Forest to Falls part 1

Crystal Springs: a gold crown resort 10km from Pilgrim's Rest, up near the top of Robber's Pass. It is also the place where we managed to get timeshare accomodation for the weekend.
The reason being that tomorrow is the Forest to Falls Mtb race. I am entered to do the 70km marathon, for which I feel wholly unprepared.
Oh well. It wouldn't be the first time :-)
So maybe tomorrow I'll take it easy, with plenty of stops for photo's. Maybe the phone will last long enough to record the whole race tracklog too...

Bring It On!!!

Spur Adventure

Before...

So my mate Robin says to me about a month ago that he saw an advert for this sprint adventure race happening in Groenkloof on the 24 of April, and do I wanna do it.

Always game for some good clean fun (!) I said yes quite quickly.
Francois who was within earshot at the time also said he'd join us. So we were a team!!!
Less than a week later, Francois pulled out, citing a "forgotten previous engagement" ... uhuh...
Still a team, but the more the merrier, so I ask Duane, about a week in advance. His comeback? "I thought about it long and hard, and I'm not gonna do it. I don't wanna die..." (He's been for a run with me before)
So I called Frik. He seems keen, but says, "Jy hardloop nie vir my weg nie, hoor? Dis 'n team race" (He's also run with me before...)
Now we were a force to be reckoned with - Team RoFL is born.

Friday afternoon brings with it a sudden drop in temperature, and quite a bit of rain, which was still going strong at six the next morning. It was really hard getting out of bed, that's for sure.

The Team pitches at my place and we load up the bikes and running shoes, and we're off into the mist - with one return to fetch my cycling shoes... 

Groenies seemed rather quiet when we arrived, surprise surprise :-)

I estimated about a hundred people milling around the start area, which I thought was a brilliant turnout given the weather. After registering, we join the throng. Race briefing was a motivational speech about us all being winners for coming out in this weather.

Then we were off!

1st leg was a 2km run to spread out the field a bit. We took it nice and easy. At T1 (which was the start/ finish) we put the running shoes in the backpack, hopped on the bike and took on the mud for a 14.5km mudbath-on-bikes, with some really sweet downhills and short sharp climbs. We also had some water crossings, one of which the photographer shouted at me "I WANT SOME SPEED!!!" He was standing in the river at the time. Needless to say, I was utterly soaked and he jumped up to keep his camera dry when the bike ploughed though the river at speed. I'm waiting for that photo to appear somewhere :-)

At T2/T3, we donn the running shoes again for one of the best 4.5km runs I've ever done. Beautiful scenery and awesome terrain. There were lots of requests to take the short route back to the transition though. Fortunately, through my incredible leadership abilities, I was able to convince Team RoFL to take the high road.

Back on the bike for 2.5km, including sublime (if somewhat slippery) singeltrack to the Finish where we spashed over in 2:25 (more or less).

After...