DEW POINT ADVENTURES

Agony and Ecstacy at Expedition Africa 500km AR- May 2011

2011-05-23T01:46:00.000-07:00

We were super excited for Expedition Africa this year, Kelly and I were doing our second 500km expedition AR after completing Bull in 2008 and it would be the first 500km for Kev and Mark. Kelly (who is South African but plies her trade in Aus) flew out for the race and spent a couple of days with us in Joburg getting all her gear together. We split the driving duties and Mark and Kel set off on Friday 6th May for the big drive to Hermanus (staying over in Beaufort West) with a fully loaded car. Kev and I flew down on Saturday and my Dad kindly picked us up from the airport before we popped in at my folk’s house in Botriver for a quick visit. When I was visiting my folks there in December I ran every day on the Van Der Stel pass and later in the race was quite chuffed when I saw that we’d be heading through Botriver- but I am getting way ahead of myself!!! We all met up at the Onrus River Caravan Park on Saturday afternoon and the excitement at seeing all the banners, the race packs, the tents etc… was palpable. Having done most of Heidi and Stephan’s races, including the 250km Double Moon in March we knew we were in for a treat of superb organization, fantastic route and efficiency not easily matched. Saturday evening was spent enjoying pizza and pasta at a local Hermanus restaurant before heading back to Onrus for the team introductions and race briefing. We were encouraged by the number of novices to this distance and to AR in general as each team shared a bit about their race expectations.

We were up bright and early on Sunday morning for kit check (with my Dad!!) and then Mark and I spent Sunday morning ensuring we had the maps marked and ready while Kev and Kel assembled our HUGE bike boxes for us with metres and metres of duct tape and packaging tape. It was so cool to have such big bike boxes which only involved removing the front wheel to get our bikes in (even mine with the map board on!!) We then spent time going through the race booklet and sorting out all our food into Gear box A & B. We were excited about how the route looked for the first 250km and the only unknown was what paddling we would be doing as this would be weather dependent and only finally decided on Monday morning. By 4pm on Sunday all race related boxes had to be in, so thereafter we had lots of time to sort out race packs, have a good meal and a great sleep. We also chatted about our expectations for the race with the main focus being on enjoyment and completing the route.

Monday morning we listened to gospel music in the taxi that ferried us to the Old Harbour in Hermanus and although it was pretty chilly we were rearing to go. The sea paddle had been cancelled due to big swells so our first leg would be the 14km orienteering type leg around Hermanus and the surrounding mountains before heading to Grotto Beach and the lagoon paddle towards Stanford. Something in Kel’s system resulted in stomach problems in the 3 dams area of the hike and she was reduced to crawling up the side of the mountain in pain. Not a great start, but we made the first of many visits into the first aid kit and tried to find something to help the cramps and pain. This slowed us a bit, but with many days of racing ahead we took our time so she could recover a bit as we headed back down into Hermanus and the paddle. The paddle was largely a great leg despite the waves crashing over Kev and Mark in the front of the boats. Mark hit the channel spot on and soon we were cruising up the river to Stanford. We managed to pass Lickety Split and Green Warriors on the paddle and Kel had recovered quite a lot so we set off on foot rather optimistically through the village of Stanford.

The next leg was about 14kms on dirt roads before hitting the beach at Sopiesklip for another 20km or so to Gansbaai. It was on this bit that we realised Mark was suffering big time with his feet already. He was wearing a pair of shoes that he forgot had hurt his feet the last time he wore them and already big blisters were forming. After Sopiesklip we hit the beach and took his pack to relieve some of the weight off his feet but by the end of this section the damage was done. It got dark while on this hike, the stars were beautiful and it was one of my favourite parts of the race. After overshooting the next point a bit we turned back for it before checking in at the church hall in Gansbaai.

Already about 2.5 hours behind our “predicted” time we sorted out our gear and caught 45mins nap before heading off into the night on the 140km mountain bike leg. Here we rode with Kubusi for a bit and saw Stephan driving somewhere along the road before sunrise. Even on the bike Mark’s feet were taking strain with the blisters across the balls of his feet getting bigger and bigger. The navigation went smoothly and we were treated to a stunning sunrise as we made our way steadily, filling up with water in the Agulhas National Park, 70km into the ride. The Park Manager was very intrigued about what we were doing and warned us against the Perlemoen poachers along the coast. He mentioned that he had seen a few headtorches the night before moving through the park and thought they were poachers, not knowing that teams were passing through on their bikes. Then came the next problem- as we tried to leave Mark realised that the front shock on his bike had blown. We didn’t have a shock pump with us so ended up wrapping duct tape around each fork to give him some room for his wheel to turn. This actually worked very well but was obviously uncomfortable and far from ideal for Mark as our pace slowed a bit more.

We continued on our way, saw some cars being searched by the police, past the Qouin Point lighthouse where there were some hallucinations about chicken pies!! We pushed our bikes through the soft sand, watched a seal play in the waves and popped out at Die Dam, which I thought was a very odd, deserted place. Anyway, we had a quick snack and powernap before setting off again being watched by a police helicopter overhead. The next stretch on the bike took us through farmlands, a little place called Elim and my nav error around a farm called “Kersgat”, which cost us about half an hour I think. It got dark again and we saw Pure Adventures on the road setting off on their hike as we approached the farm. We cruised into the farm after 19 hours on the bikes, meeting the friendly farmer along the way who told us how he’d changed the road on his farm and that’s why it didn’t match what was on the map!

In the transition Mark drained his HUGE blisters straight away so they’d have some time to dry out a bit while we re-packed and had a sleep. It rained while we were in transition but luckily by the time we woke up it had stopped. I strapped Mark’s feet and wondered how he was going to handle the pain of the next monster 47km hike. Luckily his Salomon S-labs were in this crate, but unfortunately his feet were already bad. The first section of the hike up to the ridge was slow going through the thick fynbos and luckily we had heeded the warning to wear full leg coverings. Mark’s line was spot on and we clipped the CP as the sun rose- what a sight- WOW!! Past the radio tower we headed down the sandy road and followed a jeep track into the mountains. The topic of going via the little town of Napier came up briefly but we decided to stick to the route across and head for the game fence. This was not the best option and we took hours to negotiate the route, blisters now affecting Kev as well and I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw how steep the game fence line was even although we were following a highway of footprints along the fence. We fought our way to the bottom of the valley, refilled with water and then climbed our way up the other side, not up the fence line but a bit right of the fence line up to a ridge of rocks where we were treated to 2 Black (Verreaux’s) Eagles gliding in the thermals. From here we had a good view of Napier, the route around on the road and where we would be heading next and we could see the road we would be taking to the next CP. We clipped the CP on the fence corner and set off for the road. After making our way up the steep jeep track we clipped the CP at the beacon as the sun set on Wednesday.

The next section of the hike is a bit blurry, it was dark, cold, misty, and windy and Mark was taking serious strain. We shared carrying his pack to try help get weight off his feet again and he did so well to hang in there and his navigation was flawless. Kev, Kel and I took regular powernaps as we fought the sleep monster for hours and knew our friends and family would be concerned with us being out on this leg for so long. Eventually after 26 hours we crawled into Beloftebos and the halfway camp with its compulsory 5 hour stop- and wolfed down warm pasta and malva pudding…YUM!! We knew only Green Warriors were out there behind us as Lickety Split had gone for the Napier route choice and passed us. George and Joan were great marshals as usual and we quickly sorted out some gear and went to have a sleep in the tents that were provided.

Mark and I got up a bit earlier, me to sort out the maps for the rest of the race and Mark to try sort out his front shock issue on his bike. He managed to pump it up again and all seemed 100% much to our relief!! After a bit of faffing we finally got on our way around 11am Thursday. We were feeling a bit refreshed and knew we’d be facing some short course options along the way but were determined to give it our best shot. This all came to an end about 1km from the transition when Mark’s front shock blew again. By this stage we were basically out of duct tape and we used some duct tape and some ankle strapping plaster- this time we had also taken the shock pump with us, but it didn’t help. About another 2km’s down the road we pulled out the maps on the side of the road and had a good long look at what lay ahead and what we could realistically expect to get through considering our setbacks.

We decided that at our pace we would be forced to skip the hike and probably the paddle and effectively just do 200km + on the bikes to get to the end by Friday evening so with much disappointment we turned back to Beloftebos to go and fetch our hiking shoes so we could go and do the orienteering leg and phoned Heidi to let her know of our plan. We took a short course option via Stanford, stopping for some toasted sandwiches and then rode back to Hermanus along the lagoon we had paddled 2 days before. We turned up the Hemel and Aarde road and set off for Hamilton Russel Wine Estate, and I was so glad to see my Dad who had heard about our short coursing and had decided to come and visit and cheer us on for the last little bit. Both Mark and Kev could not face the orienteering leg with their shattered feet so Kel and I set off at the same time as Uncharted as darkness fell. This was another favourite leg, Kel and I jogged around the estate, saw a Spotted Eagle Owl and laughed at the strange statues in the gardens we passed. I made a small detour when looking for the stone church, but soon we were on our way again and we finished a couple of minutes behind Uncharted who then set off for the finish line.

