2nd S.A XC Cup Race-Fountains-Pretoria - 10 February 2008

We arrived in Pretoria on Friday morning, for the 2nd S.A. XC cup. Practice went off well and I was really impressed with the changes that had been made to the course and when I had finished with my practice run I felt that I knew the course well enough to race it hard from the start.
On Saturday race day dawned and I made the most of my late starting batch at 13h30 by sleeping in until 08h00 and taking it easy until we arrived at the venue at 11h00 to support the other riders who’s racing had started earlier in the morning. I was fortunate enough to be seeded onto the front row, so my game plan was on track at this stage.

We were started a little earlier than planned as Burry was lapping in 17 and a half minutes and we also got off to a blistering start, where I had managed to get into the single track first and eventually settled into a top four position riding with Travis Walker and the other chaps that regularly prove to be stiff competition.
However my plan to sit with these guys was to be short lived as I suddenly started feeling incredibly nauseas towards the middle of my second lap, and began to drop off the pace very rapidly and lost the front group completely about 500m from the end of the second lap.
Going into my third lap I began to feel extremely weak and found myself bringing up anything that was left in my stomach on the side of the course and was forced to pull out of the race in order not to cause permanent damage to myself.
I was really disappointed as it was the first time in my two years of competitive riding
that I had been forced to abandon a race under the circumstances.
The course was extremely fast and flat, with one or two awesome single track sections! It was also well laid out for spectators and it was great to be cheered on at so many places by the same people who seemed to move around and still be at the feed zone when we came through.
Well done once again to the organizers who did a great job with the set up of the course and all their hard work was evident when one considers that all the river crossing bridges were washed away in a freak storm earlier the same week.