Slovenia National Sprint Championships

The past weekend was racing again; this time the Slovenian National Sprint Championships. It was quite close to where we stayed, in a little town called Kocevje.

The Slovenian coach fetched us at 11 o’clock on Saturday morning. We put the bikes on the roof of the car, which I’m not used to and just hoped that the bikes will be in one piece when we arrived at the race venue.

We cycled the route once for warm-up with the Slovenian athletes. The manager told us it was a nice flat and fast route but when we cycled before the race, I thought - okay this is not my idea of flat and fast – this was really hilly. I immediately knew this was going to be one hard race. After the cycle warm-up I followed my usual warm-up routine, but I was so relaxed and calm – I did not experience my normal pre-race nerves.

Even when we started, I was quite relaxed, but I felt very good in the swim. I had a good swim and emerged in the lead pack. The cycle was – as expected - very hard with attacks throughout the whole 20km. I could feel how the energy in my legs was draining. Our group stayed together and after a quick transition, we started the run. My legs felt like jelly for the first 500m, but after that, I started to get into a rhythm and felt comfortable. It felt like the hill was getting longer and steeper on every lap of the run. I ended in 4th position – 1st junior. I am very happy with the result.

Carla van Huyssteen from South Africa won the ladies race.

Prize giving - myself and Carla

My European trip is very enjoyable and I am happy and blessed with what I have and can experience.

Until later
Cheers

Swimming in Lake Bled

I love doing some open water training and today was my lucky day.

The few remaining triathletes at base camp went to lake Bled just 5km up the road from where we stay. We planned to go to the lake at 8 am but the weather didn’t play along. It was pouring down early in the morning and the lightning was frightening. Everybody knows lightning + triathletes in water = less competition for other athletes. Soon after the lightning stopped we decided to go for a swim.

Oggie, Rudolf, Carla, Wikus, Henri

When we arrived at the lake we were greeted by a few ducks and swans. We got into our wetsuits and saw a sleeping duck close to the edge of the water so we decided to have fun and see if we can catch it, but it was to fast for us. So then we started with the training set, which really and awesome set! The lake was crystal clear and you could see the fish swimming close to the edge of the lake.

Today’s swimming was really an amazing experience and it gave me a chance to observe the nature in the same time. I once again realised that I am very privileged and blessed to experience this training camp in the beautiful nature of Slovenia.

Living with other athletes

It’s been just over a week since we arrived in Slovenia and so far so good. My first race was AWSOME and living with fellow team members are really good.

But I have to say it is kind of… different. We are divided into groups to prepare the meals for everybody and we have to do our own laundry. I’m not really used to preparing meals, for me, well… 2 minute noodles or hotdogs is a very well planned meal and I am happy if I can prepare that. It is very different to cook for 12 people not just 1, and triathletes eat a LOT! The more food you prepare, the more they eat. They are not just good at the sport they are very good at eating as well.

Lunch time

During the day we stick to what we like to do normally at home apart from the training sessions. Some athletes read, others sleep and some of us just chill and chat. Everyone is unique and has their own way of doing things and keeping themselves busy. We all get along fine and share a lot of jokes. Everyone does his bit to help around the house to keep it clean and neat.

The person we are renting the home from is always helpful and his favourite saying is: “No problem, it’s okay”.

We train hard but also have fun doing it, this is great way of team building, and getting to know each other better. We all knew each other from events in the past, but there is no better way of really knowing a person than to live together like we do now. Super!!

The team will split during this coming weekend. Some athletes will participate in Kitzbuhel, Austria at the World Championship Series and others will participate in Geneva, Switzerland at the European Cup. Henri, Carla, Wikus and I will stay at home base because we are not participating. It will be fun staying behind at home base as we can maybe explore the countryside or just have some fun here at home.

I’m looking forward to listen to all the “war stories” when everybody gets back.

Race in TISZI

Well we are in Europe for racing and training, some of the training has been done and now it was time for some racing. The first race on the calendar was the Tiszi European Cup. We arrived in Tiszaujvaros at 2pm on Friday afternoon after a long 9 hour trip from Radojvlica, Slovenia. We stayed at the Phoenix Hotel, the official race hotel. After we unpacked, it was lunch time – food from the local Spar.

