racing. And Jayde put on a fine performance to finish 2nd in her age group!

Now for a seemingly very short two weeks until Karoo 2 Coast!