The final few days are here.

Our house looks like a sports shop – without shelves as everything is all over the floor.

If you have ever prepared for a multi stage event, you will have an idea of what a room can end up looking like as you carefully lay out the requirement of kit and nutrition for each day.  Problem is that there are two of us in one house doing the same event, so everything is doubled. Add to that the fact that this stage race has running and cycling so kit is already doubled from a single discipline event. Then add to that the complication that some stages (days) are made up of two, sometimes even three separate races all in one day.  I think you should be getting the picture by now!

It is all part of the mental preparation though and a very necessary process. We have been pouring over the maps and routes and trying to visualise, with the help of Google Earth, the routes we will be cycling and running.  Google Earth really is amazing, but sometimes I have wondered if I really want to be able to see how steep that climb on Day 3 is, or how much of the mountain bike route is likely to be technical single track, or how long the Otter run is! It’s too late now though, as I have seen what I am in for and there is no turning back from here. J

Apart from all the kit and nutrition there are the casual clothes and toiletries, camping things and snacks (my favourite part, but it is a HUGE effort not to eat them all before I get to the race!). Then there is the dilemma of what to take to wear when we are NOT racing. Sometimes I wish I could just get away with only wearing pajamas in between the stages. Somehow I don’t think coming to dinner or breakfast in one’s PJ’s would be totally socially acceptable!

Add to that bike spares, chain lube, bombs, pumps, tyres and the bikes themselves and suddenly there is a whole new pile that emerges on the floor.

I look around at all of this and wonder if all of it really belongs to Graham and I and how we would manage to get it all to the race start if we were flying. I think we would need a plane just for ourselves! OK, not really. It’s not THAT bad!

The funny part is the onset of the pre race tension. There is a definite mix of anticipation, trepidation, nervousness and anxiousness as well as masses of excitement. Add to that the extra energy that is floating around due to training having backed off substantially and there is just too much of everything in the house. Graham is far better at keeping himself in check, whereas I tend to go from chaos and mayhem (too much energy) to ready to pick a fight with anyone who moves (nervousness and anticipation) to wanting to sleep (don’t know what part of race prep that is).  At least we can both have a good laugh at, and with each other as we both dip in and out of the pre race mind sets. What is going to be interesting is the drive to Natures Valley from here in Hillcrest.  Two anxious and energetic, race ready, fired up and fiesty people trapped inside a car for hours (and it will probably feel like hundreds and millions of hours as it always does when one is wanting time to just hurry up and pass). Interesting road trip coming up!

Quite frankly, these last days before a big race are my worst. I want to go out and run, but I shouldn’t because I should be resting. Unfortunately, logic doesn’t always win and the will to get out and burn some of the nervous energy off, becomes too strong and before I know it my running shoes are on and I am off somewhere. I am trying to stay put though and I have a long drive now to go and fetch our bikes. They have been getting some pre race attention to make 100% sure they are ready to handle 6 days of riding.  If there is one thing I have learned in my few months as a mountain bike novice, trusting your equipment is key to riding with confidence. And, you can only trust your equipment if you know it is in absolutely perfect working order. I guess it is a bit like trusting your body to be able to take you through the test of a 6 day stage race. If you have conditioned your body to be in the best possible working order and you have put in all the training and preparation possible, then you trust in yourself to be able to get through the stages. If your bike is in perfect working order and well conditioned, then you trust it completely not to fall apart on that critical downhill section!

Right now there is not much left to do apart from the final packing and planning and last minute shopping trips for those OMG, I forgot, items! J

I will try to post updates on my Face book profile as the days go by, but no promises as I might well be too tired to even turn my phone on!

Excluding today, there are two days till we run the prologue. Not long now.
Catch you again in October for a race round up!

Cheers for now.

 

 

Wild Run 2010 – how it unfolded for me

Although 3^rd overall is not a bad result, it was a little disappointing that, due to two bad route choices on Day 1, I did not really contest for 2^nd place.

Day 1: 44km – Kei Mouth to Kob Inn

After a leisurely ferry crossing at the Kei River mouth, the race start was a little frantic, but soon settled down to a moderate pace with me lying in joint 3^rd place with Angelo and Arthur (Men’s Health journalist). The route was essentially long flat beaches of hard (and some soft) sand intermittently broken by grassy headlands. A bad route choice at Sandy Point (21km) saw me going too far inland and doing a few extra hills, and slipping into 4^th place. In my haste to regain 3^rd place, another bad route choice at Mazeppa Bay (39km) set me further behind the 2^nd and 3^rd placed runners. I finally finished Day 1 in 4hrs 35mins, 7mins off 3^rd (Angelo), 23mins off 2^nd (Flip) and 48mins off 1^st (Cas).

