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