We decided to give Uncharted some time on the “finish couch/ camp chairs” and took our time changing and putting on warm gear for the last stretch. The marshals had a great fire going which kept us warm. My Dad left for the finish and by the time we would reach Onrus he would have a fantastic braai going with huge steaks nearly ready. We blitzed the last bit to keep warm and rode across the finish line after about 86 hours of racing hugely disappointed not to have completed more of the route. Merrell were there to cheer us in which I thought was great- thanks guys!! We chatted with Heidi a bit, and then we were so happy to see my brother and Pam arrive- and they had a cooler box full of beers! We sat down to juicy steaks and cold beers at midnight- what fun!! We got to bed around 2am and slept like the dead. After spending Friday sorting out dirty gear and having the prize giving we had a good nights sleep at Hortensia B&B in Hermanus before starting the trip back to Joburg, Pam and I driving and Kev and Mark flying. Kel stayed in CT to visit family and enjoy a well earned holiday.

I would like to thank Heidi and Stephan for a fantastic race. The organization and route was amazing, I’m just sorry we didn’t get to do more of it. Thank you to the Iala marshals, George and Joan van Jaarsveld and all the sponsors and helpers who drove around and ensured everything ran smoothly. Thanks to Analog Media who did the designs on our team kit- it really looked great. Thank you too to our family and friends who supported us through another expedition race, we couldn’t and wouldn’t want to do it without your support!!

Countdown to Expedition Africa 500km AR

2011-05-04T05:19:00.000-07:00

Well, after a super break at the coast over Easter during which Mark, Kev and I all enjoyed lekker runs at sea level (as opposed to our normal Gauteng training) and also had good fun paddling around in the Salt Rock area, we are left with 5 sleeps until Expedition Africa 2011 kicks off down in the Hermanus, Overberg area of the Western Cape. Our "international" team mate, Kelly, touched down safely from Aus over the weekend and now we're sorting out last minute equipment and nutrition for the race. Kel and I have been reminiscing about our last expedition race of The Bull of Africa 2008 and we can't wait to get out there and race together again. For Kev and Mark it's their first 500km, although they both have many 100km and 250km races under their belts and are rearing to go. We've had minor illness issues over the last few weeks but generally we are all 100% and are sure to get to the starting line with all 4 team mates in place.

So while we watch the weather, decide how many thermal layers to throw in and sort out snack packs and food we can't wait to be part of the first "Expedition Africa" and know that Heidi and Stephan and the whole Kinetic crew will put on an awesome event!

Safe travels everyone and see you in Onrus over the weekend:)

http://www.kineticgear.co.za/

Wartrail Wonder

2011-03-24T00:23:00.000-07:00

This past long weekend saw the Dewpoint crew (myself, Mark and Kevin, supported very kindly by Mandy Morgan) head to Lady Grey in the Eastern Cape for the annual GARMIN Wartrail event so ably organised by Adrian Saffy and the superb team from Pure Adventures (http://www.pureadventures.co.za/). I was last here in 2007 for the winter running of the event where I competed as part of a ladies team and did the 135km mountain bike leg as well as the paddle which was shortened to half the distance because of the low water levels. What a contrast to this year! 2007 was freezing with falling snow, icy temperatures, drab winter colouring and a very low Orange River, this year was all about mud, rain, green, green valleys, an endless number of waterfalls and a pumping Orange River! I was particularly looking forward to the 65km mountain run/hike having not done it before and having heard so much about it from Wartrail and Skyrun runners.

We pulled into Lady Grey on Friday afternoon, got our race packs and then sorted out all our gear at the backpackers, before heading back to the country club for dinner and briefing. Adrian gave us a run-down of what to expect- the mud, possible rain storms, washed out roads and a very fast flowing river and with a record number of participants (+- 80) the excitement was palpable!! It was great to catch up with old AR friends whom I haven't seen in a while:)

4am Saturday 19 March - standing outside Mountain View Inn and rearing to go. We know we have a river crossing within the first 1km but with the amount of water up on the mountain our feet are going to be wet all day anyway so it doesn't really matter. The climb to the first CP at the radio tower looks stiff, but we're soon off in a blitz of camera flashes and cheers.

Once on the Lammergeier Trail we slotted into a group moving at a fast hiking pace- all the front guys were off at speed and we got into a nice rhythm. On the 2 hour mark we passed CP 1 and the sun was rising. These amazing vistas of massive valleys streaked with ribbons of water opened up on either side of us as we headed along the ridge to CP 2 at Olympus. It was hard to judge how hard we should be pushing ourselves and we didn't know the exact route, but we were armed with a Garmin GPS with the track on so we kept moving. Somewhere along this section we hooked up with Adrian, Laura & co and soon we were a group of about 13 moving along steadily and having the benefit of all the best sneaky routes thanks to Adrian who has done this route about 16 times over the past 7 years for Wartrail and Skyrun.

I can't remember our timings but soon CP 2-Olympus came into view and the friendly marshals in their 4x4 had brought water up the mountain for us to re-fill before we pushed on. I tied my camera onto my shoulder strap and clicked away happily- the views were just so beautiful, range after range of moutains and waterfalls in virtually every crevice- just stunning. The ground was saturated and most of the time we were walking in mud, but we were wearing our new Salomon S-Labs and our feet stayed comfy the whole way, I didn't get 1 blister or hot spot so am very chuffed with them!!

Cp 3 is Snowdon and the marshals made their way up there on quad bikes- thanks guys! We also received an easter egg in memory of Paul Mitchell and were reminded of other adventure friends we've lost along the way. We took a lekker break at a crystal clear river about 1km past Snowdon, before tackling the next section. Feeling refreshed we pushed on and were treated to the graceful display of Lammergeiers in flight. These Bearded Vultures glided around on the thermals showing off their 2.5-3m wingspan- beautiful!

Heading into the afternoon some rain showers developed in the valleys around us, but we luckily only encountered a light drizzle. It was quite surreal to watch the showers move around but not get wet. We were even treated to a few rainbows. We were greeted by very friendly marshals who had hiked up to CP 4- Avoca very early that morning and had been waiting for us to arrive all day. With most of the ridge line hugging done we all put on a warmer layer in preparation for dropping down the mountain. I wore my new Salomon EXO 3/4 tights the whole day and can highly recommend them for comfort and certainly for their compression and recovery benefits. We moved on and tackled some interesting rock scrambling and the awesome "Dragon's Back" which is a narrow rocky ridge which drops off into valleys on either side. Adrian was like a sheperd herding his flock carefully along, making sure no tired bodies took a tumble- thanks Ad:)

CP 5- Skiddaw seemed to come along very quickly and the marshals had their dogs with them on the mountain- their energy was amazing and after a quick snack they bounded along with us as we pushed on wanting to use the remaining daylight to get off the moutain. The last part of the hike is quite frustrating as once down and onto Balloch farm you still have about 7kms to go to get to the end. We took out our headtorches and due to the flooded river decided to stick to the jeep track and road all the way to the end. The group spread out a bit as tired bodies and feet took their toll and after what seemed like an age we could see the lights at Balloch cave and hear the cheering of the crowd at the finish. 16.5 hours later and we had reached the finish and quickly headed up to the cave to tuck into the delicious meal prepared by the farm owners- yum, that meal went down so well!! Thanks to Adrian and Laura for showing us the most efficient route- as a first-timer this is the ideal way to tackle the distance- now I just have to remember it next time:)

Mandy- our great second- had her own adventure during the day with the drive to Balloch and negotiating the mud and hills- thanks for helping us out Mands and for putting up our tent- it was a welcome sight for tired bodies.

6:30am Sunday 20th March- After a good meal, shower and sleep we crept out of our tent the next morning to tackle day 2, the 135km mountain bike leg to Mdlokovane Village. Having done this day before I knew what to expect but also knew that the road condition would be a bit more challenging after all the rain. That first climb after turning out of Balloch Farm got the heart rate going and legs pumping, but unfortunately Kev's chain broke right at the bottom, so after waiting for a while up the hill I rode back down to see what was happening. A few quick links later we got going as the ambulance and Adrian had caught us and we needed to make up some lost time. It was a beautful calm morning and we pushed to catch the others which we soon did as the climb up Lundean's Nek started. It wasn't as bad as I remember it being and after a quick snack and photo at the top we started the awesome 10km of downhill on the other side. Half way down there were 2 boulders across the road and I'm still not sure how the ambulance and Landies got past there!

