like most of my decisions regarding my rather social sporting activities, not too much thought actually went into the whole thing when i eagerly committed to riding this epic annual event. i seem to be either a slow learner, or just plain stubborn as i have not learnt from past experiences that i am not invicible and doing a nonstop 240km mountain bike without training, isn't going to happen without it's fair share of pain!
after expedition africa in may, i was forced to take some rather unappreciated sports leave due to injuring my achilles. after 4 wks of still not being able to put on a closed shoe i decided not to do transbaviaans and told my prospective team mates that rather than let them down at the last minute, i would do the sensible thing and sit it out.... well clearly that decision didn't last very long as 5wks later the idea to ride slowly started to creep back into my mind.
after my first session back on the bike without any pain, i thought that maybe i could do it! its amazing how one can convince yourself that you can do something when you really want to and how blinkered we can become to anything else. with this being the case, i went about trying to sort out an entry for myself, and finding a willing victim to ride with. the latter proved to be very easy and within about an hour, this part of the equation was sorted. a couple of days later, confirmation that we had an entry came and suddenly mild panic started to settle in - as one would it expect it to! 240km is a long way by anyone's standards! last time i did it, i had put in a good couple of months and a few 1000km's of solid training, now all i had was 3wks with toddler induced time constraints!
after managing a sum total of 7 rides, the longest being 2 and a half hours, we set off to the great metropolis of Willowmore. now for those of you who have never had the wonderful opportunity of visiting this karoo dorpie, don't blink too long whilst driving past as you may miss it. i think the towns survival rests heavily on this event each year. i think that per capita, it has the greatest number of accomodation establishments, but this didn't make finding accomodation any easier when there are 1200 other people also looking for accomodation!
eventually i found a spot at the villa d lockyer guest house and with a big smile, billy jean booked us in and showed us where everything was.
i find that once all the pre-event excitement and organising has been dealt with, there is little to think about but what lies ahead and strangely enough, the nerves start to set in. add to this the fact that the route was different to the normal route due to the baviaanskloof being impassible after all the heavy rains of late. i was scared of so many different things that it is difficult to pin-point which was the most scary!
saturday morning we woke up to freezing karoo weather. ben recorded 3 degrees at about 8am. the max for the day was reported to be a little over 10 degrees and some rain was also predicted.... it was going to be a very cold day (and night) out!
after catching up with friends on the start line we headed off at a leisurely pace out of the town. i was really hoping that i would make it to the finish and that ben had the patience to ride with me all the way. i don't think he knew (in fact i know he didn't know) what he had actually let himself into when he agreed to ride with me!
the frist section was pretty and then we hit the road that goes into the baviaans. this road climbs desceptively and one has to be carefull not to overcook it as it is at the start of a long ride! i really struggled to get going and things didn't improve, in fact they went backwards fast. i just had no go and my lack of training was really starting to pay off! getting to the first water station and discovering that there was not more food left was a huge knock, but thanks to some friendly co-riders we soon stuffed our mouths with yummy boiled potatoes ( i think it was actually a ploy by them to get me to shut up - as i was still talking at that stage!)
the section from the first waterpoint to the second i felt like death warmed up. my legs were just nowhere. i had nothing in the tank and suffered serious ups and downs in the energy department. to add insult to injury i was also mistaken for being male ( with a pink and white helmet) but at least the offender was gracious enough to apologise and continued to holler support and encouragement from the roof of his landrover everytime we saw them en-route!
the farmers at checkpoint 2 made up for anything that checkpoint may have been lacking. there was enough food to feed an army! sosaties and wors as far as the eye could see and lots of yummy potatoes. my guilt at taking more than 3 sosaties lasted about 2secs as i gobbled them up. i saved one for on the bike on the way out, man they were good!
sadly the sosaties didn't contribute much to the energy requirements and it wasn't long before i had to check if my legs were still attached to my body because they did not seem to be contributing much to my forward motion. at one stage i think we were moving at less than 10km/hr.... on a flat road.... things were looking a bit bleak!
amazingly though once we hit the dark and the slightly more technical terrain of the grootrivier poort, i started to perk up a bit. after telling ben that i was a real "benny bang broek" on the downhills, i proceeded to have my best downhill ride of my lfe! i just flew, we passed about 40 people on the way down (despite my near head over heals flik flack en-route) and then we got to the first of the river crossings. we managed to get accross the first without getting our feet wet, the second we weren't to be so lucky.
