Training Log Archive: nmulder

0430 - Giant's Castle and Champagne Castle of Drakensberg. Team Cyanosis (with Ryno, Susan and Arrie). Race started at Four Rivers Adventures near Winterton. Medium length bike leg to abseil near Injasuti involving a route choice. We took the longer road option, giving us a lead of 40 min over McCains after just 2.5h. After abseil, downhill bike to river put in. White-water rafting turned out to be a 8km hike-a-boat, after which McCains had come back from 5th to 2nd and closed the gap to 30 min. Next bike leg, which included a short but fun hike-a-bike over a ridge took us to Giant's Castle, approximately halfway in the race. This was the last supported transition. We then had a big hike up (Langabilele Pass), down (Bannerman Pass) and across (to Injasuti) the Berg, with McCains 20 min behind us most of the way. At nightfall, we saw then for the last time, just before they lost the correct trail for over an hour. We found it, but bundu-bashed down overgrown paths for hours, emerging at Injasuti with teams who had taken a short course / penalty option. From Injasuti it was another medium length bike leg to the finish at Mountain Splendour near Champagne Castle. Took first place, 3h17 ahead of McCains. Aquelle were 3rd, Olympus 4th. Good race, whole team was particularly strong on the bike. Susan took strain with the boat carrying and with knees coming off the Berg. Decent, interesting race, but a few problems, mainly with marshals. Really tough physically and good nav needed in the mist on top of the Berg and at night in the foothills. Thankfully it was fairly cool (23 deg. at Giants). Bike Info: Tm 7:15:28, Dst 123.42, Av 17.0 (wow - that's high), Mx 71.6 (wow - lots of downhill on tar).

Drove down to Winterton, KZN for the Nguni AR.

0610 - Run through Berario and Fairland with Liz.

1600 - Did a bit more scouting for the Uge Krugersdorp race with Mac. Course is coming together. Fantastic MTB riding, a lot of single and quad bike track. We were dodging a few thunderstorms along the way, hopefully they break the heatwave. In the end, only got very slightly wet in the last few kms. Avs 14.5 and Mx 61.3

0730 - Focused more on my legs and core, but didn't push too hard with this weekends coming race.

1600 - 10 min warm-up. Stretching. Strides. 5 x 200m with 2.5 min rest. Don't have exact splits, but all in 33-35s range. 3 min warm down.