Ran the Three Cranes Challenge down at Karkloof with Neal. Day 1 already blew me away with the fantastic technical singletrack through the indigenous forest. We started with a steep climb up to the escarpment straight off the bat and found ourselves in about 20th place, more or less between 2nd & 3rd lady (Hotpants Nienaber & Tracy Zunckel). Pushed pretty hard through the wetlands, knowing that it was just flat and downhill to the canopy tours time-out zone.
Loved this concept and enjoyed the zip lines! We set off again after 20 mins, keen to smash the last flattish 8km to the finish, but my heart had other ideas... noticed a 214 reading on the watch while feeling very comfy, so thought the watch was reading wrong. After a bit of fiddling with the strap, still saw 220-240 readings and started feeling weak on the hills. Checked my pulse the manual way and my heart was indeed racing. Slowed to a walk on a downhill and heart rate refused to drop below 220, despite feeling completely fine otherwise. Quite concerning and Neal walked & jogged with me for 20 minutes, before suggesting I lie down. Within 30 seconds of lying down, I literally felt my heart rate reset to the usual 130-140 again and we had a good run to the finish from there. Turns out it was a heart palpitation and can get triggered by random things (like zip lines!). Nothing to worry about if they don't occur frequently...
Finished the day in 25th place (in a field of about 300 runners).
TE 5
http://www.movescount.com/moves/move144418789 (check that HR graph)