System breakdown

I very rarely get sick and I mean properly sick like the flu. I’m not talking about the flu that most people commonly get where you have a snotty nose or maybe a sore throat, I’m talking about the flu where you have a high temperature (>380C), your whole body aces, you feel cold but you sweating like a pig and you too week to even sit up in bed. I’m one of those people that only missed two days out of 12 years of my school career for being sick and have never missed a day of work for being sick either.

There is a very good reason why I have such a strong immune system. My father is a Pediatrician working in a South African government hospital and as he is exposed to so many viruses and sicknesses on a daily basis his body naturally builds up antibodies against all these sicknesses. As he comes into contact with the rest of the family back home it is all passed on to us in a similar manner. Sounds a bit far fetch maybe, but trust me that’s the way it works.

This scenario has been very different for me as I felt like I was in one of those medical drama series with doctors trying to discover what is wrong with me. Due to my father being a specialist in the medical field for so many years I’m very fortunate to get to see so many different specialist doctors to help me out.

After getting married and while on honeymoon I started coughing quite a lot and had a very tight chest. As usual I thought I’d just picked up a bit of a cough, I felt fine so all was good. A few days later in the week I seemed to be coughing more and my chest felt even tighter. I was beginning to become a little concerned about this only because I was scheduled to race the Double Century (a 202km team road cycling race ) on the coming Saturday and not because of my actual condition. It would take a lot for me to pull out of the race and let the rest of the team down. Other than the coughing and tight chest, which is obviously not ideal to have for a race, I didn’t feel sick so I believed I was good to go. Well I can now honestly say from a personal perspective the seriousness of racing when you are not 100% healthy!

The Sunday evening after Saturday’s race my coughing had progressed to an uncontrollable manner! I phone my father and he said I need to go on antibiotics immediately (pharmacy visit number 1). Relief I thought as that would fix me up in just a few days… little did I know…

Monday evening the fever hit me. My body was acing and my temperature rose above 380C. I felt exhausted as I wasn’t getting much sleep during the nights because of the persistent coughing. Now I was taking Panardo to help fight the fever.

Tuesday was no different as I was still feeling sick and coughing endlessly with a phenomenally tight chest. However, that afternoon I started to notice something very strange. My legs had swelled up in a big way, turned very red and were incredibly itchy! All my scares from my cycling and mountain biking expeditions had puffed up as well. I showed my father and he told me to stop the antibiotics immediately as I was having an allergic reaction to them! Now I was thinking how am I going to get better? I’ve never been allergic to anything in my life before so I couldn’t understand where this all of a sudden came from? So I had to resort to an antihistamine for the allergic reaction (pharmacy visit number 2).

Wednesday things were looking a little better on the allergic reaction side as the swelling in my legs decreased a bit and the itchiness was gone but they were still as red as a Ferrari. I still felt rather sick and nothing was changing in the department of my chest and uncontrollable coughing.

Thursday the swelling in my legs was gone but they were still Ferrari red. I was feeling better but there was still no change in my coughing and tight chest. I have never felt my chest like this before where every breath is a struggle. By this time now my ribs are hurting so much from all the coughing and my stomach muscles are stiff as well. Now my farther thinks its time for me to get my chest X-rayed to try figure out what’s going on. So I’m off for a hospital visit. I get my chest X-rayed accompanied with a complete examination by a Physician. “You got Pneumonia and you going to have to take it easy for a few weeks” is not what an athlete wants to hear! Back to the pharmacy for visit number 3 and I need to report back to the doctor regarding my condition on Saturday.

All is quite the same on Friday. Saturday comes and I’m feeling better but I’m still struggling with my chest. So the doctor prescribes me something else and back to the pharmacy I went for visit number 4!

By Sunday things are beginning to get a little better. So now it’s just a matter of finishing the course of medications and taking it real easy for a little while to recover and ensure I don’t have a relapse.

Basically to summarize, I pick up pneumonia while on honeymoon. I didn’t know this as I simply had a tight chest and a cough. I was feeling ok, so I raced the Double Century. This intensified the pneumonia and made me to get very ill and feverish. I was on antibiotics, which I got an allergic reaction to and therefore had to stop those. I then got my chest X-rayed and examined by a Physician to diagnose me with pneumonia. Now I have to take it easy in December to recover.

In all of this at least the Physician pointed out from my chest X-ray that I have an athletes shaped heart and huge lungs!