Knowing that none of us had the pedigree to challenge Cas for the top spot, it was now all about who would get 2^nd and 3^rd overall.

Day 2: 35km – Kob Inn to The Haven

My primary aim for Day 2 was to make up the 7mins on Angelo and just see how things played out with Flip – maybe he would have a bad day.

Day 2 started much the same as Day 1 with Cas being chased by Flip. Angelo stuck with me all the way to Nqabartha River (18km). At the river crossing I was able to drop him by diving in, swimming like hell (and flooding my cellphone) and “sprinting” around the point. At the day’s check point (23km) I was in 3^rd place, 6mins behind Flip. The section through Dwesa Nature Reserve was awesome – hilly grasslands, small forests and deserted little coves. Not knowing where Angelo was (did he know a short-cut?) and with no line of sight I picked up the pace through Dwesa (almost getting run over by a startled buck), until finally hitting the beaches again – and sight of Flip way up ahead but struggling. The chase was on over the last 6kms – running some 4min 05sec kms (which felt like a sprint at that stage J), Flip constantly looking back over his shoulder and the gap closing consistently. Unfortunately the end came too soon and Flip finished 2mins ahead of me, but importantly Angelo was 14mins behind me.

So at the end of Day 2 the overall positions were Cas 1^st, Flip 2^nd (+40min), me 3^rd (+65min) and Angelo 4^th (+72min). Positions 1 and 2 were for all intents and purposes sorted (baring disaster for either Cas or Flip), and it was all about whether Angelo could make up 7mins on me to take 3^rd place.

Day 3: 34km – The Haven to Hole in the Wall

As expected Angelo took off like a bat out of hell. The first 13kms were fast and flat beach running with Cas in 1^st place again, and Flip and Angelo running strongly together in 2^nd/3^rd places. Not wanting to blow and banking on being stronger over the hilly last 21kms, I let them go and settled into my own pace. By the Xhora River (13km) they were 4mins ahead of me and I was beginning to worry just a little. Moving through the hills I steadily closed on them, pulling the gap down to 2min. But then a wrong turn into a valley (and the wrong directions by a group of local children) quickly pushed the gap back up to 4mins – and thoughts that I may have blown it! Working hard through the valleys and hills I finally caught them at Tekwaan Bay with 5kms to go. Knowing that I could not make up 25mins on Flip and Angelo 7mins on me over 5kms, the three of us decided to do the sporting thing and run in together. Cresting the last climb, the majestic Hole in the Wall comes into full view and grows in size on your last descent till the finish just 50m from this natural wonder.

Although 3^rd was satisfying, not really contesting for 2^nd left me a little disappointed and wondering whether things would have been any different had it not been for those bad route choices on Day 1. Well, next year..........

Final overall positions:

1^st            Cas          10hr 07mins

2^nd           Flip          +1hr 02mins

3^rd           Kevin      +1hr 28mins

4^th           Angelo   +1hr 35mins

5^th           Clinton   +2hrs 07mins

 

Over and above the racing, it was great to meet fellow running characters from all around SA – Mark, the GU man who ran from CT to Augrabies and then ran the Augrabies 7 day extreme marathon for charity; Heidi, our self-appointed Coffee Bay information lady (who obviously had an extra allocation of words per day); Angus, Matthew and Mark, my fellow NCC runners: Marc, the race sweeper who left one of the competitors behind on Day 3; Gavin, a former fellow engineering student that I had not seen since first year 29 years ago; Bobby Skinstad who was running for charity; and the Fourways Running Club guys whose party at the end of Day 3 did not end and who climbed into the 4am airport shuttle direct from the pub (still with drinks in hand) to name but a just few.

 

What a memorable 3 days - even through the pain and sweat, every day was special. It was a privilege to be part of this event.

Congratulations to Kevin Balfour  of Team NCC for finishing 3rd in this year's 3 day Wild Coast Wild Run covering 112km. Mark Carstens joined the team at the last minute filling in for Moyra Sheard and managed to finish in 46th position. Looks a like beautiful route - how do the runners manage to keep their eyes on the path??

