Sasol Cross Off Road Triathlon Roodeplaat Dam

The 2nd leg of the Sasol Cross Off Road Series took place at Roodeplaat dam. I was feeling quite confident after the previous weeks of racing and was hoping that I can keep my early season form.

I did my usual pre race routine: register, rack and warm up. It was a very hot and sunny day – nothing compared to the 1st leg when it was pouring down the whole day.

When the gun went … it was off to race mode immediately. I followed the previous race strategy and hammer the swim, survive on the bike and hammer the run again. The plan worked with step 1 - the swim. I had a good swim and was out of the water and T1 like a rocket.

But then – just when step 2 (survival on the bike) was about to kick in, the problems started. From the start, I realised something was not well with my shoes or pedals or both. I was cycling well on the flat smooth road but when I hit the off road section, my feet where suddenly dislodging from the pedals. At first I didn’t realise what the problem was. Why aren’t my shoes staying clipped into my pedals? As I looked down I saw that I’m not using my mtb shoes. I brought a pair of old road shoes that looks very similar to my mtb shoes. This was a “rookie” error and I paid for it. Every bump on the surface resulted in my feet flying off the pedals.

I wanted to stop after the first lap on the bike and call it a day, but as I carried on I realised there was some hope – about 5km of the 10km lap was smooth gravel road so I could make up some time there if I went flat out. I decided to go for it. My plan kind of worked until about 500m from the finish of the bike length. I took a corner to fast and my front wheel slipped and down I went. I wanted to stay down for a while, but I saw the camera man close by - so I jumped up and carried on.

I saw the first athletes in the race were just heading out of T2 when I got in and then I knew it was race on again. I pushed hard during the early parts of the run to catch them. When I passed Nico at about 1km, I saw that he also came off this bike. I managed to get a small gap on him and slowly but surely it started to grow till it was about 1 min.

I was happy with the win, but realised afterwards that you should always concentrate when packing your bags for your race.

Until next time

Cheers
Rudolf