Double Century 2010

Photo: Torque Pics (www.torquepics.co.za)

This year would be my second Double Century (DC). Last year was my first and I raced it with the Club100 Elite team where we came forth by 45sec! It was a little disappointing to just miss out on the podium. This year I got the opportunity to race it with the Anderson Transport team. This was very exciting but at the same time a little daunting as Anderson Transport are the defending champions! I’m always up for a challenge and this year I feel much better prepared for the DC based on the endurance mountain bike racing I’ve been doing over this year compared to last year.

The only problem was that I would have just finished a relatively long season of racing and just gotten married. Therefore the last two weeks leading up to the DC have been rather easy weeks for me. However, I was not worried as I believed I would still have a good base fitness in me and all it would mean is that I will be nicely rested for the race.

With these thoughts in mind I was good to go. But, there was one other worry in the back of my mind. I seemed to pick up a chest infection during the week prior to race day while on honeymoon. I felt physically fine but my chest was rather tight and I just could not stop coughing! (more on this…) But pulling out of the race with only a few days to go to the start was not an option for me as I didn’t want to miss out on this opportunity and especially let the rest of the team down!

Traditionally with the DC there are just over 200 teams consisting of 12 riders in each. You have to have six riders from your team finishing together with the time of your 6th rider counting as your team’s time for the overall positions. It is a staggered start with each team starting individually apart from the other teams, similar to a time trail. Being the defending champions, we were the last team to start.

We were doing fine with an average speed for the first 20km of 42.1km/hr. After the first climb and a minor mechanical issue that needed to be fixed causing us to loose a couple of minutes, we still had our full team of 12 riders together. After the next big climb and leading into Montagu at about 100km we had lost one or two riders. I was still feeling fine at this stage, but from after the 100km mark things started to go a little pear shaped. It was tough going along the road between Montagu and Ashton as the road is very narrow and congested with riders and team support vehicles. We mostly had to ride on the other side of the white line into oncoming traffic, which weren’t all that considerate! This made for some dangerous encounters and a few very close calls! After this I could feel I was starting to get tied. I kept pushing on until my legs gave in at Bonnivalle, 163km with 40km to go to the finish. I dropped off the back of our team and tried desperately to hang on but I had nothing left in me. I was blown and that meant that there were only 7 riders still together in our team. One other rider dropped off after me before they got to the finish resulting in only 6 riders finishing together and therefore just making it with enough riders to the finish and take third place overall.

I continued to make my way slowly to the finish with a lot of difficulties, but I wanted to complete the race. I ended up crossing the finish line about 20min after our team of 6 riders. We were obviously not all that happy with our performance as being the defending champions and only coming 3rd, but that’s the way it goes, at least we were still on the podium and there is always next year to fight back!

Wines2Whales

It’s been a while since the race and this post is long overdue I know, but I always say better late than never! The week after this race was one that led to one of the most important and exciting days of my life, the day I got married to the most beautiful girl in the world! So my mind was very busy on other things, and then after that was a special week away on honeymoon.

So back to the Wines 2 Whales 3-day mountain bike stage race…
I was coming out of a period of serious recovery since the DCM Cape Pioneer Trek and I believed I was feeling ok by now and ready for the race. It has, however, been quite a long season of racing for me and I could definitely feel that a bit of time off the bike was in need.

None the less this was a race I had really been looking forward to, being a nice 3-day stage race in my back yard. This time I paired up with Stu, my other team mate from Blend Properties.

Day 1: 68km Lourensford – Grabouw, 1800m climbing

Time: 3h39m
Position: 4th
Heart rate (ave/max): 158/183

Starting in Lourensford on the Somerset West side of the Hottentots Holland Mountains and finishing in Grabouw on the other side of the mountains obviously meant that we had to get over there somehow. Doing this off-road forced us to portage up the old ox wagon trail above Sir Lowry’s Pass. This is a short but incredibly steep stretch straight up and over the mountain, which consists of big rocks and bushes! It is incredibly challenging simply trying to walk up there, let alone with your bike, which felt like it weighed 30kg! How the voortrekkers took their ox wagons and oxen over there I can’t imagine! It is amazing to see that there are still grooves in the rocks from where the wheels of the wagons carved there way under the loads they carried.