We kept up a good pace along the border in the valley below and soon we arrived at CP 7- Telle Junction and the 50km mark. The time seemed to have flown and the marshals told us the previous group were 15-20mins ahead of us so we hit the small climb at pace and continued on our way. Unfortunately Kev started feeling nauseous a bit further on so we dropped the pace and took advantage of the spaza shop at CP 8- Majuba Nek (70km) to have an ice cold coke and a short break. Despite all the warnings of washed out roads I was pleasantly surprised and although rutted and rocky in areas the roads are still great riding roads! After a bit of confusion about distance and how far Sterkspruit was we realised the sign we'd seen earlier for Sterkspruit was out by 20kms, and after negotiating the chaos in town we made our way along the tar road to the turn off at 90km and CP 9. It was good to see Mands here- she had been waiting patiently for us for a while and Kev decided to catch a lift as he still hadn't recovered from feeling sick. Mark also joined him after having experiencing some mechanical issues with his bike and the 3 of them headed to the shoe drop at a local rural school for the Bobs For Good Foundation while I quickly re-filled my water and set off on the last 45km.

I knew the +- 25km next loop back to the tar was a slog, having experienced strong head winds last time I rode this section- well this time was no different, but just for character building this time there was a head wind, 3 rain storms and a hail storm for good measure. Luckily each shower was very quick and the hail stones small so I managed to maintain a good average and was surprised to reach CP 10- Herschel in about 1.5 hours. The marshals were keeping dry in their car but were very encouraging and reminded me that I only had about 15km's to go. I hit the turn to Mdlokovane and pushed as hard as I could. At some point I rode past the school where the shoe drop was happening but didn't see a thing as I had spotted 2 guys ahead of me and was determined to catch them:) The Garmin banners at the end were a welcome sight and on 9hrs 55 I rode through the finish, chuffed with time that I had made up on the last 45km!

The others arrived back a few minutes later and after having a quick look at the fast flowing Orange we headed back to the backpackers in Lady Grey for a good meal at Mountain View Inn and a super 8 hour sleep. Adrian let us know that only the top guys would be doing the first section of the paddle due to the high water level so we would put in at Cp 12- Fish Eagle Spa and paddle the 30 odd km to Aliwal North. This just means I'll have to come back and do Wartrail again as I have now done the 2 "halves" of the paddle but not the whole distance in 1 go!

7am Monday 21 March- After hooking up with the convoy we made our way down to the river along a road that wasn't even on the GPS, Mands had good fun later driving out of the area, playing in 4x4! The water level was so high and the plan was to put in once the first guys came past so as not to get in their way. Tweet and Clint reached us in just over 1.5 hrs and we set off behind them. I couldn't believe how fast we were moving, even when you stopped paddling the trees on the banks seemed to be flying past us- what fun!! We didn't push too hard, just consistently as we stopped paddling every now and then to have a good look around and appreciate the surroundings.

It was quite bizarre paddling with whirl pools and waves that seemed to appear out of nowhere and grabbed at your paddle. We spotted 2 Marshal Eagles and an African Harrier Hawk (Gymnogene)- just beautiful! Before we knew it (after about 2.5 hours I think) the banners and bridge came into view and we had to concentrate for a few minutes to make sure we made the take out before the weir. Adrian in true "sheperd" style was in the water with a safety rope, shivering uncontrollably and making sure there were no incidents. Thanks to all the marshals who helped out there, I know Jacques also stood in the water for 6 hours helping out- we really appreciate it!

With a great feeling of accomplishment for 3 super days of competing we arrived at the Riverside Lodge in Aliwal North and treated ourselves to a swim in the pool and a meal. After all the thanks and a good prize giving and lots of spot prizes we made the long slog back to Joburg. Thank you so much to Adrian and your whole team of marshals and Pure Adventures crew and Garmin for allowing us the priviledge to experience one of the most beautiful, untouched areas of SA!!

The main aim of taking part in Wartrail besides wanting to experience the amazing surroundings was to get good solid training in for Expedition Africa in May. I was very happy with how I felt and with 6 weeks to go, can't wait to line up on that start line to tackle the next adventure. Thanks to Mark and Kev for another adventure, it's always a pleasure racing with you both- and special thanks to Mands for helping us out we appreciate it alot!

Lobby

2011 Adventures and Ystervark AR January 2011

2011-02-09T04:00:00.000-08:00

Well, after a bit of break from AR to complete another year of studying I am very excited about getting some good races under the belt in 2011! We have entered a mixed team for Expedition Africa http://http//www.kineticgear.co.za/tabid/15885/Default.aspx in May and have a number of other events planned in the build up to this race. We have a bit of a reunion going on for Expedition Africa as I managed to twist the arms of Kevin Rodwell and Mark Goulding who I used to race with in Team Bryson Inc and Team Kreature.co.za to join Kelly and myself for what promises to be an awesome race in the Overberg region of the Western Cape. Kelly and I tackled The Bull of Africa 2008 and a number of other races together and we look forward to racing together again in May.

Two weeks ago we got the year off to a good start with the 120km Ystervark and Amazing AR in the Mweni area of the Drakensberg organised by the Tshwane AR club. Greg Goulding stood in for Kelly for this race (as she is based in Perth and will only be out later in the year) and performed extremely well in his first 100km+ AR.

The 3am start on the Saturday saw us heading off on foot down the road running next to the Mweni River before heading into the hills for a series of CP's on the 23km hike. The recent rains have produced so many beautiful waterfalls and the earth is saturated and covered in beautifully green grass! The views when the sun came up were just amazing! It was interesting to get back into the swing of things on the navigation side and although we did have difficulty finding CP2 (sometimes the altimeters are wrong) we made sure we went back to clip the point a bit later on in the hike, which added extra time to our hike but kept us official.

After 9 hours on foot we headed off on a mtb leg of around 35km. Pam was our trusty second and made sure we were packed up with good sarmies and enough fluids to beat the heat of the day. The navigation on this section was pretty straightforward and after crossing a few rivers and fighting what felt like endless uphills we clipped the CP's and made our way to the dam. It was a good leg for us and we jumped up about 3 or 4 positions in the race.

Pam took good care of us and then ushered us off onto the Mweni river (which runs into Woodstock Dam) so we could make sure we completed the 20km paddle in the daylight. After fighting some sandbanks and quicksand the rest of the paddle was flawless and we pulled back into transition just as the sun went down. I'm very glad we all have at least our flat water proficiency so we don't have to paddle the sit-on-tops!

After a quick bite to eat we headed off on our mountain bikes again for +-18km ride. After an initial climb the rest went very smoothly and we soon found ourselves back at the Mweni Cultural Centre preparing for the last hike of about 25km.

It was now close to 11pm and the first 2 teams were already back and finished, but this didn't deter us at all. A refreshing river crossing was the first obstacle and then we headed off into the mountains again. The navigation was quite tricky due to the darkness, but Mark was spot-on and we found our way and were surprised to find that someone had stolen the glotoob and punch from CP 16- no wonder we couldn't see it until we almost tripped over it! CP17 was situated alot higher on the mountain side than we were expecting and CP 18 was found due to Greg's tenacity in finding us a way around a thick forest to the trident rivers confluence!

As the sun rose we were heading for the last CP19 and we were treated to crisp morning air and a beautiful sunrise. After clipping the last CP another team popped out of nowhere (turns out they had spent a few hours sleeping) and they came storming past us to pip us to the podium. We were still very chuffed with our 4th official team position after 28 hours of racing! Thanks Kev, Mark and Greg for racing, it was awesome being out there again with you guys, especially in such a scenic area. Thanks to Pam for being the best second as always, we really appreciated the help and support!
So next up? Well, we've entered Kinetic's Double Moon AR from 10-13 March http://www.kineticgear.co.za/tabid/15884/Default.aspx followed by Wartrail the following weekend http://www.pureadventures.co.za/emore.aspx?TID=8 which will all be fantastic training for Expedition Africa.

2011 looks to be a busy and exciting racing year!

Kinetic Adventure 25 July 2010

2010-07-29T02:05:00.000-07:00

I was unable to do this race due to other committments but Lisa has posted a nice blog related to it.

http://adventurelisa.blogspot.com/2010/07/w-w-wonderful-women.html

KINETIC FULL MOON AR

2010-07-01T05:55:00.000-07:00

Well, after not updating this blog for a while here is some feedback from team mates from this past weekend's Full Moon AR superbly put on by the Kinetic crew, with the same precision that they have been running their sprint series.

We decided to enter 2 teams and all the others besides myself were novice to this longer distance which is designed as a "bridging" race from the sprints to the longer races.

