Early Friday morning I made my way up to Pretoria with my dad leaving at 04h00 to get registered and prepared for the MTN National Marathon in Cullinan on Saturday, around 40min drive outside the city. The small community originally formed around the diamond mining industry looked to be a spectacular host, with a very old world feel to the race village filled with antique shops and places to eat!
Saturday morning dawned, and a crisp, early morning saw us arrive at the foot of the mines for the start of our race. After the Riders in both the Ultra Marathon and the Standard Marathon were long gone, it was time for our race and we were scheduled to start at around 08h30.
With race favourite James Reid overseas, the race seemed open to anyone. Ryan Ellis and I sat back for the first few kilometers to see how the race would plan out. After a few attacks from the other riders and then Ryan made his move. I sat back and let the other riders do the chasing, and once they had tired I began to bridge across to Ryan. Upon catching up we hit a thick sandy section which lead to my first disaster of the day. While powering out of the sand my front derailleur slipped sideways and made it impossible for me to pedal. I stopped to correct the problem, but was unable to fix it with my bare hands. Fortunately after around a minute or so a trailing 75km rider was able to loan me his multi tool. Once the problem was sorted I got on with the race, but by now I was well out of the top 10. I managed to catch the lead group once again and shortly after, made my attempt to close the gap to Ryan once more. Another rider was able to follow me and we began to close on Ryan ever so slowly. Unfortunately the derailleur slipped again with around 8km to go. This time I had to use every muscle in my body to try force it back into place as I didn't have the multi tool any longer. Luckily I hadn't tightened it properly and was able to move it after a couple of tries. This put me out of contention for any top placings, and was well out of the top 10 again.
Approaching the final 2km's I began to reel in the riders that had passed me. Passing 7 riders was only good enough to get me up to 6th overall. A disappointing result but a good learning curve! Well done to Ryan on his win!! Then it was time to pack up and start heading home so that I could repair my bike in preparation for the Howick Highlander in the morning.
Today was the Howick Highlander, and after the disappointing result of yesterday I had decided to give it a bashat the last minute. We had arrived back in Maritzburg at about 17h00 and the bike had been cleaned and then my Team mate Craig Paul checked the bike over.
Racing on back to back days is never easy, but I thought it would be a good idea to test the legs out to see how they'd cope.
We arrived at the race bright and early as I still had to enter and the usual the usual top guns started making their appearance soon after. Craig Paul and Andrew Warr looked to be the firm favourites, and would definitely make racing hard. We were off at 08h30 and up the first climb Andrew upped the pace, only to be countered by Craig.... ON A DOWNHILL!!!! Luckily I saw it coming and jumped on quickly. A small group of 4 formed with Craig, Andrew ,Tyrone White and myself. My legs were definitely squealing in agony from the previous days travelling and racing. On the climbs I would get dropped but some how managed to turn myself inside out on the flats to get back. But to no avail. The 3 rode off into the distance, and so the solo chase began. I time trialled for the remainder of the race, and came within 5 or so seconds of Tyrone on a few occassions, but in the final 2 or so kilometers I blew my legs off at the hips. It honestly felt like my muscle had been vapourised and replaced with jelly.
Luckily I had a big enough gap to seal 4th overall and 1st junior, as the other young guns also had the hammer down and were racing on fresh legs. Craig rode brilliantly and won it in a sprint to the line with Andrew!
The organisers of both these races did a fantastic job! Now its time to prepare for Hill2Hill. My final major race of the season.
Until then
B
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