Tuesday, January 15, 2013

BACK ON THE TRAIL...

After a week of training I was ready to start racing again. OK I wasn't really ready, but is one every really ready? My sponsor, CONTEGO, also sponsors a couple of Mountain Biker, so the event this last weekend was made for us...

TOTALSPORTS CHALLANGE 2013, TERRA FIRMA, TSC is 7 events including a swim and 2 paddles, while the TERRA FIRMA only has the 4 land based events:
  1. Road Bike, 50km
  2. Road Run, 13.8km
  3. Mountain Bike, 25km
  4. Beach Run, 9km
I've done the 7 man team TSC before,  and have had a couple of good finishes running the last leg on the beach, this year I was on the road with Bernard on the Beach and 2 of Contego's bikes on the 2 bike rides...

With the 7 event guys hitting the change-over first it was difficult to follow who was in the lead at first. The first Road Bikers I saw were 2 guys going head to head over all 7 events (OK only 6 this year as a little wind had put play to the Surfski). They had started before the terra firma teams, Then the action started with my friend and Contego team mate Eddie, his partner came in with one other rider... my guy would be in soon. I wasn't worried about them as they were both in pairs, and Eddie would have a 2nd run and his cyclist would have to change his road bike for a mountain bike. After a couple more 7 man teams coming in the next group arrived and I saw the team colours. I thought I was getting a clean get away, but my team mate headed down the side shoot and I had to chase him.. maybe i lost a couple of seconds, but the 2 guys waiting there with me were now 10-20 meters ahead.

The clock was running and so was I, I took a look at Ms 310, and after blinking a couple of times to make sure the contacts were clean, I decided that the 2:45 pace that she was telling me was just a little to fast...

It was down hill to start and we hadn't turned into the wind as yet... 1st km 3:06!!! No Dion let them go you can run them down later... I past 5km in 17:15 and then the wind and heat started to made the running hard. I was passing a lot of guys, but most of them were 7 man teams. I caught and passed one of the guys who had started just ahead of me, but Riaan was still ahead, and his team was leading 'my race'.

Working Hard
At 11km we turned of the road for a little tail down to the lake, 2km later I handed over to the Mountain Biker (the 7 man teams had a paddler waiting). The youngster I handed over too rode the leg of the day and past the team ahead of us and road down Eddies partner (who was on his 2nd ride).

Barnard on the beach... he had said 2-3mins and I can catch them! Well the team had worked well and in was only Eddie (on his 2nd run) ahead of us, and he was caught in the 1st km!!! Since both teams are CONTEGO, they ran together for a bit before Barnard race home to bring our team in first!!!

I should now be writing about the Cape Summer Trail Series, as race 1 was held on Sunday... Yes I was running back to back races!

Held in Lebanon State Forest it a lovely run starting with a steep drop over the 1st 100m before climbing for most of the next 5km...

My old body didn't like the idea of running hard 2 days in a row, so not much of it was working as Owen set us off... After a lot of talking to myself I was moving in the right direction... But by now I was off the pace as the kids flew throw the forest. I got into a little bit of running on the way up and caught a couple of guys and also moved into 1st 40+. As much as I was willing to hill over I didn't want it to end. That 3:06 1st km of yesterday was a fluke, and I would need more to catch the lighties ahead of me and to keep Johnny at bay... So down I went, they were gone, but my lead over Johnny wasn't enough and he took the 40+ lead 3km from the end.

I had to settle for 8th and 2nd 40+... But never mind I'm not dead, I have legs, I'll be back...

After a little sleep...
My Little Girl


2 comments:

  1. Of course one week of training is enough to consider racing again - for you! The rest of us might not be so keen.

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  2. Great runs! I'm so inspired by your hard work! I'm learning how important rest and recovery are so important - funny how dogs instinctively knows this to be true!

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