FEEDBACK FROM GREG:

Dewpoint –
Lauren Goulding – experienced AR
James Holland - Novice
John Nelson - Novice

The Turbo Tortoises – All Novice
Pam Goulding,
Anthea Hoskin
Greg Goulding

When I was asked to do the race – I looked it up – and got the following info from the AR website:

26-27 June

Bronkhorstspruit

Kinetic Full Moon Adventure Race

Distance: 60-80kmDuration: 8-24hrs (overnight)Team Format: 3’s

Heidi MullerTel: 082 564-6468 http://www.kineticgear.co.za/

Excellent I thought – I will be able to handle this – a nice step up from the sprint AR format – and just long enough to give us a challenge – not much training required for this – as anyone should be able to walk 80km in 24 hrs and we were also going to be riding bicycles – in fact 24hrs sounds way too long! The last “long” AR I was involved in was as a second in the 150km – 36 hour - race around Loskop Dam area about 2 years ago. Therefore 60 -80km in 24hrs sounded just right to me. In that race – it felt like huge amounts of time was wasted as all the racers did was eat food and spend inordinate amounts of time looking at maps! What is the point – just get on with it! Little did I know!!

Paddling Leg – 14km
The race started with a 14km paddling leg. 14km does not sound like a long way – but when your boat is designed for 2 people and you put on 3 – it tends to fill up with water - as the water line tends to be above the back of the boat. Every speedboat, jetski, swimming duck, flapping fish or anything else which created a wave was cursed as the water lapped over the edge and filled up the boat. Add to this the non existent steering capability of a whole bunch of other boats – you can imagine all the chaos caused at the beginning of the leg – all the bumping, bashing, flashing paddles – what fun! We were expecting a wet and cool trip – so we sneakily put on waterproof pants (and tops for some) to ensure we stayed dry. Getting into the boat – Pam split her waterproof pants right in the crotch. The first water to spill into the seat (about 10 seconds later) ran straight into her pants! About an hour later I was only too happy to get out of the boat to do the run to control points 1 – 3. We emptied the boat out at this point. At CP 3 I was then picked up by the boat and before we departed on our return leg we emptied the boat again. Once again – navigating through the water ways – dodging other weaving boats who clearly had not managed to get the steering sorted out was a lot of fun. The trip back was fairly uneventful – with the exception of one stop about half way to empty the boat out again. Reaching the end point we emptied the boat out again and as I was sure the plugs at the bottom of the boat leaked water in too – I shoved them in as far and as hard as possible at this time – as I knew we would be on this boat another 3 times during the race and the next time would be in the middle of the night – not a very comforting thought! We all got out of our wet clothes and into our riding gear. All the paddling clothes were put into a bag on the boat for later use :)

MTB Leg – 10km
I had not brought my cycling pants – only normal tights – so I was not looking forward to any cycling leg! We ate and then set off on the MTB leg, and 100m later encountered the mother of all , abeit nicely paved, hills. Halfway up I decided I could walk faster than ride – and ended up walking the rest of the way to the top. Happily - I was not the only one pushing their bike at this stage. The ride was an easy ride with the only small obstacles being a small fence which we crossed (which was surrounded by friendly vuvuzela blowing kids from the local settlement) and a lovely swampland which we cleverly avoided and arrived at the farmhouse transition point.

Trek – 14km
I was happy to see our kit box at the transition point. We ate again, changed into our hiking gear, added warm kit into our bags as it was getting cool and headed off into the setting sun. 500m later - like complete twits - we walked straight into the swampland and got our shoes wet, when only 30 mins ago we had bypassed the swampland by riding down a path 100m to our right – maybe we were scared of the extra distance – maybe our minds were not working properly – who knows, but luckily the mud and water was not too deep and we did not all get our shoes completely covered. A short time later the full moon started to rise. It was a beautiful sight, but one which we unfortunately did not have the time to stop and watch. So we motored on at a cracking pace – and then disaster struck. Anthea – in a wheezing voice asked for us to stop. The dreaded flu lurgy had caught her – and her chest had closed up and she could not breathe properly. After a short break she decided to continue at a slower rate - so on we went – slowly up the hills. All the dust from the long grass seemed to make things worse for the breathing, so we went slowly with breaks whenever she needed to try to beat the lurgy back. The first CP on this leg was a beacon. We were absolutely certain we were heading in the right direction to the correct hilltop – when we walked into an unmarked fence! After lots of head scratching, mumbling, pointing at maps, we finally decided we were right and the fence was wrong, and on we went – straight to the hill which would have the beacon. Only it was not there – maybe the map was wrong too. Not to worry – more looking at the map, something to snack, fight back the lurgy – and on to the next hill 100m away which would definitely have CP 7 – and it did! More snacks, break, lurgy beating and off we went to find the quarry and the next CP. On the way – we decided to save the batteries and walk using the moonlight. This works well for flat surfaces, but on the rocky sides of the mountain – sometimes not a good idea. Looking back - we saw 4 other teams’ lights - looking for CP 7. We were doing well! CP 8 was easy to find on the dam next to the quarry – and we then decided to get off the rocky and dusty mountain onto a road – to try to keep the dust and effort down. We headed over the mountain and down onto the road, the grass at this point was covered by beautiful frost crystals. CP 9 was above a dam behind an informal settlement. Approaching the settlement we heard bit of noise, vuvzelas blowing and loud voices and were a bit nervous that the locals or the local scrawny looking dogs would find us a bit tempting. No worries – we snuck through the settlement, and only found the CP by using my magnificently bright headtorch! Break, snacks, put on more jerseys and fight back lurgy. On our way to CP 10 we met up with 2 guys from another team. They had managed to lose their 3rd teammate when they were walking along a gravel road – how, who knows! (We did see all 3 of them come in to the transition later). CP 10 was easy to find on a bridge – but we could now really feel the cold and gloves, tops, snacks, lurgy fight and off to the transition.

MTB - 30km
The next time we were going to see our kit box was after the next 2 stages of the race (MTB and paddle leg) in 3 to 4 hours time, so we had to make sure we had all our correct warm gear with us. We ate, changed into cycle gear, added more layers and headed off. We were travelling slowly and the last of the teams passed us. Anthea was feeling ok when we started this leg, but 4km into the cycle, she could hardly breath. Do we go back to transition or head on? She wanted to continue, so we decided to tow her. James started and did a sterling job at the start, but slowly started losing legs as it felt like we were going on a never ending uphill. He was eventually riding at 8km/h, and the rest of us began freezing as we were not doing enough work. My toes were so cold I thought I had frost bite on them. My borrowed thermal gloves helped me enormously, but the rest of the poor team members who had normal gloves had long past lost the feeling in their fingers. My headtorch was so cold on my forehead, that it was giving me a headache – so I had to reposition my torch to keep material between it and my skin. John was then chosen as the lucky person to tow, and up went the pace to around 12.5km/h for about 4km. Lauren “The machine” then took over the towing duty and sped away up the hill at 18km/h. Pam and I could hardly keep up. It was now FREEZING. I was puffing so hard and the mist from my breath was so thick in my headtorch light I could hardly see the road. I decided to take a drink from my water bladder – and the water in the tube had frozen and turned to slush. My leg muscles started aching – was it from the cold or from the effort?? Probably both. What would the temperature be like next to the dam at our next transition?? Would we be able to face getting wet???

We continued on with no navigation errors to the transition at the dam. Riding along the road next to the dam was freezing. Dotted along our route were tents and caravans – those die-hard fishermen who came to enjoy the solitude of the sport – only to have over 100 AR racers pass them by over the duration of the evening back and forth.

Paddling – 3km
Unfortunately for Anthea her race stopped here. She decided to take the motor boat back to the main transition area to get her asthma pump and to get warm.

For the rest of us, the mental challenge we were faced with here was enormous! It was probably around -3 degrees, the boats were all covered with ice and frost and we had to get changed out of our cycling gear into the paddling gear. Do we also want to bail or continue? Pam was freezing. She was shivering like a virgin bride. She needed a drink. She took her juice bottle from her cradle on the bike, and tried to take a sip – nothing. She looked at the bottle – it had juice in it – why was it not coming out. She shook the bottle – the contents had turned into ice slush. How flipping cold must it be to freeze her juice bottle and now we must get into that wet and leaky boat!!! We could not stop now; we had to continue – so we collected our frozen paddling bag off the frozen boat, and started taking out wet clothes from the earlier paddle. Pam picked up her wet paddling glove which she used earlier in the day – and tried putting it on. It was frozen stiff. No matter how much she tried bending it, it would just not unfreeze – I think she used some other gloves. I took out my waterproof pants from inside the bag, only to find them covered with a white layer of frost. My wet paddling shoes from earlier in the day had frozen too, but I managed to put them on my feet anyway – the ice exfoliating my frozen skin in the process. It was like standing in a bucket of frozen water!!! This made my feet and my toes soooo cold – it was excruciatingly painful, and I had to take the shoes off quickly before I lost them to frost bite. I decided to get out my pair of spare dry socks and do it again, and I also put my shoes next to the fire to get them to thaw out a bit before trying. This time it worked and the shoes were only mildly painful to get on. Off with numerous layers, on with the raincoat and we were ready. Besides Pam and myself – the rest of the team looked fairly comfortable and raring to go. But wait – someone had taken one of our boats as it was not here. “Maybe the useless thing has sunk” I thought. Wouldn’t have been a bad thing. Boat for team 6 was missing. No problem – maybe team 9 has taken your boat by mistake. “You can use boat 9” says the marshall, “ but you have to take all their gear which they have left on the boat too.” Not if hell froze over – and it felt that we were very close to that – would we be taking any other teams gear over on our overloaded, sinking, frozen boat. We didn’t take the gear, but took the boat.