I knew this was going to be a very technically challenging day through the mountains above Somerset West and into Grabouw! The pouring rain didn’t do anything to help in this regard either! After a solid start and settling down after the first climb out of Lourensford we were together with a small front group consisting of 3 teams (Contego Elites, Mr Price GT and ourselves Blend Properties). We were feeling good and riding nicely until Stu’s chain broke at 38km. we lost about 3min trying to fix it as the muddy conditions made this rather difficult. We lost one position in the process as a team came past us while we were stopped. We worked quite hard after this to make up time, however, this was difficult to do over the short distance remaining in the stage and I started to struggle towards the end.

Day 2: 77km Grabouw – Grabouw, 1700m climbing

Time: 3h35m
Position: 5th
Heart rate (ave/max): 148/170

Today I felt flat from the start and was dropped by a larger than yesterdays front group from the gun! I had to work really hard to catch back on as Stu was up there. I had an upset stomach after yesterday’s stage and between then and this morning I dropped a kilogram from my starting weight, which is not good during a stage race as that is valuable energy reserves lost. This was probably the reason for me feeling so flat from the start. I managed to come right a little in the middle of the stage but could still not get my heart rate up to where it should have been (as my average HR for the stage was only 148!). At this point the front bunch had split up quite a lot and we were leading. But the worst was still to come as I blew so badly at about 55km with 22km still to go! I was finished and had nothing left in me. Stu had to drag me the whole way back to the finish. It was not a pleasant time!

Day 3: 84km Grabouw – Onrus, 1500m climbing

Time: 3h48m
Position: 6th
Heart rate (ave/max): 141/173

Today was a less technical day with more descending than climbing as we headed from the mountains to the coast. However, there was a southeaster wind to contend with! From the start I could feel a huge difference compared to yesterday as we went up the same small climb out of Grabouw in the beginning. Instead of being dropped and hanging on for dear life from the front group, I was leading the bunch and comfortably setting the pace up front. I had obviously regained that energy I had lost from my stomach issues over the previous two days.

Stu and I were going strong with a slightly bigger front bunch than the previous two days due to lesser climbing to split everyone up. We were out of contention for the top spot overall but I was amped to finish with a stage win and end up on the podium overall. However, as luck would have it on the rocky descent from the Houwhoek Inn down into the Bot River Valley at 30km, I punctured. This was very unfortunate as I was using Kendar Small Block 8 tyres, which I swear were developed during World War 2 with the intention to ride over landmines! After fixing the tyre with a plug and remounting our saddles we had lost about 4min. We rode hard to make up the lost time. I had my favorite girl supporting and doing her usual superb job of giving us time splits on the leaders. We were making up time and I was certain we could catch them back up as there was still a fair distance to the finish line. However, with about 40km still to go Stu blew! This was probably due to him dragging me for the past two days as well as just having an off day. Our pursuit on the leaders and hopes for a stage win came to an end at this point and it was a long struggle to the finish. This time the tables had turned and now it was my turn to drag Stu to the finish.

In the end it was a very technically demanding race in one of the best areas for mountain biking in the country. It seemed like Stu and I just couldn’t get it together over the 3 days. We didn’t do as well as we would have liked by coming 6th overall but this wasn’t too bad based on the way things turned out for us over the 3 days.

Now it was time to get married!!!

Back on the Road

After the Cape Pioneer Trek (CPT) I decided to take part in the last two Spring Classic road league races. I thought these would be good to keep the racing in my legs until the Wines 2 Whales 3-day mountain biking stage race.

My body was rather broken and tied after the CPT so I took it easy the following week. However, this was still not enough and I quickly realized two things as I started the Durbanville league race. This also happened to be my first road race and in that case the first time back on my road bike for quite a few months!

1. My body had still not recovered properly after finishing the CPT one week ago. I was therefore feeling very tied and sluggish. I found myself hanging on for dear life towards the back of the group from the start. Fortunately I was able to hang on and warm up a little and get into the race better.
2. One needs speed for the road! And the CPT wouldn’t have done me any good in this regard!

It didn’t even turn out to be a fast race with an average speed of just over 39km/hr over the 90km. This obviously worked in my favor this time round and I was able to hang on until the end and finish with the front bunch.

The following week was the last race of the year and I could tell that I was starting to feel better and more recovered two weeks down the line of finishing the CPT. Thank goodness because this was a much faster race! This time I even tried to attack the bunch and get ahead up the road. I got a chance to do so, however, I didn’t have anyone else come with me and was left alone. Therefore I didn’t last too long ahead before the bunch swallowed me up again. The bunch kept a high pace for most of the way and no body was able to get away on a break. I had a much better race than the previous week and felt more involved with the actual racing. We covered the 85km route in 2hr1min, with an average speed of just over 42km/hr. That’s quite a big difference compared to the 5 or 6 hour days of the CPT!

