lessons from the 24hr race

in keeping with the theme of setting realistic goals, i set out to do at least 20 laps of the 9km course out at oak valley. i'd love to say that this target was calculated scientifically or something, but really it came about when i overheard my friend gavin (veteran of three 24hr solo world championships) telling another friend, dave (over beers) that i wouldn't do more than 20 laps. taking the beers out of it tho, i think gavin knows pretty well what the limiting factors are in solo 24hr racing, and we have raced together enough times for him to know my athletic ability pretty well too, so more than just proving him wrong, i figure it was a realistic goal :-P

leaving cape town early saturday morning with the jet lagged canadian avenger and my dad, in full race support mode, we noticed that it was gonna be a scorcher out in grabouw. luckily deon, who was racing in a social team of 7 had already arrived to secure a camping spot while we were still sleeping that morning, so we had a good spot. and then it started. the heat that is. man it was hot. when the race finally started, i was pouring a whole water bottle over myself in the start-finish-straight each lap and i was dry before the 25minute or so lap was over. the photo above shows the scenery in the late afternoon, nice 'ey? by then i had knocked out about 10 laps, narrowly avoided heatstroke, and was just getting worried about the twinges of cramp in my legs. the big climb in the first half of the lap was becoming quite an effort to get up on a singlespeed.

the twinges were short lived however. i stopped drinking energy drink just for a moment, and had a packet of chips and a sandwich, and soon it was all good again. supper came and went, the lights went on, and i finally decided to take a nap on the 17 lap mark around midnight. at this point i had been made aware of one of those limiting factors i mentioned earlier. the sore bum factor. in retrospect i think this was the major factor in gavin's estimation of my maximum lap capabilities. after around 150km of offroad riding, it just happens. not a lot u can do about it apparently. i tried showering, sleeping, and a change of lycra, and even this didnt help much. the shot above was taken at dawn and i think this just might have been my 20th lap.

in the end i pushed through to do 25 laps. the winning man did 38 laps and the winning lady did 35 laps, which was good enough for 2nd place overall! i ended up in 10th place overall out of around 80 solo competitors, and 2nd place in the (unofficial) singlespeed category. although i think there were only 3 of us riding singlespeed and solo. overall it was a good experience, i am happy to have surpassed my own expectations and those of others. i couldn't have done it without my support crew, thanks to my mom, dad, the canadian avenger and friends who helped out when my brake needed fixing, and to olympic cycles for the lights and gazebo. i'll call you all again next time. no idea when that will be ;-)