I woke up this morning with a tremendous sense of relief, and for two very good (in my opinion) reasons. One, was that this morning was rest morning and despite having eaten an entire pizza last night (YES…OMG!!! I couldn’t quite believe it either, but it really happened), I was happy to be resting! The second is that yesterday evening’s run was pain free.
I was in a small panic as the last time I ran, which was on Thursday last week, I had an exceptional pain in EXACTLY the same spot as my stress fracture earlier this year. Naturally, having already been through the testing and trying experience of 3 stress fractures, I freaked out completely and immediately started Googeling all the pain killer possibilities that are legal in sport. Then, thank goodness, some sense prevailed and I contacted my patient and kind (you have to be with me and injuries) Physio, Chris Allan in Cape Town and told him of my woes. He suggested staying off my feet for the weekend and only running again on Tuesday. I listened. Seriously, I did! The result was a pain free run last night and the verdict is that if there was anything starting, I have caught it in time and all is good to carry on!

PHEW

On the flip side of all of that relief, is a mounting sense of intrepidation as we are now literally only 2.5 weeks (that’s 17 days) until kick-off. That’s not a very long time really!

I am pleased to report that this past weekend’s mountain bike adventures actually saw me staying upright and ON my bike throughout the ride. I know it wasn’t a race, but it felt like it was! It was 5 mean, lean and hard-core mountain bikers and I. All of them have ridden Epic at least once. All of them have been riding properly for years. All of them have huge amounts of that male only T hormone which creates massive amounts of competitiveness amongst the boys and is always, always exacerbated when there is a bicycle between their legs. Why? I have no idea and I don’t think they know either. It’s just a guy thing.
Basically, I had to race, literally flat box, and hammer down, heart rate maxed out, the whole morning just to try and stay in view of them. I would often lose sight, especially on the fast descents when my chicken side would rear its head and refuse to go back in its box. On the climbs, I would manage to catch glimpses of them and with monumental effort, get myself near enough to see who was who. Single-track, well, that still requires serious go slow from me and there was really no room in my panic stricken head to be worrying about the boys and how far ahead they had gone while I was negotiating the treacherous twists and turns of single-track and desperately telling myself that I would stay on my bike…stay on your bike… stay on your bike……..!

I will be COMPLETELY honest here though – I LOVED it! Every single second! Mountain biking is all about confidence and when you have that, then the skill level picks up and one gets faster. Not falling was the start of an increased confidence level. My wounds are healing, finally, and I hope to keep the skin intact and where it belongs, on my body, until the END of Southern Storm. I am just really hoping that the Southern Storm course does not include too much single track and really difficult parts as that WILL slow me down and disadvantage me greatly. My hope is that what I lose on the bike, I can gain on the run.

The next few days are all about getting ready and preparation time. Bags are labelled for each day – one for nutrition and another for kit. Kit, clothing, accessories and extras are all laid out. Shoes are checked and new ones bought where needed as more than one pair of running shoe is a must. Trail running often results in shoes getting wet and when Day 1 entails a couple of swims, you know you are going to need a second pair of dry shoes for day 2. We are also kloofing this year, which involves jumping down waterfalls, so again, shoes will be wet and a second pair will be needed for the following day. Socks, peaks, hydration packs, gloves, beanies, rain jackets…. check, check, check…….. and so the list goes on! It’s quite astounding actually when one starts writing the list of  ‘bare essentials’ how long it is! One would think that a base essentials list should be short! Not in a multi stage, multi discipline race of this nature. Organisation is key as nothing can be left behind or over seen.

So, what’s ahead besides all this packing and labelling and sorting? Lots of training still to be done, although we are now heading into the fine-tuning and then tapering phase. This weekend is a trail race of 20km and then, just because we can, we are going to run another 10km of trail to make it a proper long one. You can’t only be suckers for punishment in racing. You have to want it in training too! Mountain bike racing is happening next weekend again, so this weekend will afford me another opportunity to race myself in attempts to keep up with the boys. At least it’s making me stronger!

So, until next time…..

Here’s to staying on that Mountain bike!

Well done to Moyra Sheard for finishing in 13th position in the 80km Hi-Tec Puffer on Sat in a time of 09:10:42. Kevin Balfour had to take it easy due to the flu bug, but still managed to finish 21st in a time of 09:53:28. This was the first race that saw Team NCC athletes displaying the new company logo on their running kit.

BTW, the race was won by Ryan Sandes in a time of 06:57:25.

www.puffer.fishhoekac.com