Unbelievably, our boat did not leak. I think the plugs had frozen themselves in place and no water could leak in. We also only had Pam and myself in the boat, and we had no water leaking in over the edges (maybe all those wake creating swimming ducks were sleeping). By midway across the dam I was actually warmer than I had been in the past 3 hours and my toes and fingers were warm. I think the 10 degree water which I was splashing on my legs, hands and feet during the paddling was actually warming me up compared to the below zero air temp!!! I arrived on the other side feeling tired but warm – and remarkably dry but not looking forward to getting undressed again for the orienteering/hiking leg.

Orienteering – 7km
Oh what to do now? It was around 02h20 and the rest of the race would take us around 10 hours to complete. We would finish around 12h00 if we left now, but we needed some warm food. We heated up some chicken and rice till there was so much steam coming out of the container you could not see the food. I gingerly took a mouthful – careful not to burn my mouth – looking forward to the first warm food of the race – only to find that the food was not piping hot – but luke warm!! We ate it anyway. During this time, first team (Red Ants) came in to finish the race. 13hrs 38 minutes. We did another quick calculation – a very average AR team normally takes double the winning time to complete the race. Would we be racing for another 13hours?? Things did not look good for us.

We had changed into our hiking gear and off we set on the orienteering leg. One of the CP’s on the route was on the dam wall. It was a fairly impressive sight seeing the water pouring over the dam wall. This was where one of the next paddling legs would be ending and a 7km hike with abseiling was in store for us later. A brisk walk around the route – very well navigated by Lobs – and we were heading back to the transition. My legs were aching again – this time from efforts and not from the cold. My feet were sore as they were not used to the AR shoes (the last time I wore them was probably 5 months ago). My butt cheeks were rubbing raw from the damp clothing. My ass was sore from the ride with no cycling shorts. The longest I had ever ridden a MTB was around 35km. The longest I had ever ridden a bicycle was the 94.7km. The longest I had done continuous exercise in the past 20 years was just over 4 hours. I was trying to psych myself up for the next 50km cycle – and failing dismally.

Back at transition the team needed to decide if we were continuing. We still had to paddle back 3km across the dam, cycle 50km, hike7km and paddle 3km back. If the next cycle leg had been 30km or less, Pam and I would have continued. I knew in my aching muscles that I would not be able to complete the 50km cycle without help. If the rest of team was willing to tow, I may have continued, but as it was Pam she said she had had enough. Turbo tortoises went back into their shells, climbed into their sleeping bags and quietly passed out. As for the rest - John said he would continue and James was undecided, but wanted a rest first. They took a 1.5hr hour rest, and then the decision was made that they would not continue. Dewpoint also changed their sponsor to DNF (Did not finish).

Looking back, the race was filled with adventure, fun, agony, suffering and teamwork. It was a real experience – one which I am looking forward to repeating – with a finish time.

First time for me:
1) Any sort of AR besides a sprint race.
2) Paddling – especially 14km in those wonderful boats!
3) Riding a MTB for 40km!
4) Riding a MTB at night!
5) Paddling at night!
6) Water in my camel pack pipe freezing!
7) Putting on frozen clothes with ice on to keep warm!
8) Wearing 7 layers of clothing!
9) Racing non stop for 16hrs.

I look forward to the next one – which will be warmer – and which we will finish!!

FEEDBACK FROM JOHN:

My race.
Sat 06:00:00 AM
Wake up, eat, final food prep (add water to bottles etc) and pack car

Sat 06:30:00 AM

Drive to meeting house to pack travel cars

Sat 07:00:00 AM

Meet and pack cars and bikes into two cars to travel with

Sat 08:00:00 AM
Drive to Bronkhorspruit dam

Sat 09:30:00 AM
Setup camp area and sort out equipment

Sat 11:00 AM
Race briefing and team introductions
Get maps for first leg of race.

Sat 12:00:00 PM
Get gear sorted into transition bags and plan routes for fist set of CPs (control points)

Sat 01:00:00 PM
Race start. 14km paddle.
James front, me middle, Lobby back

Sat 01:30:00 PM
Severe discomfort in stupid paddle boat that was only designed for 2 people but has three people on it.
Not a very good paddler! zig and zag zig and zag

Sat 02:00:00 PM
I leave boat to do a 3km land section to collect 3 more CPs and meet up with team further along the dam to paddle back to T1 (transition area 1)

Sat 02:30:00 PM
New seating arrangement on our boat is much better, but more unstable (I want to kill whoever designed these boats or at least who thought they were a good idea for this race!). Some teams resort to walking along the side of the dam and not paddling.

Sat 03:00:00 PM
Transition at T1 onto our bikes.

Sat 03:30:00 PM
10km MTB leg to get to farmhouse.
Collect CPs along the way.
See some teams already going on the trek.

Sat 04:00:00 PM
Get to farmhouse.
Leave bikes and prepare for 14km trek with gear we have setup in our boxes that have been brought from T1.
Beenie, tights and thermal top

Sat 04:30:00 PM
Trekking.
Sun starts to dip and can feel the cold in the dips near the water.
Fleece top added

Sat 05:00:00 PM
Full moon is awesome

Sat 05:30:00 PM
Darkness descends as we hop some fences to look for next CP, a beacon no a hill.Can hike in the dark for the most part in the moonlight.

Sat 06:00:00 PM
See some headlights in the distance on a hill we think is the wrong one.
Too dark to see the top of far hills makes things tricky.

Sat 06:30:00 PM
Do one wrong hill and Anthea starts to have trouble breathing.
Add gloves to keep warm.

Sat 07:00:00 PM
Over some more hills to find a dam.
Entertain people with stories about pretty much nothing. ie girls at soccer matches and other nonsense

Sat 08:00:00 PM
Lobby's idea of 200m away is seriously questionable when looking for the river intersection, but since she is the best navigator I keep this to myself.
Find a team that has lost a team mate, sucks to be that guy.
Some sining may have occurred to keep entertained.

Sat 09:00:00 PM
Walking in corn fields at night reminds me of every horror film I have seen.
More fence hopping.

Sat 09:30:00 PM
Back at farmhouse to change into cycle gear again.
Add thermal long-johns and cycling pants.
Have some coffee and a roll for dinner (have been eating snacks and other stuff along the way)

Sat 10:00:00 PM
30km MTB leg.
Super cold on the bike, can't feel fingers.
Add gloves over my cycle gloves.

Sat 11:00:00 PM
Anthea sounding terrible, losing her voice.
Add the tow (a piece or rubber tube) to her bike and pull her along in turns.
My turn pulling warmed me up in no time! Almost killed me.
Lobby tows Ant so quickly we can hardly keep up :)

Sat 12:00:00 AM
Winning teams pass in other direction, they are now close to 4 hours ahead.

Sun 01:00:00 AM
At dam for a 3km paddle.
Water in bottles has started to freeze.
Can no longer feel my feet, the soles are totally white.
Anthea pulls out so she does not die.
Rain gear added for the paddle to keep me dry (if I get wet I am screwed)
The gear that was left with the boats is frozen. James has to cut his shoelaces to get his shoes on.
I paddle without shoes, figure my feet are not going to get any colder.
Another team has taken our boat! we take one of the boats of a team that has retired.

Sun 01:30:00 AM
3km paddle is again terrible, but actually warmer than on the land.
Super slow and unstable.
Cramp in my inner thighs that made me want to jump out and swim the stupid thing (those are NOT designed for 3 people!)

Sun 02:00:00 AM
At the other side get our grear box and add to gear for orienteering leg
I put on my ski pants over my other stuff.
Take off fleece and thermal, add new thermal and my down jacket.
Watch the finishers come in. 2 really tall guys and a tiny little woman (Team name - Red Ants)

Sun 02:30:00 AM
7km walk to find CPs all over.
Got a little warm even with the cold, but that was ok since I could unzip a bit to cool down.
Not much you can do if you are freezing.
Cool view of the water cascading down the damn wall at night in the moonlight.

Sun 04:30:00 AM
Back at transition.
Greg and Pam decide to stop.
James says he is too tired to be confident of not making a mistake in the next legs.
I say I will continue with Lobby.
We convince James to have an hours sleep and see how he feels.
I take off my down jacket and sleep in my sleeping bag in a mattress in the open, do not have time to wait for a tent.

Sun 06:30:00 AM
James says the wind has picked up and the dam looks very choppy.
Lobby says she is not feeling great but will carry on if we want.
I say I will carry on if we finish as a team but not worth it if James pulls out now.James checks conditions again.We retire.

