Ibis to Diptank and sickness

The Ibis to Diptank race is always raced at low river conditions thanks to the erratic rains we have. Besides the absence of McGregor/Jenkins, most of the top Dusi combinations were racing, some new combinations have popped up and surprising strengths of others have appeared. Jason and I had a great race and the heisinth block split the first three boats leaving us with third. Looks like we are going to have to portage into Inanda dam this year on day two as the hesinth is really thick.

Team Best 4 Kayak Centre are up in Pretoria this weekend at the Pretoria University’s High Performance Centre, this is exciting for the team and i am sure it will help all the paddlers in this elite team going forward. I have just got sick so I am going to be doing the testing after Dusi instead but I am sure that it will be able to help my paddling and multisport.

2011 Hansa Land Rover 50 Miler

With the course being moved to the first two days of the conventional dusi course, the paddlers were really tested.

Day 1, started at Capms drift and ending at Dusi bridge, a full gruelling day one of dusi so the perfect practicing opportunity. Len Jenkins and Shaun Rubenstein were the lead boat some fity metres ahead of us as we reached guinea fowl portage. Through confusion, we both missed the take out and shot some pretty cool rapids! Both boats took out and portaged back up the river before getting onto the correct guinea fowl portage. We got out earlier than Jenkins/Rubenstein so limiting the damage of our mistake, re-entering at the top of guinea fowl in fifth place. We finished day one nearly 8 minutes adrift to Thulani Mbanjwa/ Eric Zondi ,disappointed and tired!

Day 2 followed the normal Dusi course, we caught up to Speed/Mhlope (2^nd) near confluence. I made a few silly driving mistakes and because of our inconsistency, we had to play catch and raced alongside James /Kwanda onto the dam. Jason and I managed to get away from Kwanda/James in the final km and took 2^nd.

Mbanjwa/Zondi were out of reach for the entire reach, showing great from, ran away from the field and posted one of the fastest day 2 times which shows their improved paddling ability! Those two are looking great in the boat and I am sure they will be no surprise come dusi.

Third overall was James Speed/ Kwanda Mhlope, James is a junior, raced with a senior but just shows his strength to be able to mess around with all the seniors and beat most of them! James is racing with Murray haw and it will be exciting what they can do as a junior boat amongst the seniors!!

Team Best 4 had an excellent result with five boats in the top six, and first and second in the ladies. Jason and I paddled the new Kayak Centre Velox Xterminator, it went very well in the river and looks as if it will be a great Dusi boat.

http://www.teambest4.co.za/media1105.html

Mountain Biker gets taken out by BUCK – CRAZY Footage – Only in Africa mcsmcc

Evan van der Spuy a Team Jeep SA rider got hit by a red hartebees at Albertfalls, Crazy video, what was that buck thinking??

 

Fish Time, Lowveld Croc pics…

Off to the Hansa Fish River Canoe Marathon taking place in Cradock on 7 and 8 October. I am paddling with Pierre-Andre Rabie and we are testing out the new Kayak Centre Velox Xterminator.

I am rushing back on Sat night, 8 hour road trip, to race the Time freight Multisport Race on Sunday the 9th, also my 21 birthday!! Busy weekend of racing its going to be and certainly exciting.

Found some cool Lowveld Croc pics so thanks to Overstreet

Lowveld Croc 2011

Road works...

Full 2011 Lowveld Croc Results: LOWVELDCROC-RESULTS-24-25-SEPTMBER-2011

After a long drive up to Schomanskloof near Nelspruit, we were hosted by Paul Hay who let us stay on his farm, Carisbrooke. We had a peep at Carisbrooke rapid and got some tips from Paul, “go left when you see the big rock”, with many big rocks in the river it is hard to always remember those campfire tips!

The race is started 10 metres above a weir and paddlers are seeded and started 30 seconds apart due to the narrowness of the river. I started 30 seconds ahead of Jacques Theron, who won the previous two years. After shooting the weir I put my paddles down and waited for my tour guide Jacques to show me the way, feeling quiet privileged to have last year’s winner show me where to go! The first day is some amazing paddling with a few rapids and weirs which are tricky, not extreme just tricky. 29kms of rapids in a river 4 meters wide is the only way to describe the first day.

Day two’s start was in normal elapsed time fashion, getting set off in time intervals based on your overall time/position. Because of my choice to wait and follow Jacques I started 30 seconds adrift. I was pushing hard catching Jacques quickly until I took a sharp corner a bit wide paddling into a thorn tree, falling out and laughing at my silly mistake!! I caught Jacques just before half way where I left him, opening a 5 minute lead by the finish line.

What a crazy cool race, I would have to say that the Lowveld Croc is definitely the best river I have ever paddled on. Many tales have been spread about the size and difficulty of the river, keeping many paddlers including us, at bay. Although the river is tricky, no more tricky than any other canoe race yet more fun! A small field of 100 paddlers started, all of different skills showing the race can be enjoyed by even the fish and chips!

