11 Global Sun City

Time for that day of the week again, race day. This was it was something completely new to me – my first ever Olympic distance race – the 11Global at Sun City in the North West Province. I was quite nervous about the race, because it was double the distance that I normally race. It was going to be tough and to top it all … the bike leg was a time trail.

I felt good during the pre-race warm up. I had a little chat with Hendrik and Erhard before the race just to calm my nerves down. Then I was time to start. I jumped on Hendrik’s feet and stayed there till the end of the swim. The run into T1 was very long (about 500m) and it felt as if I was doing my 10km run before the bike leg even started.

Swim exit

Eventually I got to transition and off I went in hot pursuit of the leaders. When we reached the open road, Erhard took off on his time trial machine and cycled away from me and Hendrik. I stayed behind Hendrik for most of the ride. With about 11km to go I saw that I was catching Hendrik very fast. I decided to pass him since I was feeling good. The only words spoken between us was him saying “nice helmet” with a big smile on his face. I managed to make a small gap on him on the bike, and as I came into T2, I saw him coming down the hill as well.

T2

I quickly put on my Nike Lunar Racer 2 running shoes and off I went for the 10km run leg. Erhard had a 2min lead on me so his lead wasn’t in danger at all. I was in 2nd place for about 3km in the run when Hendrik caught up to me. We decided to run together since Erhard had such a big lead and the chance of catching him was slim. We ran together with Hendrik encouraging me the whole time and telling me that I am doing well for my first standard race …(thanks Hendrik!). We ran together until 9km then off he went… I tried to go with him but my legs had other ideas.

It was a nice fun and hard race and to top it all of I finished 3rd overall so I was very happy with the result.

Thanks to my coach Lindsey for being there to encourage me on my debut Olympic distance race.

Until next time.
Cheers and enjoy