Next up, the Contego Wines 2 Whales 3-day mountain biking stage race before a little time out to get married and recuperate before starting with some base miles for next year.

DCM Cape Pioneer Trek

I finally got the chance to race a proper mountain biking stage race. Training and racing leading up to the race was all going well but it still ended up being unbelievably tough! I suppose that’s what mountain biking stage racing is all about!

The DCM Cape Pioneer Trek presented by KHS took place over 6 days in one of the best environments for mountain biking. The race covered vast distances through and over the Southern Cape mountain ranges, nature reserves and farm lands, from the Klein Karoo to the scenic coast, along the beach, crossing rivers and the Groot Karoo. It truly is an appropriate area for mountain bike stage racing. However, very challenging!

As with most mountain bike stage races it is a team event completed in pairs. I got to race with Charles, my fellow team mate from Blend Properties Cycling Team. I've included a few stats with the summary for each stage of the race below. I have also put the time gaps between us and those teams we were swapping positions with on the GC throughout the 6 days as this shows how things can change dramatically from day to day.

Day 1: 136km Oudtshroon – Mossel Bay, 2900m climbing

Time: 6h13m
Position: 5th
Heat rate (average/max): 151/176

This was a very long day! We all knew it and it was certainly the most feared day of the race as we had to traverse the infamous Attakwas Kloof! We didn’t get off to the best of starts as within the first 30km I thought that I had broken a spoke as I head a loud “clang-clang” sound from my back wheel. I stopped to check it out and fortunately only found a large stick lodged in my spokes that I was able to remove. However, I felt my rear tire was a little flat. I quickly got back on to regain contact with the group and got a pump and stopped again to pump up my tire. This turned out to be unsuccessful and had to get going again to catch back up to the group. Once I regained contact Charles and I stopped to bomb my wheel. After doing this we once again caught back up to the group! In the process wasting valuable energy each time! Until just before entering the Attakwas Kloof we crossed a river and my rear tire gave in on a rock and went flat. This ended up being a longer stop of about 4min to try and fix it once and for all! The bunch soon split up completely as everyone made there way through the incredibly tough Attakwas Kloof. After the Kloof it was a long way back to Mossel Bay, which started to take its toll on my legs. I had to ride through serious cramp towards the end of the stage. In the end we had a total of 5 mechanical stops!

General Classification:
3. DCM 2 (Jacques Janse Van Rensburg, Brandon Stewart) -26min
4. Toyota Supercycling Cyclelab Vets (Andrew Mclean, Bruce Diesel) -2min
5. Blend Property Group 1 (Charles Keey, Dave Morison) 0min
6. Mtbdestination.com (Matthys Beukes, Gerrie Beukes) +27min
Specialized-Songo.Info (Christoph Sauser, Silvio Bundi) +58min

Day 2: 110km Mossel Bay – George, 2500m climbing

Time: 4h32m
Position: 3rd
Heat rate (average/max): watch wasn’t working

After a few hard efforts, firstly along the beach, the front bunch was chiseled out early into the race. Then the climbing began and Charles and I had to put in some hard efforts to stay in contact with the top 3 teams. After only about 40km Charles got a flat tire, which we had to stop to bomb. This only cost us about 2min but then we had to work really hard to catch back up again. We managed to do this and then had a decent ride until things heated up with about 10km to go. We were in 5th place, however, two teams ahead of us seemed to go the wrong way and we ended up finishing in 3rd place for the day! It was great to be able to get up on the podium that evening at prize giving!

General Classification:
3. DCM 2 -24min
4. Blend Property Group 1 0min
5. Toyota Supercycling Cyclelab Vets +20min
6. Mtbdestination.com +34min
Specialized-Songo.Info +60min