80km's 16 hours
Legs not completed (we expected still another 7 to 9 hours left!)
3km paddle
50km MTB
7km trek
Abseil
2km paddle

Thanks for the race teamies and well done on your 16 hours of racing. I look forward to the next one where hopefully we'll all cross the finish line and you'll get to experience the thrill and satisfaction of completing a distance AR!

Surviving the storm...

2009-09-30T00:37:00.001-07:00

Well, what an AWESOME event! The Southern Storm was all I hoped it would be and more.

The highlight for me was running the 42km Otter trail on day 2 as I have hiked the route but not run a marathon distance before. Our weather was perfect and the atmosphere festive and alive! The day before we did a short prologue in Natures Valley to get our seeding for the start and I was happy with a mid-field placing out of the nearly 200 runners. I loved the first section of the trail which is very rocky and technical and was at the Ngubu huts (end of day 1 Otter) in about 40 mins. All went smoothly till about 18km when I slowed my pace to save energy and prevent my calves going into cramp, but after a refreshing swim through the Bloukrans river (at 30km) I felt quite good and really enjoyed the last sections of the run. It was the longest 1.5km from the beach to the end where we had to run across floating wooden palettes, but what an amazing priviledge to run The Otter and be part of this inaugural event!

After The Otter on Sunday, the Southern Storm continued with 4 more days of mtb'ing and trail running. Monday saw us being transported in the overland trucks by the super guys from Nomad (http://www.nomadtours.co.za/) from Natures Valley to Plett where we were treated to the beautiful 8km Robberg Trail run with magnificent sea views followed by 50kms of great riding through parts of the Harkerville forest, under the N2 and along a disused railway track (no track left, just a winding jeep track through lush forests) and on to the Diepwalle Forestry station. The rain set in for the night, leaving us picturing muddy trails for the following day, but the mist was eerily beautiful.

Tuesday would involve a 7km trail run called the "Elephant Walk" followed by 65km of mtb on mostly forestry roads all the way to Portland Manor outside Knysna. Unfortunately I would have an AWFUL day, waking up with nausea, getting sick a couple of times and having no energy from not being able to keep anything down. It's a terrible feeling, and one that I have not experienced to that degree before. I was at the back of the field for the day and the route itself is a blur, but due to vasbyt and very encouraging marshals from Magnetic South I made it to Portland Manor in 1 piece. Pieter, Rob, Chris, Andries- you were all super! It was the single most terrible day of racing that I can remember, made slightly better by an hour long massage and excellent dinner (which I managed to keep down!) check out http://www.portlandmanor.co.za/

Feeling very excited about not waking up nauseas I just had to let the previous day go and focus on the next 2 days of racing. Wednesday produced beaut weather and after a neutral ride of about 7kms out of Portland Manor and along the main tar road, we dropped down a winding pass and proceeded past very green dairy farms and some fun forestry riding. There were 2 tar sections where working with others definitely made the going a bit easier and we fought some sandy sections before crossing a railway bridge over the N2 and flew down to Buffalo Bay. The 60km mtb ride was followed by about 5kms of beach and dune trail running, where I just cruised along wondering how my quads would handle the longer beach run on the final day. Our campsite had the best view and after a divine dinner of grilled fish, chips and salad and another massage I fell asleep to the crashing of the waves only 10m from my tent. Throughout the event we shared a tent with another person (in my case Janine) and were assigned in groups to a particular overland truck (our truck was named "Brenda") and crew, who cooked some of our meals for us. We also had lockers in the trucks to keep all our stuff together.

The final day of racing came way too quickly and it promised to be a cracker. We started with a neutral 2km walk to the beach start and then after photo calls for the chopper set off on the 13km beach and dune run through the Goukamma Nature Reserve. This run was one of my favourites. As we climbed the dunes the early morning mist surrounded us and the fresh fynbos smells filled our noses, it was refreshing and invigorating. We had to tread carefully after being warned about Puff Adders in the area, and all too soon we were being moved in our trucks to the start of the mtb ride high above Wilderness. This "predominantly downhill" ride was still taxing on tired legs and after stopping off to run the Dune Mole Rat 6km trail run (after 35kms of mtb) we completed the last 11kms of mtb to Ebb & Flow campsite in the Wilderness National Park. The final leg was a 4,2km flat Kingfisher trail run which brought this magnificent and well-organised duathlon to an end.

Hats off to Magnetic South for organising what will become the premier duathlon event to conquer and to all the supporting and presenting sponsors- Hi-Tec, GU, Nomad, Landrover, SANparks, Cape Nature, Bitou Tourism, Tourism Knysna, Squirt, to name only a few for supporting such a fantastic event! Check out http://www.southernstorm.co.za/ for full results, profiles of each leg and news. Don't miss out on entering this event next time!

Some well deserved R&R in Wilderness and surrounds was a welcome break before heading back to Joburg...I will definitely be back!

Facing The Storm...

2009-09-16T23:45:00.000-07:00

Well the time has arrived for the inaugural Southern Storm event organised by Magnetic South and presented by Hi-Tec. This event promises to become a must-do event on the multi-sport calendar as it traverses a beautiful piece of our coastline and includes the Otter Trail run where athletes run the full Otter Trail as the second day of this 6-day staged off-road duathlon. I have full confidence in Magnetic South to produce an unforgettable week as we move down the Garden Route with a fully supported set-up including meals, tented camps, massage therapists, bike mechanics and overland trucks carrying our gear. Days 3,4,5,6 each consist of mtb and trail running legs and full details and route profile can be found on http://www.southernstorm.co.za/

Updates to follow...

Emerging out of winter...

2009-08-21T01:48:00.000-07:00

Been a while since I posted, in fact, it was cold, dark and downright gloomy in June. I know we're having a bit of a cold spell right now, but sitting on my spinning bike this morning I was elated that it was light by 6:10am instead of the 6:30/6:35am of mid winter. With the end of winter drawing near, the prospect of Spring, longer daylight hours, sunshine, warmth and getting rid of my standard winter hibernation "disprin white" skin is exciting.

Looking back on this winter season, I've actually done more training than in previous years (ok, besides last year with final prep for The Bull) and braving the cold, dark mornings, dragging myself out of bed was quite a challenge! A quick re-cap...

Regular visits to Northern Farms for nice mtb'ing
A long weekend away in the Waterberg in June which included some nice hiking and mtb'ing
Trying out the MTN bike park, nice and fun but you tend to get a bit dizzy in you're there for a while
Gauteng orienteering champs at Hennops & Protea Ridge
My first Vasbyt 23.3km run at the Voortrekker monument which I really loved because so much of it is off-road but some nasty uphills to tackle!
Another super Kinetic urban sprint with Lisa and Debbie as Team Triumph AR where we're sponsored with the latest in Triumph technology and we secured another ladies category win- good fun on a very chilli:) morning - check out http://adventurelisa.blogspot.com/2009/07/kinetic-urban-on-chilly-highveld.htm
Another long weekend away (with the dogs) to Ficksburg in August where I plotted a lekker 35km run on farm roads on google earth and enjoyed running in a new environment. Pam luckily kept me company on her mtb (as she has on a few of my "long" runs) and it was fun and distracting to have her train with me as always
Last weekend I did the Old Ed's 21km for the first time and I ran a PB which was great and an indication that the running training must be paying off- which leads me to the next big event on my calendar...

I'm doing the Southern Storm in 4 weeks time (http://www.magneticsouth.net/events/southern-storm-otter-2009/) which invloves the running of the iconic Otter Trail on Day 2, so I'm very conscious of the fact that I have to put in enough distance running training for the 42km run. I'm roughly following a 12 week marathon training programme to ensure I get the distances in and this has resulted in different long runs every weekend and has been quite fun. I hiked The Otter in 2005, and LOVED it, so I'm excited to be heading back there. To have another 5 days of traversing the Garden Route included in the package under the very capable organisation of Magnetic South will make it an unforgettable event I'm sure!

In between there are still a few more runs to get in (this weekend I'm tackling a 32km plotted on google earth in the Magalies area) and visiting old faithful Breedts Nek and surrounds for some mtb'ing on Sunday. This is made all the more worthwhile by the fresh bread, pannekoek and cheap beef fillet available in the area- yum!

So we edge closer to Spring and Summer and look forward to an UGE adventure weekend in early September, the 'O' mountain marathon and mtb orienteering to name a few events.

Happy training, and to those who are doing Southern Storm and haven't done The Otter Trail before, prepare yourselves for breathtaking views, possible sightings of dolphins, whales and otters, interesting river crossings and lots and lots and lots of ups and downs! Yeah, can't wait:)

Kinetic Sprint Urban AR #2

2009-06-01T06:20:00.001-07:00

Lisa, Debbie and I raced as Team Triumph AR again in the second Kinetic Urban Sprint AR on Sunday 24 May. I was pleased to see a greater number of teams than the first sprint and once again we had such fun racing around the streets of Rivonia and Bryanston. We managed to secure a 10th spot overall and won the ladies category- come on ladies, let's see more all-ladies teams at the next sprints! It really is excellent fun and the 4 different legs of the race allow for quick changes in discipline all topped off by an entertaining obstale course at the end.