On the side of a great weekend, we had a little bad luck, a slashed tyre from a rock and a broken key stuck in the ignition whilst in the middle of the bush. I made a plan to use a Leatherman to start the Jeep, a sigh of relief since we were in the middle of nowhere!

Nothing a Leatherman cant Solve!

dont paddle too far below the finish!

Thanks:

Paul Hay for Hosting us on your farm.

Hi-Q Nelspruit for amazing service and help.

Team Jeep and Jeep for the Cherokee to travel up in.

Lowveld Canoe Club for the great hospitality.

See you all up there next year!

chow

Team Jeep SA road trip

trav walker doing his thing!

What I thought would be a long weekend up to JHB for a Night Race with fellow Team Jeep athletes was actually a weekend full of activities, laughs and fun!

The Team Jeep Athletes which went up were Patrick Belton, Angela Egeland, Mikaela Jonnson, Trav Walker and our “boss” Max.

Our trip was from Saturday to Tuesday but it felt like a whole week! Thanks Bronwen Blunden and Max Cluer for looking after us so well, we stayed in a great self catering bush camp in the Cradle of Humankind.

Sunday was the Salamon Trail Seminaar, a whole day listening to passionate shoe gurus left us drooling and even the mountain bikers wanted to start running! It was cool meeting Ryan Sandes, Kilian Journet and Anna Frost who we will excuse for being a Kiwi at this time of the Rugby world cup! What inspired me most about meeting these athletes is the simplicity they see in sport in terms of their motivation- they run for fun. They have a great passion for their sport and where it takes them. Sport is supposed to be fun and that’s maybe where some of us go wrong when we get all too caught up in the rush and forget about the beauty and pleasure sport offers us. The highlight of the day was a last minute dinner organized in the bush for 30 people, three courses, waiters, what a colonial experience!

Sunday was an early morning ride, a photo shoot with Zoon Cronje, followed by a hearty M&B breakfast! We went out to Monoghan Farm to mark the mtb course for the Energizer night race. It’s not that easy to set up a course, we sat there post our work scoffing down a huge chilli pasta dish grateful we are normally the athletes and not the organizers! The energizer night race/launch was great fun but it has left me eager to go up to do the race now on 15 October!

Us, athletes got to know each other a bit better and meet some of the TJSA partners; 32Gi  (Mark Wolf) and the Salamon crew. Sleep deprived from the trip, I have started trying to make up for it now but it’s not always the easiest with varsity assignments due all the time now! Cheers;)

Breede Canoe Marathon 2011

Four boats racing for two days on the breede meant no room for error. It is unfortunate that error decided the race result but hey, I race rivers and that’s what happens in the sport. We always take gambles in sport, sometimes it ends in your favour and sometimes it ends in disappointment.

Breede was a trial event for Pierre-Andre and myself before Fish to test the new Velox Xterminator and get comfortable paddling together. I drove for day 1 and Pierre-Andre drove for day two which worked a bit better for us with him in the front. For those non-paddlers, paddling in the back of a K2 is very different from the front in your duties and responsibilities.

On day 1 we had to portage a low bridge near half way which was too low to paddle under and instead of the conventional portage on the left hand bank we pushed the boat under the bridge whilst we ran over the bridge to get in on the other side. I will find the video of this and post the link here. http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=10150297086871647

Day two was decided 500 metres before the finish where two boats (Stott/Solomon & Rabie/Birkett) went left around an island whilst King/Schloms went right with Boehm/Glass. After the split, the right line was much faster leaving us to try make up as much time as possible but it was too late and we were at the finish.

I am disapointed with our result considering how well we were going on day two yet this was a race to get us in a boat together before fish which has helped us get comfortable and used to each other again on the water.

SUMMARY OF RESULTS
STAGE TWO HANSA BREEDE RIVER CANOE MARATHON
1.Lance King/Heinrich Schloms 4:11.15
2.Alasdair Glass/Edgar Boehm 4:11.16
3.Ant Stott/Graeme Solomon 4:11.35
4.Pierre-Andre Rabie/Andy Birkett 4:11.37
5.Steve Farrell/Nick Burden 4:23.21
6.Stu McLaren/Lance Kime 4:23.23
7.Trentle Lamble/Andrew Birkett 4:27.21
8.Diaan du Toit/Hennie du Plooy 4:33.04
9.Scott Johnson/Stuart Laing 4:33.30
10.Tom Schilperoort/Samantha Murray 4:33.31 (1st MD)

WOMEN
1.Abby Adie/Alex Adie 4:50.07
2.Kirsten Flanagan/Jodi Cleworth 4:52.19
3.Kim Burgman/Angie Gafney
4.Robyn Henderson/Jean Wilson
5.Kerry Louw/Kirsten Wessels