despite the dark, which had now settled in properly, one would see that this was going to be cold and wet! shoes off i started to make my way accross. suddenly my mistaken man identity offender appeared out of nowhere (well actually from behind but i like to think of him as my guardian angel who appeared from nowhere - lets keep with the fairy tail here!) and offered me a lift accross. apon closer inspection i saw that there were already a tangled mess of bodies and bikes on the landrover, clinging on to every conceivable open space available. i hopped on the step and holding molly (my lovely bike) in one hand and the roof rack with the other, continued accross the river, leaving ben to wade through the ice cold water on his own - nice partner aren't i! this earned my mistaken man identity offender a kiss and a wave!
then the real hurt started. my memory of this section of the route was a little fuzzy to say the least and as i was in a car when i had last gone through there, the little bit of memory that there was, proved that it was not very realiable.... at all!
what i remembered as being a short descent into the grootriver valley, was anything but that! being the 1000th odd idiot to hit that section of road in the past 5hrs, with some vehicles churning it all up and a little bit of a drizzle, the road resembled something out of 'dummies guide to kakkest roads to be traversed'. one of my pet hates in life is to push my bike... i made peace with that about 1km into the great push, which carried on for the best part of hours too numerous to mention! somewhere along the line i started getting some very irritating little cramps in my one leg, that is until i discovered the wonderful power of "rennies!" our progress was snail like but at least i was still smiling although i think that ben did get a little worried by my silence (never a good sign when the noodle stops talking!). ben and i had devised a simple way of staying in contact en-route, when we got separated or wanted to check on how the other was feeling, we will screech 'kakaaaaaaa' apon which the other would respond in the same manner, not only was it effective, but it drew a few smiles from those around us!
we eventuall it the 3rd checkpoint. i was frozen. a sweaty body in a cold wind up on top of an exposed hill at night in the karoo in winter.... not good. thankfully they had hot soup which although it did not do much, it did help a little, and it certainly warmed my soul! the tent looked like carnage, broken bodies everywhere. suddenly although i was not feeling too hot myself, i felt alot better. only 80km! a chip and a put!
my spirits did not stay high for very long as the climbing was far from being over. it just never seemed to end. the road was reduced to slush and the pushing continued. eventually we hit hard, dry district road. it felt like tar, except the first section was a bit too steep for my tired legs so i ended up pushing! then it was the long rolling downhill into patensie ( i say rolling because it was not all downhill!) once we hit the tar road we had a short ride to the 4th checkpoint where we would see our backup crew for the first time.
after a biiiig hug from meisie meisie (my friend kate - also known as dingetjie dingetjie after a few long bike rides) we had some lovely slap chip rolls compliments of stef from cycleworx and a very yummy homemade soup which kate had rustled together. ben and i were both like little ice-blocks by now and were keen to get going again to warm up a bit. we had both put on an extra layer of clothing - not that it helped much!
we had 50 odd km to go. the next 25km were 25km i had been dreading as it involved the netorious never-ender climb - not named that for nothing i might add. last time, possibly because i had actually trained for the ride, never-ender seemed like a breeze, not the case this time round! it really never seemed to end. but as with everything in life, it did eventually come to an end and before we knew it, we were at the next checpoint being greeted by the smiling but sleepy faces of kate and craig. suddenly, after 200 odd km, i was ready to ride. my legs had rediscovered themselves and had remembered what it was they were meant to do. i set my goal as getting to the finish ahead of the other merrell team which were also at the checkpoint and so with this in mind, ben and i set off.... at pace. i felt possessed as i road the relatively flat road all the way into jeffreys bay. just before the finish it started to drizzle and we were thankfull to be almost done.
it was with great relief, but a little bit of sadness that i rode up the ramp and through the finish of this years 'langs baviaans' race at 04:40am. having started at 10am the previous morning, it had been an epic ride, one which i was glad to have done, but one which i will not do on so little training again.... but then again, ones memory of discomfort quickly fades!
after a wonderful shower, i flopped into bed, sometime around 6am (my normal wakeup time!) and tried desperately to fall asleep, but the brain would have any of that boring stuff and after about an hour of cat napping, i gave up!
thanks ben, you were really an amazing partner.
meisie and craig, you guys rock. thanks for sacrificing your sleep to cheer us on!
and of course, a HUGE thank you to MERRELL for giving us the opportunity to GET OUTSIDE!
xxxxoooooo
No comments:
Post a Comment