Training Log Archive: Stijn

Last bit of the hike to get to the dam after our sleep. Surprised to find out that we had passed Keyhealth during the night and nobody else had caught up, leaving us in 5th again. Really thought we had dropped a few places with the nav errors and sleep - that's how it goes with AR!

Swimming with my shoes on was a bad idea. And yes, I suck at swimming.

Still nobody else in sight while we transitioned to boats.

Ugh! Did I mention we hadn't done any paddle training? ;) Flat water slog for an out-and-back CP. Got to see Olympus (3h ahead) and Accucheck (2.5h ahead) on their return paddles.

Keyhealth, Park Rangers and Never Stop Performing Sports had just finished their swim when we finished the paddle, giving us a 3h+ buffer for 5th place.

Another fairly chilled transition - no pressure with the gaps this big.

Paddling the bikes back across the dam.

I sat on shore while Oli took paddled the boats back and and got to swim the dam again. The tall poppy effect :)

Good bike leg following some single track over the saddle for CP16, then canal paths and finally a tough, mostly uphill 26km on the All Out Adventures single track again. Enjoyed the final Trilby track contouring along the little Berg before dropping down to the finish at Mont-aux-Sources Hotel, in 5th overall. Also sat out the lightning for 5 mins about 2km from the finish after having 3 close strikes in quick succession.

Really enjoyed the race - we had some pretty good momentum throughout. Probably would have hurt a lot more trying to make up the 2h gap to Accucheck and Olympus and race with them a bit.

Total transition time - 2h48m
Sleep - 1h14m

Raced with Oli as Team Charnas. 5th overall.

Here are the Movescount links. For a good laugh, check out our "Kringe in n Bos" at about the 110km mark on the first link! I really should have used my compass in that forest at night... I was convinced we were moving roughly East to West the whole time :)

http://www.movescount.com/moves/move56020533
http://www.movescount.com/moves/move56020302

The first leg was a hike/run up Surprise Ridge and through the Cavern Gap via a nice steep scramble. Great views from the ridge and then down to the Cavern via Sugarloaf Gap.

We spent most of the uphill part of this leg with Accucheck, about 5-10 mins behind the front of the race (Cyanosis, Jabberwock & Olympus). Accucheck got a gap just before the cave and we settled into a more comfortable pace from there. I probably pushed a bit hard up the steep climb and paid for it in the heat on the bike later.

Arrived to an empty transition in 5th place.

Quick transition to the bikes after downing a much sought-after Coke!

Single track all the way down to All Out Adventures, with 3 CPs along the way. This wasn't a great leg for us with a number of small route choice errors, Oli's brake bolt falling off, my left crank falling off (again) and the heat getting to us a bit on the short steep climbs up to transition. Reached transition just ahead of Keyhealth and Mokkenfalles who had closed the gap due to our issues.

Slow transition as we were both quite broken now. Took some time to recover and get some chow. Keyhealth left about 10 mins before us, but we got out before Mokkenfalles, now in 6th.

Wasn't sure about the tar road being out of bounds or not (should have checked the route book), so took the less optimal option of following the bike tracks all the way to the Lone Tree CP. Oli was feeling strong again but I was still a bit nauseous from the heat. The short refreshing swim to cross the river sorted me out and we were running again after Lone Tree to open up the gap to Mokkenfalles before transition.

Quick transition to boats.

Really enjoyed the first half on the rapids. No swims, but had to drag the boat loose from a rock just before the end. Slog on the dam to transition - feeling the lack of paddling training!

Decent transition. Mokkenfalles arrived while we were there but were talking about pulling out because of the imminent storm. We left them to their discussions ;)

Happy with the easy riding along the canal as we could still do most of this ride in the daylight. Oli's brakes were dragging a bit so we didn't push the pace, but kept the momentum rolling for a pretty decent leg time anyway. It got dark with about 10km to go and we found Keyhealth still in transition when we arrived.

Took our time in transition to plot maps and get a decent meal before the long night hike. Mokkenfalles arrived while we were eating and again there was talk of pulling out due to lightning. Keyhealth got out on the hike about 20 mins before us. We were still in 6th at this point.

We picked the more eastern route (same as Jabberwock and Accucheck). After the initial road section, it was fairly slow-going to ensure we were linking up the right cattle tracks to get over the saddle. A large forest helped me get proper map contact again, but we did spend about 20mins "exploring" this forest rather thoroughly before popping out on the other side ;)

After going through the saddle, we found some good cattle tracks taking us around to the village with CP13 in it. I was struggling to figure out exactly when to drop into the CP, but mostly by luck ended up on a path which followed the river directly into the CP. After some more road slogging, we took the tiger line to CP14 and then then I botched the line on the descent - was hoping to follow the ridge down to the saddle just north of CP16, but drifted off the ridge to the south and only realised my error when we hit the river running into CP16. Found Jabberwock here, who were still ticking along nicely.

My planned route through the village to the dam did not work out as the roads had changed, leaving me increasingly confused about where we actually were. Oli called for a cat nap at 5am, so we took 1h on the side of the road in the middle of the village. A bit frustrating to sleep so close to transition but it actually worked pretty well as daylight allowed me to relocate and we got to do the swim first thing in the morning, rather than sleeping in transition.