My rides this year
So I’ve been very slack about writing about my rides this
year but there have been so many I can hardly keep track of them all.
At the end of last year I met a hooligan of note from
FaceBook (which is very dodgy to say the least J
), Bela, who has joined our band of merry bikers.
Some of the highlights thus far:
Going away for the weekend at the end of February to
Sabie. I’d entered the half marathon on
the Sunday while some of the gang rode
the marathon on the Saturday and the half on Sunday. It was a great weekend out of fun and
riding. The Sabie Ultra marathon, was
UCI rated so it meant we had to the chance to see some of the world’s best
international riders do their stuff. But
as good as the overseas riders were, the top 3 finishers were South Africans.
Yay Yay Yay.
As we started the race on Sunday you could see that Lee and
I were really nervous but once we got started we began to enjoy ourselves. The thing about Sabie is that they have
mountains. Real mountains. Their mountains are on steroids. Out of the 35km race the first 28km are up.
All up. And really really up. Throughout the day Lee and I struggled up the
mountains. Somewhere behind us we lost track of Bela, Sam and Tracey. Despite
Lee being shorter than me, she walks up hill much faster than me and I lost her
somewhere along the line. At one stage I
sat down on a rock to get my breath back, have a quiet little chat to myself
and take a photo of the magnificent view.
Along came the Advendurance bakkie and Francois was so friendly, asking
me how I was etc and I told him I was good, just have a quick breather and then
I’d be on my way again. Ok he says, but he cant let me stay out there too much
longer. And I was like um, why? What do you mean. Well you’re the last person
he says and I’m the sweeper. But but, I
cant be because I know that Sam, Bela and Tracey are still behind me – there’s
no way they’ve overtaken me. Well, Sam’s
back conked out on her, Bela had been feeding the vegetation and Tracey had to
be nebulized so you see you are the last.
Oh no. He let me keep going to
the 2nd of the water points and from there there was a great
downhill section. But if he caught up with me again, then that was going to be
the end of it. So I pedaled and pedaled and I could hear this blinking bakkie
coming along – with it’s trailer, even along some jeep track. Then silence. Yay. They’ve lost me and I can keep going, I’ll
sneak through under the radar. With
another 5km to go to the 3rd and last water point they found me
again. I was pretty disappointed, but
realistically probably couldn’t go on much more – those 5km in the sweeper van
showed me how much more up and up and up there was. We just got to the last water point and I saw
Lee. She was tired and ready to climb in
the van, but heard the magic words “it’s all downhill from here and the single
track is worth all your pain”. Without a second glance she was off before the
man could take her bike.
We got down to the finish just a few short minutes before
she flew over the enormous bridge and finished a truly difficult race. Well
done Lee.
No comments:
Post a Comment