Training Log Archive: nmulder

Was supposed to ride the 5-Hour MTB Rogaine with Ryno, but the leg injury is too bad. Ryno partnered and won with Arrie, whilst Susan also took a rest day. Painwise, the injury is quite serious.

This was later diagnosed as a Grade 4 stress fracture. i.e. complete break. Would eventually lead to almost 4 months break from running.

Event: Cape Storm Rogaine
 

0645 - Kaapschehoop Plantation. 1:35'000. Paired up with Ryno for the 12-hour Rogaine. We started well, planning a route that would take in most of the controls, but leave us lots of options for cutting short towards the end. From start, 48-45-42-44-43-40. For some reason then ran on roads instead of cutting corner to road through gorge (7 min lost) and then 7-6-18-19-22. My shin pains started flaring up big time here. Would have quit if this were a solo, but instead popped some pain killers. 17-16-21-15-4-3-1-2-5-23 (short search here as the map was poor), then 24-38-50, stopped for a cooldrink at the cafe in Kaapsehoop, then 36-26-25-39-41. Tough choice here (47 or 37 first?), but decided on 37-47-46-49. Then bundu bashed to 35, big mistake, should have left it till later when coming from the other direction. Then 31. Then started running to 30, intending to do the remainder of controls anti-clockwise, but changed mind halfway there and started going clockwise from 32. An earlier decision could have allowed us to pick up 34-33 en route to 32, but we could always pick them up on the way home. A huge thunderstorm broke as we did 32-27-14-20-13, we were drenched. We even got hailed on, with lightning all around. Big decision then, just over 3 hours left... should we go for 8-9-10? These were worth 300 points total, and the penalty was a measly 5pts per minute... We might be 5-10 minutes late if we went for it, so we figured it was worth it. From 13-8 we decided to go straight through the gorge. We found a lovely route down a narrow firebreak, but encountered a flash flood at the river crossing at the bottom. It was far too dangerous to cross at the road, despite my and Ryno's combined skill. Must have been about 15 cumecs of water in a 5m wide torrent, loosing your footing would have sent you over the nearest drop. A while later we found a potential crossing about 200m downriver below a huge waterfall where the flood braided out between trees. We were able to cross fairly easily by doing a bit of tree hugging. In total must have lost 15-20 minutes crossing the river. The way out of the gorge was quite easy, with good zig-zag tracks and no dense vegetation. We got to 8 with 1h50 remaining, we tried upping the pace, but my leg wasn't taking it well at all. 8-9-10-11-12-28-29. At this stage it was 25 min to go and getting dark quick with the overcast weather. We'd had another 2 thunderstorms since as well - Mother Nature's best sound and light experience. We therefore decided to leave the nearby 30 (would only have taken 4 minutes more) and also skip 33-34 (the other 2 remaining controls) and bee-line it straight for the finish. Got in 28 minutes overtime, with the leg and darkness slowing the pace drastically towards the end. Thus we got 2910 point minus the 140 points deduction (they need to relook at that next year), taking first place quite comfortably in the end.

A sorely needed rest day. This is the silly season.... Weekend 1 - do a 220km 5-day trail run. Weekend 2 - do a 320km adventure race. Weekend 3 - do a 12-hour foot and 5-hour bike rogaine. I don't think I'm going to move anywhere near a sports shoe till the weekend.

C • impressive 3