Race report 2012 Cross Triathlon World champs Alabama USA

Racing with a cracked elbow = a lot of pain and discomfort, but I needed to give it a try.

At the start of the swim my elbow felt okay and I swam with the front guys up to just before the first buoy. The strapping on my elbow started coming loose and from there on it felt as though someone was hitting me with a 10 pound hammer with each stroke. I went backwards from there. The pain was one thing, but it was also about the fifth time in the past 4 weeks that I was doing a proper swim and not just kicking up and down the pool.

I got out the water quite far back from the leaders and with a slow time. I then spent quite a lot of time at the beginning of the bike putting my feet into my shoes and putting on my elbow brace and gloves.

The first lap of the bike was okay, but I was still losing a lot of time because I was riding like a girl as every little bump caused me pain. Getting out the saddle also hurt like hell, but I did my best to just suck it up and keep on grinding. Conrad Stoltz, again, took huge chunks of time out of me. It is really amazing to see that man move! I try and do it like he said in a tweet recently, “low air, big gear, no fear”, but I have a long way to go.

On to the run and I was hoping that I would feel better. I was really keen to make some time back on the guys, but I was so broken and just had nothing in me after pretty much 4 weeks of minimal training. So I just did my best and hung in to the end.
I ended up in 18th place. It was really not cool to race in so much pain and with so little fitness, but it was still a great racing experience and I took a lot from it.

So does this mean that off-road triathlon is not for me? No way! Although I was extremely disappointed I still had a lot of fun and I plan on coming back next year and making a proper go of it!
Praise God when you race well and praise God when you race badly. So I will keep on praising Him because I know that He is good and I know that He will be good to me no matter what happens.

A big well done to Conrad for his second Cross Triathlon World title and also to Nico Sterk who came 17th . You guys really raced well!
Well done to Carla van Huysteen with a great performance coming 3rd in the elite ladies.
Bradley Weiss “roomy” for winning the u23s
Charne Prinsloo for coming 3rd in the jr womens race
Bradley Schuit for winning the jr men

So for now it’s back in to full training as my elbow allows me and I am so happy to be here in GER Sigmaringen with Robyn. Going to do some good racing and training in the next 4 months living my dream as a pro athlete and part of the dream is that Robs is with me.

Once again I will leave you with the legend’s saying “The Cave Man”

Low Air, Big Gear, No Fear!

Man down at my 1st Xterra “Buffelspoort”!

It was time to hit the dust and trails in my valley, the North West province, for my first Xterra at Buffelspoort dam. I have always wanted to try this off-road thing as I come from the plaas and all. I just love the African bush and I absolutely love riding off-road. I finally got myself a nice mountain bike, but have only been on it about 6 times so far, so I really need to spend some more time on it. Everytime I hit the trails in Groenkloof I have this massive smile on my face that not even hitting the dirt can remove. What makes it even more fun is chasing the guinea(fools) in the single track and getting close to the zebra and giraffe. It is in Groenkloof that I am reminded that God has blessed Africa. Where else in the world can you see black and white striped donkeys? What helps with my sprinting capacity is trying to get away from the ostrich with babies. I usually have to turn into the hiking trails and take big drops to get away from them. As you can see I am enjoying myself immensely in Groenkloof.

Okay, back to the race.

It was so awesome to finally race against the guy that I admire the most, Conrad “Caveman” Stoltz. The first time that I saw him racing was at Club Mykonos at the All Africa Champs in 2004. It was there that I saw what a crazy bike rider he is. I was inspired. So it was super cool to have him next to me at the swim start. I was slightly worried though, as I really didnt want to get in his way because that would be like swimming under a buffalo! “Groot Boer Seun Conrad” is probably the only oke in the world who makes an XXL 29er look small.

Xterra is different to ITU rules. With ITU the water needs to be under 20 degrees for it to be a wetsuit legal swim, but with Xterra the water needs to be above 25 degrees before wetsuits are not allowed. The water in the dam was so warm that all I needed was my body wash and I could’ve been at home in the bath!

It was pretty easy to swim away from the guys, but I knew that we would need a very big gap on them out the water. I was overheating like my 1400 VW Golf in the middle of the Karoo in the hot water!

The two Rebels (Pieter and me) led by about a minute out the water even though we didnt swim hard. 1min is just not enough when you have an 80kg buffalo cranking it in the big blade bearing down on you! It didn’t take long for the Caveman to catch us. We just heard “Hier kom ek!” In the blink of an eye he was there and then he was gone. It was amazing to see him flying past us.

On the bike I had nothing in my legs. Guys were just catching me and dropping me and there was nothing I could do about it. Within 5km I had drunk both of my 32GI bottles – I realised something was not right, but giving up is never an option!

Go over, go under, go through, but never give up. So I just tried to get as much stuff in me as possible, stopping at all the water points and I lost quite a bit of time.

Out on the run I was angry as I had really wanted to have a good race. I came off the bike in 15th place and for the first 2km of the run I went way too hard. I stopped at all the water points, as well as to stretch out some cramps. From about 2km into the second lap I don’t remember anything. Apparently on the home straight I was weaving from side to side and hitting the barriers.

I fell across the finish line. When I came to there were medics hovering over me, I was receiving oxygen. I had heat stroke. I have always wondered if I would ever hit my limit and now I can say that I have. I had run myself into 10th place with the third fastest run split of the day.

Despite the way I felt throughout the race I had a lot of fun and enjoyed myself tremendously. I will be back for some more off road racing soon! Praise God for such an awesome sport.

Well done to Conrad! What an inspiring multiple world champion! More champions need to be as humble and down to earth as this big guy. Also well done to Dan and Stuart who rounded out the top 3. Keep it up boys!

I am recovering well and will soon be back to full on training. Next up is the ITU Cape Town sprint event. Then I will be hitting the dirt again in Grabouw at Xterra SA Champs.

Till I blog again keep on

Recent Caveman shaving accident… Conrad Stoltz “he is a real caveman!!!”

http://bit.ly/dDf2TR