Just a quick post to let everyone know whats been going on over the last couple of weeks. To be honest, nothing much has happened, besides the fact that I'm training my butt off!!
After some awesome time with the family down in the Cape, as well as some great rides to end off my base, I made plans to spend some time with world class athlete, my mentor and all round nice guy, Burry Stander. Before I even got to his house, I knew the days that lay ahead were gonna hurt, really, really badly. Needless to say, day one was, in his words, "af kak."
4:50am, yes, thats the time we were up and at it to simply try and beat the suffocating heat so familiar to the South Coast. Hill repeats with the former U23 World XCO Champion was definitely a very, VERY tough task.
So, after being buried somewhere on the top ridge of Mushroom Hill, I thought my day was done... Little did I know. After a really chilled out afternoon, I decided to brave a gym session with Burry, his fiance, Cherise Taylor, and Candice Neethling. I guess all I can say about that gym session is that I was buried for a second time that day. I think it must've been quite amusing to Burry to see me shaking and shuddering at trying to do some f the exercises he was breezing through! That evening we hit up a really nice restaurant for dinner, before turning it in for an early night.
Day two was far more chilled but it still had its fair amount of thrills. A 5hour road ride along the coastal roads seemed to be easy enough. It all went off fairly smoothly, until I somehow shredded my road tyre. Not a problem, we made a plan, and used up some of our EnergyBar wrappers to act as gators to prevent the tube from being exposed. This worked really good until I clipped a road side 'Cat Eye' and flatted my tyre again, with only 10km or so to go, and so began my trek back to Burry's house. Luckily for me, Candice flatted a couple hundred meters up the road, pinched her spare tube and was too, left stranded on the road side. Plan B - Hitch Hike! We stood at the road side like two goons with our hands out, trying to catch the attention the motorists, who all seemed to be far to busy to help us out. Eventually, a farmer in a minute little hatchback picked us up. We piled our bikes into the trunk, I sat on the back seat and held the bikes for dear life, as they hung out the rear door as he sped us towards our destination! Thankfully the bikes stayed intact and were unharmed by the time we got to Burry's house. After a loooooong day out we all just hung around the pool, watched a bit of TV, had an awesome lunch (prepared by Cherise) before I packed up the car and headed back to Pietermaritzburg.
A huge thanks to Burry and Cherise for all their advice and hospitality. It really made the stay that much better!
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