After lunch we went for a quick jog just to get the stiffness out our legs from the bus trip. I felt good in the beginning of the run but towards the end my legs started to feel very heavy, I thought to myself well okay tomorrow (race day) will be a very long and painful day. After the run, the race briefing was held, there I could catch a glimpse of my competitors. All the athletes looked very focused for the race and I was quite relaxed. They announced that the race was in a funny format but the total distance will be the same as normal junior events. The format would be: 2.5km run, 10km bike, 750m swim, 10km bike followed by 2.5 run. It was going to be a hard race, everyone would start running together and go flat taps all the way. But I had good training background so I knew if I was feeling good I can hopefully stick with them.

We wanted to go for a quick cycle late in the afternoon but a huge freak storm prevented us from that, so that didn’t help me calm my nerves. Lucky my race was only at 3pm the next day so I knew there would be time the next morning to go for a quick cycle just to test the legs and check out the route.


Getting ready before the race

 Time didn’t go by very quick on race day, because the race was only late in the afternoon. This spoiled the whole day because you can’t really do something else except focus on the race. I was in the room the whole day just relaxing and watching TV until it was time to rack my bike and do the pre-race warm-up. I was lucky my race number was 6 so I had a good spot in transition.

I went for my warm-up hoping that my legs would feel better than it had the day before. I was in luck as my legs felt fine through the whole warm-up. Finally, it was time to line up at the start and it was intense as everyone was ready to race and looked so focused. The horn went off and we started off at a blistering pace on the first run. My thoughts from yesterday came back to me about this being a long and hard race. After about 1km, a group of about 6 athletes including myself made a break from the rest of the field and when I realised that, I knew that this will be a good race. We entered into transition with only a few seconds ahead of the rest of the field. Sadly the group didn’t want to work together on the bike and the main field caught us just before transition.

The swim leg was next and I was feeling a bit anxious about it because we were all together and I didn’t know the other athletes swim speed. During the swim and we exchanged a few kicks and punches, but it went by pretty fast. When I got out the water I was in the top 6 position. We were all together except for Henri which had a 25sec gap on us. In the front pack were 6 athletes chasing Henri and we caught him on the bike leg just after the turn around point. Suddenly everybody stopped working. It was a huge task to get them to work a bit to stay ahead of the main pack. I knew then that the race would come down to the last run.

I felt pretty good coming of the bike, but the Hungarians were flying out of transition and at some stage I thought well 4th place is good, but it sucks coming 4th. So I decided to dig deep and hope to catch at least 1 guy. Then at 500m into the second run the overall winner caught me, I was in 5th place but slowly creeping my way back to the Hungarian currently in 4th. When I reached him a gave a big surge to pass him, hoping to demoralize him and not wanting him to follow me for a sprint finish. My plan worked kind of - as I passed him and he looked tired but he crawled his way back to me with 300m to go. The crowd was going mad cheering the local guy on to beat me. I dug really deep and just held on to beat him. I was in 4th place, I was happy about that in my first race of the tour. This race was really hard, but I still enjoyed it a lot.

At the prize giving ceremony, we heard that one guy was disqualified so I got 3rd position. This was AWESOME. I couldn’t believe that in the first race I was on the podium. So after this start I hope that the rest of the tour will be as successful as the first race.


On the podium (4th from right)

 Thank you to all my sponsors and everybody who believes in me.

Going on a trip

We are leaving tomorrow – 2 August, for a training camp in Slovenia and then to participate in World Championships during September in Hungary. I’m very excited and can’t wait spending the time with my friends and training partners.

It will be a total new experience to go on a training camp overseas for this period. During 2009 a few juniors went on a camp for 2 weeks to Hungary. It was a lot of fun and a bit weird learning how to communicate with foreign people when you can’t speak their language. At the end we managed to find a way to communicate with them successfully.

I hope that this camp will give me the opportunity to make new friends and enable me to become an improved and complete athlete.

Thanks very much to TSA and all the team managers in particular making this trip happen. Thanks to my other sponsors, TUKS, CycleOps, TYR and Whasp and last but not least - my parents for always supporting and always being there when I need them. I will make you proud!!

Will be back in 6 weeks in SA, but I will keep you updated on my status and what’s happening in Europe.