The start of a new adventure

The time had come to take on a new challenge. After three years of riding the half marathons we now needed to man up. We had the equipment, put in the time and had a good base to work from. The next logical step was to take on the MTB Marathons.

We knew that the Lion Man would be our last half marathon and that before we could start doing the longer races we needed to adjust the way we trained by upping our mileage significantly. Where we used to ride 30kms on our training rides, we needed to push this to at least 70kms. The weekend after Lion Man Ernst and I decided to kick things into gear with our first long outride. We did a 70km loop by heading south with Garsfontein Road to the t-junction and turning back via the Boschkop Road. We weren’t used to longer distances and therefore needed to see how our bodies will react to the increased mileage.  Well, the first 60kms were easy but the last 10kms hurt like hell. We battled on home but learned some valuable lessons.

We kept on keeping on as we really enjoyed the extended time in the saddle. The half marathons were 2 hours stints of flat out racing, but the whole dynamic changed when we took on the marathons. We needed to learn how to pace ourselves, we had to focus on eating well before the ride and remembering to eat and drink regularly throughout the ride and now our heart rate monitors actually became more than just a nice to have. The transition was awesome and cycling became that much more enjoyable. Our two hour racing stints had now turned into morning long adventures.

A rest stop on one of our adventures. Pretoria CBD in the background.

Our first 70km Marathon race was on 16 June 2011 at Babbas Lodge. Ernst, myself and the newest member of the team, Kalla, we’re ready to roll. I’ve written about Babbas in a previous post and mentioned that it’s a flat race. The 70km marathon consists of two laps of the 35km half marathon that we had done many times before. As this was our first 70km marathon our goal was to finish under 4 hours. A very doable target for this fast and flowing race. We started well as our plan was to keep our heart rates low and our speed as consistent as possible. The start was remarkably different than the 35km start. We were used to a massively fast start where everyone battles to get to the front of the bunch in the first 2km tar section. As the tar section is at a bit of an incline I was used to burning legs by the time I hit the reserve. On this day, this was not the case, as we were part of a far more relaxed start. Our focus during the beginning of the race would be to conserve as much energy as possible while the field sorted itself out. We sustained a good average speed of more than 20km/h for the first lap and made the turn for our second lap with 1:40 on the clock. When we made the turn I knew that a good time was on the cards. We kept it consistent throughout the second lap. Kalla started feeling the effects of missing out on a couple of weeks of riding but valiantly pushed on. We finished with a time of 3:29 which was way faster than we had bargained for, and we could’ve gone faster. I was really pleased with our first marathon. As this was a long weekend, a day later we did another 60kms from Kalla’s house to Groenkloof Nature Reserve and back, leaving our tally for the weekend on 130kms. All of this in preparation for our first main goal; The Nissan Trailseeker Hazeldean Marathon the following weekend.

Kalla and Ernst at the start of lap 2

The Nissan Trailseeker MTB series is what has kept us going through winter for the last three years. This series has races all over Gauteng and the trails have been sublime in the past. The first race has always been the Hazeldean race that starts at the Tygervalley College less than 10kms from our house. This is also a flat and fast course but with much more singletrack than Babbas. Every year I am blown away by the riverside singletrack in this race, all of this right on our doorstep. We again rode a good race and kept the pace consistent throughout. We were well on our way to a sub-4 hour finish as we had 55 minutes to complete the last 16kms. But then disaster struck! Kalla started cramping badly. We made a decision when we started doing the longer races to ride together. “Some days you are the hammer, but some days you are the nail”. Pulling each other through when we’re having bad days is part and parcel of the challenge. We finished with a time of 4:24, which was still respectable, especially considering the circumstances and the freezing weather.

Ernst turning in towards the finishing line

Up to now the races we’ve done all had more or less 700 meters of ascending in total; therefore, being classified as flat. To put it in perspective; the stages from the Cape Epic has more than 2000 meters of climbing over an average stage of about 100km. Even though we’re not anticipating to do the Cape Epic anytime soon, that’s still experience that we need to gain as the intensity levels of the real climbing races are completely different to what we are used to where the emphasis will shift from consistency to recovery. We’re expecting a taste of some mountain side suffering on the 23^rd of July when the Nissan Trailseeker series heads to Teak Place for some more singletrack fun. But first, were doing our first race of the recently established Vori-berg series on Saturday, 9 July. A 60km marathon at the foot of the mighty Magaliesberg just outside of Pretoria. A new day, a new challenge, can’t wait!

Hou by die Blou,

DnA