Training Log Archive: nmulder

Kinetic Expedition Africa Series Final at Alpine Heath in the Northern Berg with Team Cyanosis (Mac, Ryno and Tracey)

Leg one from Alpine Heath was a straight up and down via a few CPs. We led out to the first CP at the cascades. Extremely dangerous climbing over slippery rocks when 40 teams trying to get in and out of there at the same time.

From there up the escarpment for a 1000m climb up Babangone Peak. Songlines put the pressure on the last steep sections and then floored it on the descent to Sterkfontein Dam. We did surprisingly well in damage limitation and kept them to under 10 mins by the time we reached Qwantani Resort at the dam.

Transition with new maps, but as there was only 1 CP and 1 transition I memorized rather than plotted.

It's Sterkfontein Dam, which means hellish weather and it didn't disappoint again. There was a strong NW blowing across the dam, so we had horrible side and front-side waves to contend with. Swell was about 3ft most of the way apart from a quite inlet near the CP. Towards the end crossed in front of some cliffs that created some spectacular refractions and a boiling cauldron effect. We struggled in the early parts to keep the nose going in the right direction and lost another 10 mins over just a couple of kms. Then a few more on the long paddle.

Super-quick transition as we dragged our boats in, dumped gear and ran off down the road.

Ran from the dam near the side dam-wall down a district road to the first farmstead. Didn't loose any more time on Songlines, but still 30 mins behind after the paddle.

Map plotting and onto bikes. Ryno and Mac took a bit of strain steering the boats. I felt good.

Long bike leg from near Sterkfontein Dam, down the escarpment and across the Tugela before heading back to Alpine Heath. We had a chasing wind to start with with soon developed into a big thunderstorm that we just managed to out-ride. Thumped this first section. Came down the escarpment at Bezuidenhouts Pass (again), but turned off this time into a side farm with a bit of cattle-track riding. Ryno half buckled his wheel down here and we lost a few minutes as he recovered.

Saw the Songlines support crew out as we crossed the fields at the bottom, so suspected we must have brough the time gap down. Kept pushing and shortly after getting to the Tugela, we saw them in the distance, about 7 mins ahead. Wind had turned and now we battled into it as we tried to reel them in as we got into the reserve grasslands around Alpine Heath. They'd also seen us, so it was flat-out racing.

In the end we ran out of distance and finished 2 mins behind them. The points over the year-long racing series were close enough that it meant that it all came down to the final placing of this race for the Series win, so we lost out on that and the free entry to ARWC Paraguay as well.

From Sprockets, out via Elandsdrift onto clockwise Cradle loop, with out and back to Caves. Back via Lanseria.