Day 3: 106km George – De Rust, 2450m climbing

Time: 5h18m
Position: 7th
Heart rate (average/max): 133/162

Today we were to leave the cooler coastal plain, ride over the Outeniqua Mountains and into the warm drier Klein Karoo. The climb up Bergplaas was done at a decent tempo until the last section which got very rough and split up the bunch. Charles and I found ourselves trailing very close behind the leaders as we started one of the most challenging sections of the entire 6 days, the climb over the Kamanassie Mountains! At this point I suppose it's reletive to say that this was when "the s*%^t hit the fan". When descending the treacherous other side of the Kamanassie Mountains Charles got a stick the size of my baby finger lodged through the top of his tire and out the side-wall! This took us 10min to fix and get going again. After carefully feeling the inside of the tire and pulling out loads of thorns we put a tube in and obviously this didn’t last very long as there were so many thorns it just got punctured shortly after getting going. Fortunately we were able to make it to the next water stop where the technical assistance put sludge in the tube, which would see us to the finish. The only problem was that we were left in no-mans-land with no-one to be seen ahead of us or behind us and a 40km stretch of gravel road into the wind all the way to the finish in De Rust. We lost about 16min due to our mechanical stops, however, we would have lost a significant amount more riding by ourselves for the last 40km as well as valuable energy! Therefore we lost our 4th place on GC.

General Classification:
3. DCM 2 -29min
4. Toyota Supercycling Cyclelab Vets -8min
5. Blend Property Group 1 0min
6. Mtbdestination.com +19min
7. Specialized-Songo.Info +32min

Day 4: 109km De Rust – Prince Albert, 1800m climbing

Time: 5h13m
Position: 7th
Heart rate (average/max): 134/182

From the Klein Karoo to the Groot Karoo! We started through the beautiful Meiringspoort and then took a left into the rugged mountain tracks where the pace was high. The usual front bunch remained together until we got to the section of dried up river bed and the big technical climb that was to take us into the Groot Karoo. Just before the river bed Charles chain broke. I just couldn’t believe that we were to have another mechanical, now one each day for 4 days in a row! This cost us about 4min to fix after which we had lost contact with the front bunch. I must add that it was once again some truly awesome riding over these mountains! However, in the Karoo on the other side it was a very long 55km of hard riding into the wind to the finish in Prince Albert. Team DCM 2 had some major mechanical problems as well and therefore dropped behind us on GC resulting in us moving back up into 4th. However, the other teams gained a significant amount of time on us!

General Classification:
3. Toyota Supercycling Cyclelab Vets -27min
4. Blend Property Group 1 0min
5. Specialized-Songo.Info +1min
6. Mtbdestination.com +8min
3. DCM 2 +17min

Day 5: 106km Prince Albert – Calitzdorp, 2200m climbing

Time: 4h12m
Position: 5th
Heart rate (average/max): 132/159

After a quite over night stop in the Groot Karoo it was time to go back over the mountains and into the Klein Karoo again. This meant heading over the towering Swartberg Pass! By this time in the race I wasn’t just experiencing fatigue like I felt at the start and during each day. It had gone beyond that and was now chronic fatigue! We were unable to stay with the leading 4 teams up the Swartberg Pass and rather settled into a solid rhythm as it was a long way to the top! At the intensity we were climbing at on a normal day I would have estimated my heart rate to be somewhere around 170bpm. After analyzing it at the end of the day it was incredible to see that it was only about 140bpm! That just shows you how fatigued I was. I felt like I was going so hard but my heart rate was so low as I was too tied to go any faster and get it any higher! The climb was about 12km long and has an altitude gain of about 1000m (summit at 1550 meters). The climb took us 51min, going over the summit about 2 to 3min behind the leaders. On the way down Charles got a slow puncture again. Fortunately it was a quick stop to fix it and with the help of Stuart (our other team mate from Blend Properties, who was now racing solo after the withdrawal of his partner due to illness) we were able to catch back onto the group we were with (2nd bunch behind the leading bunch of 4 teams). The rest of the day went smoothly and ended up being the shortest ride time out of the 6 days. We lost our 4th place on GC, however, we managed to maintain the 1min advantage over Christoph Sauser and Silvio Bundi of Specialized-Songo.Info.

General Classification:
3. Toyota Supercycling Cyclelab Vets -27min
4. Mtbdestination.com -1min
5. Blend Property Group 1 0min
6. Specialized-Songo.Info +1min
7. DCM 2 +5min

Day 6 (the final day!): 114km Calitzdorp – Oudtshroon, 1900m climbing

Time: 4h50m
Position: 5th
Heart rate (average/max): 126/157

There was no easing up for the final day and we were to cover the second longest distance of the 6 days! I was now unbelievably fatigued and this was clearly evident as we hit the first climb of the day only 17km from the start! It was a hard 7km climb up the Rooiberg Pass and I knew it was going to be a long way home with about 100km of riding still to come! We had a decent group of riders that saw us through to the finish and Stuart did a fantastic job of helping us get through the stage. It was one of the longest days of my life but an amazing feeling eventually crossing the finish line in Oudtshroon! It is crazy how I struggled to get my heart rate over 130bpm! This is less than a normal training ride! We lost our top 5 spot on GC as Specialized-Songo.Info put in a huge effort and gained a massive amount of time on us and moved up into 3rd overall!