Heidi and Stephan have very loyal sponsors and helpers which results in well-run and organised events- and there's always loads of spot prizes to go around at prize giving- thanks guys! Check out http://www.kineticgear.co.za/ for details of more sprints to follow in 2009.

Thank you to Triumph for sponsoring us, we seemed to have many requests for us to race in our "sponsored kit", luckily winter is way too cold to be running around in sports bras alone!

Swazi Xtreme 2009

2009-05-12T05:08:00.000-07:00

Team Dew Point completed the 2009 Swazi Xtreme with a good mix of detours, solid mtb'ing and lots of laughs. Kelly flew out from Aus to do this race with me and we entered the PRO event as a ladies pair. We set off on the 60 hour race pushing to get only compulsory points on the first day of racing and then to judge pace and distance for the rest of the race and decide on which optional points to pick up. An unfortunate and annoying novice navigation error added an extra 4-5 hours to our hiking time after the urban leg in the centre of Mbabane which lead to us missing a compulsory CP late on the first night- so an unofficial status followed us all the way home. Despite the error and much cursing the rest of the race flowed smoothly and we picked up some optionals along with all the remaining compulsory points.

The route (which started and finished at Mlilwane Wildlife Sanctuary) definitely favoured the mountain bikers and I enjoyed it alot, Kelly (who prefers hiking and paddling) had a few choice words about all the mtb'ing, but had alot of fun nonetheless. We both thought the kloofing leg was the best with awesome bum slides towards the end. A unanimous decision regarding the worst section of the race would be crawling under lantana and other unfriendly vegetation whilst trying to traverse the "rideable" railway tracks, but luckily we found the little jeep track which was a huge relief! Riding through the old railway tunnel was a bit surreal going from broad daylight to pitch darkness in an instant!

As a ladies pair the idea of safety did sit in the back of my mind before the race, but at no stage did we feel threatened or in danger, all locals that we came across were super friendly as usual and I wouldn't hesitate to race the same team format again.

We had super seconds Pam and Peter looking after us and catering to all our needs, thank you for all your help and support, you were fantastic!

Thanks to Darron, Anita and all your faithful helpers and marshals for another great edition of Swazi Xtreme. We look forward to the "big 10" next year and will definitely be back!

AdventureLisa: Amazing Race, amazing fun

2009-04-06T00:09:00.000-07:00

AdventureLisa: Amazing Race, amazing fun

Abu Dhabi photos in Go Multi

2009-04-01T05:29:00.000-07:00

http://teamwwwarcoza.blogspot.com/2009/03/team-wwwarcoza-in-gomulti-magazine.html

Kinetic Urban Sprint AR

2009-04-01T05:09:00.000-07:00

On Sunday 29 March I joined Lisa and Debbie in racing Kinetic's Urban sprint race for Team Triumph AR. The design was super, featuring 4 legs which could be done in any order, as long as you alternated between mtb and running legs- all through the surrounding suburbs and taking in the Braamfontein and Zandspruit. All this was topped off by conquering an inflatable obstacle course on the roof of the biokinetic centre- what fun!! I was disappointed that more teams didn't show up as so many people complain about the lack of AR races and yet here was a race right "in town" and very accesible to everyone. I can only hope more teams get to experience the great organisation and smooth running of one of the remaining 3 sprints for 2009. The fantastic support from sponsors was evident and Heidi, Stephan and the staff of the Exercise and Nutrition Centre should be proud of putting on a good, fun sprint race. Check out Lisa's blog for a bit more feedback and a photo of our ladies team http://adventurelisa.blogspot.com/2009/03/team-triumph-ar-goes-urban.html

Abu Dhabi, team changes and 2009 plans.

2009-02-12T04:02:00.000-08:00

Racing in Team http://www.ar.co.za/ for the Abu Dhabi Adventure Challenge in Dec '08 was a fantastic experience. Not only did we get the opportunity to meet and race with some of the top teams in the world, but being able to experience the professional race structure and organisation was great. The 6 days of racing were all fun and took us through the most scenic parts of Abu Dhabi. The 80km sea paddle on crystal clear waters and desert trekking with a full moon were definite highlights for me. Our team got on really well together and I must take the opportunity to thank Lisa once again for including me in the team. I can only hope that SA gets the invitation to go again and that some other lucky SA AR'ers will get the opportunity to experience international staged racing at its best.

Click on the links in the post below for full details of all the legs of the race and to read about our exploits.

So, what's in the pipeline for 2009? Many people have asked me over the past few weeks what's happening with Team Dew Point this year. Well, the team was initially put together for the sole purpose of racing as an all-ladies team for The Bull of Africa 2008 and to create awareness of and raise money for Masimanyane Women's Support Centre (http://www.masimanyane.org.za/). The R 100 000 so generously given by a variety of people and companies has been allocated for various projects and I will be providing feedback as soon as it comes my way. It was such an adventure and blessing to be involved in this project and we made good friends along the way! Thank you once again to all those who supported us.

For 2009 the team members are following their own paths- Daleen is recovering from a hip operation she had in December and Tam is living life to the full as usual in Durban. Kelly will be flying out from Australia to race Swazi Xtreme with me (very exciting!!) and after that I'm not quite sure what other events will be tackled this year.

I recently marshalled at the UGE race in the North Eastern Freestate region which I thoroughly enjoyed, but I definitely prefer racing! Having been in this area for Peet's Nguni race in 2005 I had the opportunity to spend 12 hours on the top of Majuba instead of the brief visit during the Nguni race. What a beautiful view!

So, it's quite nice to not have the pressure of training, fundraising and sponsor hunting like last year, but I'm getting itchy, so I'm sure I'll have tales of new challenges for you soon. Training for Swazi is on track after a bit of a break after Abu Dhabi and I have my eye on a couple of events. More news to follow soon!

Ciau for now:)

Lobby

Off to Abu Dhabi

2008-12-08T01:40:00.000-08:00

Lauren is off to Abu Dhabi tonight with Team http://www.ar.co.za/ to take part in the Abu Dhabi Adventure Challenge. To keep updated about happenings throughout this 6 day staged race log into any one of the following websites. Lisa will be sending regular updates to our team blog.

http://www.teamwwwarcoza.blogspot.com/

http://www.sleepmonsters.com/

http://www.checkpointzero.com/

For a breakdown of each day's activities and more info about Abu Dhabi log onto the team blog.

We will post feedback, photos and a race report when we get home.

Team www.AR.co.za happenings

2008-11-10T05:36:00.000-08:00

As part of Team http://www.ar.co.za/ for the Abu Dhabi Adventure Challenge, Lauren has been keeping busy with some events and training. With 4 weeks to go the admin is being sorted out, gear checked and ordered and preparations are going full-steam ahead. Check out the team blog for updates. http://www.teamwwwarcoza.blogspot.com/

Kelly tackling Anaconda AR

2008-10-27T06:29:00.000-07:00

Dew Point team member based in Australia, Kelly, is tackling the Anaconda Adventure Race put on by Rapid Ascent, and organised by AR great John Jacoby. The race takes place on Sunday 2 November in Geographe Bay, Western Australia and consist of the following legs:

Zoot Ocean Swim (1.8km)
Finn Kayaks Ocean Paddle (12.5km)
Keen Coastal / Trail Run (14.2km)
Rapid Ascent Mountain Bike (22km)
Macquarie Private Wealth Team Run (1.8km)

This will be Kel's second Anaconda, having raced it last year as her first AR ever! Kel's strength in the swimming and paddling legs will stand her in good stead for a solid start and set her on course for good race.

Good luck Kel:)

For more info ont his race head to http://www.rapidascent.com.au/asp/WADescription.aspx?e=6

Landrover G4 Challenge and Abu Dhabi Adventure Challenge

2008-09-01T00:09:00.000-07:00

Dew Point ladies are keeping busy...with The Bull already 2 weeks in the past, training gets back into full swing. While Kelly heads off back to Australia, Tamryn, Lauren and Daleen are off to the regional selections for the Landrover G4 Challenge in the Western/Southern Cape during the month of September http://magneticsouth.net/english/G4/G4-index.htm

Lauren has also been selected as part of the http://www.ar.co.za/ Team for the Abu Dhabi Adventure Challenge http://www.abudhabi-adventure.com/ to be held from the 12th-17th December 2008. This is a fully sponsored entry into what looks like a fantastic race in a harsh but beautiful environment. Read about the selection process in Lisa's press release http://www.ar.co.za/news/news290808.html.

BULL OF AFRICA RACE REPORT AND PHOTOS

2008-08-22T06:35:00.000-07:00

I couldn’t believe the day had actually arrived that we were in the midst of kit checks, registration, media interviews etc…at Balugha Inn. After living and breathing The Bull for the last 8 months we were 2 short days from setting off on the adventure of a life time. We really enjoyed seeing the international teams milling about and got to chat to a few of them about what they thought of SA so far.

