Sprint African Cup, Cape Town

My first ITU race of the year was the Sprint African Cup in Cape Town. After my satisfying race at the Joburg City Tri,  I was feeling confident for another good race. Last year I had a very bad swim in this race and I wanted to clear that bad experience and focus only on the positives.

I did a long swim warm up to get accustomed to the icy cold sea, to avoid this being a shock to my system when I start the race. As the gun went off I sprinted and settled in with a good rhythm. The swim was done in a flash and before I knew it we were going back to the beach. I had no idea where I was in the race, but when I came into T1 I saw that I was in the top 5 and I knew then the race was on - not like last year.

 We formed a big bike bunch and caught the athletes that had a gap on the swim within 3km. It was then playing cat and mouse before we were organised again and worked well. During the last lap it was playing cat and mouse again, everyone wanted to rest a bit before the run. The transition was frantic with all the athletes trying to get out first. I started the run a bit slower than what I was supposed to. But I knew if I go out to fast I blow up so I was bit to cautious. In the end it cost me2 positions, but I still achieved my goal of top 10 in the race. This year has already been much better than last year and it only started now.

 The next race will be the fast tri in Brazil, this is going to be a new experience

Until then

Cheers

Joburg City Tri

The first race of the season was the Jhb City tri at Germiston lake. I was feeling confident, and was excited to see how I would perform with a solid base. I haven't done any real speed work so that would also be interesting to see how that would affect me.

In the swim I felt good, I was swimming with Wikus throughout the 1.5km, we set a good tempo from the start and till the end. We exited the swim together and was starting the 40km TT. I enjoy doing some TT every now and then, so was looking forward to this one. We had to do 4 x 10km laps.  The first lap was fine and we felt good, but from the 2nd lap we started to catch the back markers of the race. This made us to concentrate more as we had to side other athletes now. We managed to do it successfully an got in a good bike split. I was thinking this base is really paying off and I still felt good.

I was feeling really good on the run, but got clear instructions from my coach to take it easy - so I was just ticking over the legs and finishing the race. I felt really good. I was happy with my performance and I claimed the u/23 CGT title as well.

I have a feeling this year is going to be a good year for me.

Until later

Cheers

Rudolf