Finally, it was time to give account of all the hard work that I did this year - at Beijing World Championships. I was feeling very good in training the week before we left for Beijing. We departed on Saturday night and arrived at Beijing late at night. Normally, the bus trip to the hotel is an hour, but our bus driver decided to take us on a tour of China instead. When we got to the hotel we booked in and went to bed immediately.
We slept for about 5 hours then we headed to breakfast. All of us didn’t feel good and looked like zombies walking around; the jet lag caught up to us and it was going to be a mission to stay awake the whole of the day. We did some easy training just to wake up the body. We survived the day without sleeping and headed to Pizza Hut for dinner. It was like playing Pictionary to order food and hoped that what you ordered is what you really wanted. That night, I slept like a baby and was feeling very good the next day. We did some training and a bit of sightseeing at the race venue, it was truly something amazing - to think I was going to race at an Olympic course - it gave me goose bumps.
The rest of the week flew past and before I knew it, it was race day. We started only at midday so I could sleep in the morning and there was no rush to get ready. I woke up at 9 am and had breakfast, after that checked if my bike was ready to rock and roll.
At 11am Theo and I headed down to the race venue to rack our bikes and to warm up. I could feel the adrenalin pumping when I did my warm up - it was an amazing feeling that I had. I only started to become nervous during the athlete introduction and line up. When the announcer called my name I knew it was race time. I selected a good place on the pontoon and was ready…….
When the hooter went, it was chaos, 70 athletes swimming side by side to the first buoy. It was only one lap swimming so you just had to stay in the pack. Around the first buoy it was like a boxing match, arms and legs flying everywhere with athletes wanting to go forward no matter what. After the turn it calmed down and we settled in. With about 300m to go we swam skew and lost connection with the front pack. After the swim I could still see the front pack 10sec in front and raced through T2. The cycle leg consisted of 6 laps and had one big hill that would be the make or break point.
I was firmly in the 2nd pack chasing the front pack hard. Unfortunately, on the 2nd lap disaster struck, I all of a sudden started vomiting and had absolutely no energy left - half way up the hill, I almost stood still trying to go forward. I decided to stop and went to the medics just up the road. When I got there the put me in the ambulance for observation and after the race took me to the hospital for further tests. I was SO very disappointed not to finish, all the hard work that I have done was for nothing. I came all the way to China just not to finish - I was heartbroken.
For the next two days, I was “assistant manager” and helped Lindsey with the rest of the team.
In the end it was a fun experience even though I didn’t finish, but next year I’ll be back stronger than ever. Lesson learnt – always be grateful for everything you have – don’t take anything for granted. Say “THANK YOU” every day
Thank you for everyone that made this experience possible – Triathlon South Africa, my coach Lindsey, my sponsors, my parents and brother and my Heavenly Father.
Cheers
R.
