Wooohooo AWESOME!!! I loooove reports, thanks Adri!!! hehehe please don't forget to tell us about your AR-KZN experience too
Cheers C ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Adri Van der Westhuyzen <[email protected]> Date: 2009/9/7 Subject: UGE AR Sprint - Parys To: Hardy <[email protected]> Hi Clinton, below our race report. Feel free to post it to the darkies & dirties. I will post to AR.co.za <http://ar.co.za/>. Kind regards Adri So our team Rock & Rollers consisted of Nando and myself(Adri). Getting our gear together in the week really only meant tracing the map holder from our PMB race. Got it and the Nando’s sms’s on Friday evening asking what colour shirts I’m taking so he can colour match.. and that he has cupcakes for the morning. (sugar before 10?) So we had blue and white shirts for the day. Then another sms saying the race-organiser said it was going to be a tough one…? Thanks. Finished packing, I go to bed early, Nando is picking me up at 7. …and I dream I had a flat tyre… So Nando arrives whilst my french toast is still soaking in the egg, but we start loading my stuff. And as I take my bike out of my car (still from D&D on Thu), I remembered my dream, and there you go, I had a flattie. Not too worried, as Nando was early and that gave me time to deal with the french toast. Suspect a slow valve leak. But there we go, to Thabela Thabeng World Heritage site, just after Parys. We arrive with loads of other teams and collect our registration packs. I see my AR friends Lizelle & Wiehan too. During the week Lizelle asked if she could join us on some of the legs on Saturday. Her husband Wiehan and Stephan (from Kinetic Gear) were racing together. Lizelle & Wiehan have been ill for most of the winter, but both keen for Saturday. And Lizelle was wearing blue, great teamwork. Race briefing tells us about 2 bike legs (1 long, 1 short) and 2 foot legs (1 long, 1 short) and we have A5 sized laminated instruction cards. (No need for the map holder) So we can decide which leg to do first and we opt for long bike, long hike, short bike, and finishing with short foot, as we know there is some tubing on the Vaalriver involved. Transition is at the starting point every time. We are warned to take a lot of water as temperatures were just below 30 the whole week. Ready, steady, go. Short 50 m wrong direction, we set off onto long dirt road around the mountain(s) clockwise as anti-clockwise meant a hike-a-bike to the top for about 2 kms. On the road we climbed around a hill, then climbed around another hill, then climbed some more… And then got to a silly downhill, not really making the climb worth it. Lizelle was at this point already *at the end of her rope* after being ill most winter and not being able to train, so Nando suggested that she hooks onto him on the uphills. A team with 3 guys seemed to go the same speed as us for most of the cycle… so we had a lot of time to notice their matching grey shirts, board shorts?, 1 cycling glove each? And no shocks????? I think our local postman’s bike has shocks! So, really feeling for them… for conscience sake we got a bit of a lead on them at least. By this time 3 very fast teams pass us from the anti-clockwise direction and then some more as we get to the top of their hike-a-bike section to collect the Cpoint. We see Stephan and Wiehan there; they came from behind us… already on their 2nd leg! They opted for the long hike first. Throwing their bikes over the fence and shooting off, it was clear that they were really racing this adventure. So the hike-a-bike up didn’t mean that we could ride it down, doing it clockwise. We were pretty much hiking it down too. Meeting up with some guys going up and down the hill looking for the CP. Further down, Stephan, flying past us shouts “tonnel 3” ,“tunnel no 3!” . We get to a little kloof and a marshal telling us to drop bikes for 700m on foot to collect a CP in one of the 6 tunnels. We only counted 2 tunnels… and had to turn back to the last one. The “tunnel 3” didn’t help us much. So we make our way down to transition for the long hike. Nice refreshing river crossings too. And in this kloof we hear some exciting screams from the bottom of the kloof as well as the top. Get to transition and Lizelle is sitting out on the long hike. She did not officially enter with us, so we would not be penalised. On foot Nando & me set off to climb the mountain; had to take helmets. Kloofing along the river and then the swamp with the CP hanging from a tree. My response: there has to be another way around it. (Can’t think of muddy feet at the beginning of the hike already). Nando’s reply? “Going through it, this is what adventure racing about!” Great stuff and then my own scream when my leg disappears up to hip-level in the mud. We got the CP. And make our way further up. Pit stop along the way and then further up to the chain ladder and devil’s chimney as marked on our race card. Now I started feeling very nauseous and the water in my bladder was at least 37.5 degrees and not helping. Nando, the klipspringer, could by now notice that I was not keeping up or 100%. But having him ahead, he could tell me what’s ahead. So we reach the chain ladder and see the queue of teams waiting to get up. I spot a female in a light blue shirt at the top of the ladder; slowly moving the one leg past the other…heights was the problem. Thanks to Nando we opt for the devil’s chimney… which was now not sounding very kosher to me as I was already envisioning the cupcake, energy gu and game I took in earlier as an expressionistic painting on the beautiful walls of this World Heritage Site. So 5 metres up the devils chimney I meet the smell of hell: baboon poo & p! Worst smell in all my life! I think this actually made me go faster and we pass those stuck behind the plug on the ladder. (as well as the no-shocks team). Get to the top, punch the card. Stop to throw luke-warm water over myself, look at the view… realising that my nausea must be from the scorching sun… We make our way down the mountain to collect the last CP in an old mineshaft. Sun behind me know and the wind cooling me down, I regain consciousness. Back at base camp we team up with Lizelle again for the short bike. The leading teams have now finished and are already sitting next to the pool. I quickly jump in the pool and we get onto our bikes for a series of loops amongst the fields to collect about 5 CPs. Not too bad this one. Except for the tsetsi-fly that got hold of my leg. Back at transition, we set-off for our last leg on foot. A combination of running and walking down to the river for the tubing section and the last CP’s. So we wait for the marshal to pump our 3 car tubes. From here we could see some teams on the water to collect a CP about 1km downstream. Taking a run with our tyres, we get to the river and meet an icy cold Spring Vaal. Trying for about 2 minutes to find a comfortable position to do a bit of arm paddling… we go… slowly. Over some very shallow boulders, collecting water plants on the way… some rapids and out we are again. But wait, we can’t move! The icy water acted like an ice pack on every muscle in our bodies and we are as stiff as sticks! Nando is really not a reptile and I think the marshal saw his jaws clapping, so we opted for a slow run back to warm up and to finish our race! With at least 500g of weight added to each sogging-wet takkie… we get home, hand in the card, get a race time of just over 4hours and into the pool to recollect ourselves. It is finished. A short prize giving and dry clothes and we make our way back to Parys for KFC- on the go and reflecting on the race. Sunday morning, looking a bit darker, I feel great. Still managed to get 90min trail run in the afternoon as the Skeleton Gorge is this weekend. And Nando, going strong, did the Spring Classic MTB at Riversands! Until next time! --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "DarkAndDirty" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/darkanddirty?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
