Mauritius African Cup

My last race for the year was on the beautiful island of Mauritius. After landing I could feel the high humidity. The Tamassa Hotel was magical, there were 4 swimming pools, 3 restaurants and a spa. I soon realised that focusing on the race was going to be a bit harder than usual. I relaxed in my room the most of the time before the race because it was too hot to venture outside into the sun and humidity.

On race day, the blue skies were gone and it was like a tropical storm that was going to hit us. After breakfast we waited outside for the bus to take us to the race venue, unfortunately the bus broke down so the organizers arranged an empty dump truck to get us to the venue. This was quite an experience if you ask me. Luckily it didn’t rain then – only started when we arrived at the venue.

After the start of the 2nd swim lap, I felt more tired than usual and realized that I’m in for a diffucult day. I felt good for the first 3km on the bike then I started to suffer, I got dropped from my group and cycled alone until Travis caught up with me. I have to say he dragged me through that cycle leg.

I decided to go hard from the start of the run just to see what will happen. After 2 laps I started slowing down and at the end I was at a snail’s pace. I finished 6th .

After prize giving we experienced a truly Mauritian culture show. The next morning we went snorkelling to admire the sea life of the ocean.

When I got to the airport, I soon find out that my flight was cancelled and I thought an extra night in Mauritius this is really the best way to end off the racing season. The best part was that the airline booked me into the same hotel which I stayed in during the trip, so I could surprise everyone.

And so ended my 2011 season of triathlon, it was a good year with mostly highs and a few lows, I have 2 weeks of recovery now and then bring on 2012.

Thanks to everyone who supported me during the 2011 season I hope I won’t disappoint you in 2012.

Cheers

BSG Energade Vanderbijlpark - Final

The final race of the BSG/Energade triathlon series was held in my home town, Vanderbijlpark, so I was hoping to produce a good performance for the home crowd. :) The morning of the race was very overcast and cold, and I thought it was going to be a wet race. Luckily, the weather improved and the sun began to warm things up.

During warm-up, my legs felt a bit sore from the previous two weekends’ African Cups, but I was going to give it my all. My dog and training partner, Macca joined us for the day as honorary member of Team Future Life. Thanks Mom for her “trisuit”.

The swim was a non-wetsuit. We started with a frantic pace, but somehow I ended up at the back of the pack. I then slowly worked myself to the front of the main pack, but then discovered that there was a breakaway group.

The first 2km of the cycle was uphill and brutal, my legs almost gave in but u kept with the main pack and slowly started to catch the breakaway group. After we caught them, all of us sat up and watched Richard and Erhard as they were the two main contenders for overall series honours. They also decided to watch each other. All of us entered T2 together so it all came down to a running race.

Only the first few 100m of my 5km run felt good, but then as the race went on my legs started to die slowly. In my mind I was running but my body said “no sorry - not today”. I finished 9th position.

Huge congratulations to Richard Murray and Andrea Steyn for winning the series overall.

Also big thanks to my sponsors: Future life, K-Swiss, Biogen, ASG Sportsolutions, Finis, Profile Design, Turbovite, Ftech, Cycleops, Tuks and HPC.

Thanks to my parents and brother for their continued support.

Cheers
R

Pretoria African Cup

Having done well last week I was hoping to emulate the performance at the African Cup in Pretoria. We started at 10am so the weather was a bit cooler than last week. The field was a bit bigger (18 athletes), so it would make the race more interesting and harder.

The swim start was quite hard - it felt like we were doing a 100m sprint, but luckily it started to settle down at about 400m to a manageable pace. I was following the feet of Erhard hoping to have another good swim like last week. I exited the water in 3rd place after Abrahm and Erhard.

Rudolf, Abrahm

We rushed through a fast transition and Theo managed to just latch onto our bunch. Unfortunately Theo got a puncture early. I was with Abrahm and Erhard in the front, but I just dropped at some stage, so I thought this was going to be a very long day……. Luckily, when Chris caught up to me, my legs came back and I was able to ride again. I knew we had to maintain the pace, firstly to limit the time gap to the leaders and secondly to keep a gap to the next bunch, because there was some fast runners in there.

Rudolf, Chris

We lost about 3 minutes to the leaders, but we opened the gap on the group behind us. Entering T2 my coach said I must run like I have never ran before if I want ITU points out of this race. I decided to go out hard and see for how long I can survive before I bonk on the run. After the first lap of four, I heard that I only lost 15 sec to the leaders - that gave me a huge chunk of hope.

At the end of the 2nd lap again I only lost 15 sec. I was just hoping that my legs would survive to the end of the race. On lap 3, I only lost another 10 sec and was still in 3rd position. Now I knew that I only have to maintain for the last lap. It is always a positive mind shift, if feeling good until the last lap. Then it just feels as if you were on wings…… When I realised at the finish line that I was within the time limit and as a bonus received 3rd place, I was very happy – but also very tired.

It was a really hard day out, but I’m happy with the end result. Congrats to Erhard and Abrahm for taking 1st and 2nd. Thank you to everyone that was there in support. A huge thanks to my coach, Lindsey Parry for the support on the day and otherwise and your trust in me.

Cheers
Rudolf