General Classification:
3. Specialized-Songo.Info -22min
4. Mtbdestination.com -14min
5. Toyota Supercycling Cyclelab Vets -7min
6. Blend Property Group 1 0min
7. DCM 2 +8min

I included my heat rate averages and maximums for each stage as it is one of the most interesting things about stage racing and definitely the most important thing to analyze and take into consideration for future experience. You can see how these values progressively drop each day as I became more and more fatigued. The key is to be able to recovery as quick as possible from day to day so that you can keep a high intensity each day and clearly I was unable to achieve this. My body just spiraled deeper and deeper into worse fatigue each day. However, this was my first proper stage race in which valuable experience was gained and to take into the future!

Over the 6 days we covered a total distance of 681km with 13750 of vertical climbing meters. We completed it in a time of 30h20m and placed 6th overall. It was truly an awesome experience with top class organization. Thanks Dryland and DCM for the event as well as thanks to my team sponsor Blend Properties and my partner Charles and all those who helped out along the way!

Seweweekspoort 80km MTB challenge

Photo: Oakpics (www.oakpics.com)

A trip consisting of 9 days away racing with team Blend Properties kicked off with the Ladismith Cheese Seweweekspoort Mountain bike challenge. This has been a race that I have always wanted to do. I now finally got the opportunity to compete in it and it would act as a solid warm-up race two days before the big daddy (The 6 day DCM Cape Pioneer Trek) began.

The race starts amongst some farms about 25km outside of Ladismith (in the Calitzdorp direction) near where the gravel road leaves Route 62 and heads into the “spooky” Seweweekspoort. It covers a distance of 80km taking you through the poort around a small technical loop on the other side then back through the poort again and through the farms back to Ladismith. It is believed that the ghost of one of the first toll gate keepers still wanders around the ruins of the original toll house at the northern entrance of the poort. On dark stormy nights, a couple of motorists have been stopped by a man with a lantern and as soon as they approach him he disappears.

The pace wasn’t very fast heading out through the Poort with only a few accelerations here and there. A more steady acceleration towards the exit of the Poort on the northern side broke the group up such that it was just Kevin Evans (MTN Energade), my team mate from Blend Properties Charles, Carl Pasio and I together. As we started on the loop on the other side with one relatively short technical climb, I just dropped off of Charles and Kevin. I was only about 10 seconds behind them until we started another climb and Kevin put the hammer down and I was unable to catch back on and the gap grew a little bigger.

This was not an ideal situation to be in as it was a long way back (just over 50km!) from here with a significant amount of gravel road! I was stuck about 1 minute behind the leading two of Kevin and Charles and about 1 to 2 minutes ahead of Carl in 4th place when we got back onto the gravel road to take us back through the poort. At this point I wish that I had seen this ghost man with a lantern as I’m sure I would have ridden so fast that I would have caught back up to the leaders in very little time!

So what do I do? Sit up and wait for Carl to catch back up to me so that we can work together or just put my head down and ride as hard as possible in the hope of catching back up to the leaders? To be honest this didn’t occur to me the second I got onto the gravel road. The only thing I thought of was to go as hard as I could and try catching the leaders and staying away from Carl in 4th place!

It was frustrating not being able to see them in front of me the whole way through the Poort due to all the twists and turns through the mountains. But as we exited the poort (on the South side) I could see them up ahead and was able to time the gap at about 1 minute.

I had to keep the pace up and this continued all the way to the finish as I just couldn’t close the gap. Therefore it ended up being like a 50km time trail for me. The gap remained much the same and I only lost a little more time towards the end as I ended up finishing 2 to 3 minutes behind. I was able to open up a significant gap on 4th place as I finished about 6 minutes ahead.

I held an average speed of 33km/hr for the last 60km and an average heart rate of 166bpm. This was a little harder than what I would have liked to have worked during this race considering what’s coming in two days time! However, at least I was able to finish on the podium in 3rd place.