MIXED DOUBLES
1.Tom Schilperoort/Samantha Murray 4:33.31
2.Simon van Gysen/Amy Hare 4:33.31
3.Ian Trautmann/Natascha Bracale 4:44.23
4.Chris de Waal/Lisa Scott 4:45.28
5.Louw van Riet/Kirsten Penderis 4:53.37

JUNIORS
1.Craig Flanagan/Dominic Notten 2:27.21
2.Luke Stowman/Divino Pietersen 2:33.20
3.Michael Farringer/Daniel Louis Buys U16 2:35.08
4.Kenny Rice/Nicholas Notten U16 2:36.34
5.Danie Botes/Michael Pretorius 2:40.21

Check the Gameplan Media race report: http://www.gameplanmedia.co.za/breede/breede1109.html

Bryton Cardio 30 Review

This GPS sports watch is the smallest on the market and that’s the first advantage of this unit, many people find other large bulky units irritating for running so. I played around with the Cardio 30, took it for a run or two before using it in a race. It was very easy to learn how to use the unit, with a very simple and uncomplicated interface.

What is probably the best thing about the Bryton Cardio 30 is it provides you with all the essentials to be a great training companion. Training sessions are easy to set up on the unit with intervals, time/dst sessions and also the various zone/target sessions.

The watch is comfortable on ones wrist, buttons are easy to push and I was able to read the numbers on the screen running at 3:20 a km so the screen is of perfect clarity!

What is nice is you can use any Ant+ device with the unit- cadence, HR and others. The watch uses GPS technology and not a foot pod so it is more accurate (you can use a foot pod with it if you want). The watch does have a function to measure strides and basically act as an indoor trainer but since my training is outside, I didn’t worry about this function.

What I found really cool is you can turn the watch off which is handy if you are travelling long distances to a race, the watch can also have its GPS turned off so one can use the unit as a wrist watch which will last an impressive 41 days! With the GPS turned on, the unit lasts 10 hours whilst training.

I used the unit for the Time Freight multisport #1 which involves a 5km run, 20km mtb and 5km paddle. I think this unit was great for during the race for a few reasons; I like the size of the unit on my wrist, it is the size of a normal wristwatch except it is a heck load better! The screen was not too small, I could always read my speed or distance figures.

So the Bryton Cardio 30 is perfect for any active person wanting to closely monitor their training and racing in any discipline. I think there is a 50metre waterproof guarantee on this watch so it can be used for water sports as well.

http://www.brytongps.com

http://www.iplaygps.com/

 

Expensive Racing- Broken foot

The first race of the Time Freight Multisport Series recently kicked off at Albert Falls.

As an athlete, all the time when you train and race you try convince yourself that you are not that sore and you can endure a bit more pain. As I was warming up before the race, my foot was sore but I convinced myself it was hardly sore- it was actually a stress fracture but I was still FINE!! The first run was led by JP ten Napel who is really flying at the moment so we all had to try stay in sight of him! I felt strong on the hills and managed to move into 3^rd just before the end of the 5km run as my foot pain went from my 2/10 to like a 6/10 which was still managable. I walked/hobbled into transition and I thought that as long as I could get on my bike then the pain would be gone and I could try catch up the places I lost from my hobbling.

The bike went well and I managed to catch back up to where I was before I hurt my foot- 3^rd overall and first in the multisport section. I jumped on to the water feeling comfortable and relaxed as I saw I had a nice lead over second place. The race was great for me, I felt I still have some training to do but there is (was) time! I went for x-rays the day after because my looked as if someone had pumped it up. Third Metatarsal fractured/broken which is the same thing. 6 Weeks off is the order but I think three weeks until I will be paddling and riding, running will be six weeks. No hiking this holiday which has left me slightly sad as we had huge holiday plans!

It has been a reeeeeeealy long time since my last blog- sorry, I blame it on moving house to Howick.

Sani2C 2011

Why have I waited so long to do Sani2C? The experience and value for money leaves lessons to be learnt for so many races. The entry is fairly steep but you don’t feel ripped off because of the fact that the organisers and helpers run around to make sure you are happy!
Hilton Frost and I had a great race, we started day one in B batch and finished the day in 28th overall. Day two we finished 18th but unfortunately my derailer broke mid-way on day 3 so we lost 45minutes and dropped to 45th overall.
The highlight of our race way day 2, 100km of arguably the best mountain biking our country has to offer. The first 40km was a decent into the Umko Valley going down the famous “Nicks Pass”, from there to the finish was a gradual climb with a few granny gear teasers! We were climbing well and caught up to 11th place with about 40 minutes to go but I guess all that pushing forced us to crack and we slipped into 18th on the stage. The slowest riders came in 9 hours on day 2, they were greeted by cheers of respect all round and sympathy for how tired they must have been!
Thanks Farmer Glen for Organising such an amazing race.
Thanks to Con from Coffeeberry Cafe for helping us get onto the start line.