Eston Illovo MTB Marathon

WOW what an action packed weekend!!! BMX Supercross World Championships and Eston all within a short drive from my house! If you missed either of these events, you missed out on one EPIC weekend!!

Well done to all the South Africans at the Supercross, you guys definitely did us all proud!!

Sunday morning saw me at my first Marathon race ever held in the Eston Mid Illovo area. The Youth and Junior age categories were given the green light to take part in the 60km race as up until now we have only been able to do the 40km and 45km races.
There was a big field of some really big names that would be contending the podium. Names like Brandon Stewart, Ben Melt Swanepoel,Marc Bassingthwaite, Renier Bellingham,Craig Paul, Andrew Mclean, Francois Theron and David George to name a few.

Straight off the start it was Brandon who made the pace heat up. We hit the KOM, which was around 2 or so km into the race. The race split up a little, but sewed back up on the descent. The bunch was now really big, taking up the entire width of the road, and went a couple of rows back!

We entered the first single track together, but as we hit the first major climb, I quickly found myself leaving the back door! I hit cruise control for a short while, and then began my chase... miraculously I managed to close down the gap to the group, and had enough time to recover before hitting the biggest climb of the day.

A small group with James reid, Brandon Stewart, Ben Melt, Marc Bassi and Andrew Warr went off the front. This left Craig Paul, Myself, Andrew Mclean, Renier Bellingham, and a few others tustling for the top 10. Craig and I managed to get away and now sat in 6th and 7th with Dave George just ahead. Andrew Mclean made the junction to us on one of the long steep sections of the climb.

We began to work really well together, and managed to keep the lead group within a minute of us. I felt really good, but it didn't last for very long... with around 10km to go, I began to cramp, for the first time ever! I tried to push through it, but couldn't hold the wheel of the two in front of me.

I backed off and tried to bring home a top 10... With 3 or so km to go, Trav Walker and Andrew Hill caught me... I latched onto them, and held on for dear life, I tried to contest the sprint but my legs seized with cramp with less than 500m to go. I brought it home in 11th overall, just 5 secs behind Trav and Andrew and finished 3rd Junior.

I'm ecstatic with my first marathon result! Well done to Ben Melt on a very classy win!

I also want to thank all the people involved in organizing the race. What a fantastic job done by all.

Now the calendar starts getting busy with the longer races since the XC season is over and I will be racing at Harburg this coming Saturday. Looking forward to it.