On Thursday we did a handover of the funds we had raised for Masimanyane Women’s Support Centre. Through personal donations and 2 fund raising evenings we managed to raise R 100 000.00 which was very well received by Dr Lesley Ann Foster and a few of her colleagues. This money will be put towards setting up another satellite victim support centre which offers counselling and education to women and girls who are victims of sexual abuse, domestic violence, rape and gender discrimination. This culmination in the handing over of funds was fantastic and quite emotional after all the effort that has gone into raising these much-needed funds.

We still had the race in front of us so we needed to focus our energy and we were all very eager to just get going, so after checking and double checking our team crates and bike boxes we handed them over to the race logistics crew on Friday afternoon, this left Tam and I some time to pour over the maps for the first few legs of the race- the rest of the maps we put in “Crate B” and we hoped we hadn’t made a mistake with which maps we needed.

A very early morning bus ride to the Katberg Eco Golf Estate on Saturday morning just made the nerves churn even more. We were still concerned about Tam’s chesty cough that she’d had for the last week and we knew we would just have to take it easy on the first bit of the race. After assembling bikes and taking some final “pre-race” photos we were off. The first leg was a so-called 10km trail run which involved very thick vegetation and definitely caused most of the damage that our legs suffered on the whole race. We made quite a few errors with distance and route choice and found ourselves right at the back of the field but this was just the beginning and we knew we had many hard days of racing ahead of us. A relatively quick mtb ride took us to Seymour Dam where we crossed paths with many teams coming off the water. Here we had to paddle to various areas on the shore of the dam and then trail run to find some points- our navigation was spot on for this leg but unfortunately the arrival of darkness hampered our quick finding of points- this delayed us quite a lot and we found ourselves still bringing up the rear of the field as we climbed on our bikes for the tough ride to Hogsback. I must just say that the marshals here and all along the route were just fantastic, not sure if we got extra “looking after” coz we were an all-ladies team but somehow I think they were just generally super!

Kel came up with all sorts of stories about why the road to Hogsback was so steep and unrideable in places, something about affairs and angry spouses and retaliation in building the pass…all this was a bit blurry and soon we were feeling (or not feeling) frozen fingers as we rode down into the mysterious Hogsback and the Arminel Hotel. Quite a few teams were catching a snooze here and we decided to do the same but it was very unsuccessful as the cement floor gave us uncontrollable shivers. Eventually we got up and grabbed a bite to eat at the hotel restaurant before setting off on the mighty 70km hike to Thomas River. Here we saw Siyeza returning with Fred not looking good at all and we hoped that he would recover during the hike after all the effort he had gone through to get his team to the start line. After CP 10 and Kettlespout Falls we spent a bit of time finding the forestry roads but were soon on our way. We chose the option of cutting across the top for a more direct route and especially when we saw the entire mountain was burnt and we would therefore not have to struggle through any thick vegetation. Due to our unsuccessful sleep the night before we had a 1 hr afternoon nap before going into the night and heading for CP 11 at Cata Hut. On the way we couldn’t believe that Falke Sportswear were already running out of food so we gave them some bars and headed through the saddle just as it got dark.

The descent to Cata Hut seemed to take forever and my mind blurred with the little yellow footprints indicating the hiking trail....the flashing red light just didn’t seem to be getting any closer! Eventually we got to Cata Hut and found about 12 teams all having naps and resting before the next push. Again we tried to sleep (unsuccessfully) in the lapa area but after 1 of the teams left the chalet we got to share some bunk beds so the team managed about 2 hrs of sleep. I had still not managed any sleep, I think I was on some sort of high, I just could not get my mind to slow down. Anyway at 2:07 am Monday we left and set off towards Thomas River. The navigation was pretty straightforward and we made good progress. By first light we popped out of the forest and then unfortunately our pace slowed quite a lot. We took a while to get around to the Thomas beacon and made an error heading along the ridge from this beacon instead of the beacon on top of the mountain, but luckily we soon realized our error and crossed Kubusi Nek to climb the killer hill to the beacon. When I think back I’m not sure why we lost so much time on this section of the hike, and so after dark we were descending from the 5 fences CP into Thomas River, avoiding the aloe-strewn little cliffs in the process.

At Thomas River we assembled our bikes and ate delicious cottage pie before having 2hrs sleep in the bathroom of a house…once again I was left with racing thoughts and no sleep and before we knew it we were off on our bikes at about 3am Tuesday heading for Wriggleswade Dam. I really enjoyed this mtb leg (after what seemed like an eternity negotiating WP1 Tunnel under tar road) and we came across Katberg sleeping in a field on the way. The navigation was straightforward and we made good progress passing friendly locals on the way. The D4 production cameras kept us company around the Rangers Cottages CP and I provided some entertainment by accidentally setting off the emergency response on our Sportstrack device just before we got to the dam. A quad bike and bakkie appeared out of nowhere, frantically searching for us…..oooopppppssss! Much apologizing from me and we were soon riding along the dam shore looking with apprehension at the waves on the dam! We caught up with the Finnish all-ladies team (Haglofs) here as they finished their paddle and other teams around were Thule, Katberg, Nubi, Falke, His People, Siyeza and many more still on the water. We tried to get going quickly eager to complete the whole paddle in daylight, so very soon we were fighting the wind and waves, frantically trying to empty our boats as waves crashed over the bow.

We paddled straight to an area of shore where we left our boats and did the 6kms on a dirt road to fetch the CP. I only had half booties and socks and Kel was also in booties so it wasn’t comfortable, but we set off with Tam while Daleen caught a quick nap waiting for us to return. The return paddle was in perfect conditions and we got the second CP before heading back to the club house CP 22 just as it was starting to get dark. Our spirits were still very high and we were having a super time, I had to remind myself every now and then to really savour each moment of the race as it was what we had been planning for for so many months. We sucked pronutro and meal replacement shake out of ziplocks before heading for CP 23. No errors saw us make good time and we were welcomed by Tina who offered us “vetkoek” and coffee which we gladly accepted. We also caught a quick hour and a half nap in her guest house- this was the first time I actually managed to get some sleep, so from 2am on Saturday morning I had gone over 90 hours without sleep and it was good to finally get some rest. We followed the jeep track and WP2 to the river and before long were hauling our bikes up the side of the mountain. This was certainly character building and there were a few choice words muttered! We ran into a clump of teams (Katberg, Thule, Nubi) who had been looking for the correct path out to the road but luckily we hit it quite quickly and didn’t waste much time…our motto throughout the race was “Slow and steady wins the race” and Tam and I were very particular in double checking our route and taking our time in ensuring our route was good. Even though we would be winning no races at least we knew that our nav was pretty spot-on and our slow and steady pace would eventually get us there!

At CP24 we kept our eyes open for Buffalo but didn’t see any. The very generous ladies at the lodge fed us rolls and we knew that with the next section down to the river and up the other side being quite tricky we’d rather wait for daylight. We slept for 1 hour and then got ready after treaty coffee and rusks. Geoff Hunt cheered us along and by 7am Wednesday we were flying down the jeep track on a hand drawn map…yip, Tam and I had thrown the map whose little bottom corner we needed to get to CP 25 into “Crate B” (which was at the next CP) so we drew in the features, the river, the 708 spot height on the koppie and the tracks and hoped for the best (we did keep this info to ourselves, only showing Kel and Daleen when we got to CP 25 in what we thought was a very fast 2.5hrs). Our mood took a bit of a dip at this CP, with close on 100 hours of racing and feeling it a bit, but there were still teams around us going about their business and we eventually managed to pack up our bikes, eat a good hot meal and pack enough food and water for the next hike. My pack was at it’s heaviest at the beginning of this 45km hike and it took some adjusting to get it comfortable. We sweated up the jeep track in very humid conditions with Tam suffering from a bit of dehydration but by the time we were walking along the ridge line our moods had lifted and we went off in search of the elusive track which seemed to fall off the side of the mountain.

We didn’t want to waste any time getting down to the river so we just fell the 400m down to the river with bundu bashing, bum sliding, rock hopping and cursing the thorn bushes- we could see other teams had also fought their way down there. Down at the river we got into warm gear, had a bite to eat and headed off into what was definitely the worst leg of the race as the daylight quickly slipped away and we headed into our 5th night of the race. We named it the “pygmy lantana jungle from hell” as we crawled and fought our way through thick vegetation, being stripped of gear along the way. Daleen lost her Dry Light jacket, a hiking pole, a bottle and we’re not sure what else…we knew we were on the right route; it was just a matter of hanging in there. We didn’t swim once and the path seemed to appear out of nowhere just when I thought we had gone wrong, after what seemed like an eternity we spotted the red flashing light and George the friendly marshal welcomed us to CP 26. We all downed a meal replacement shake and moved about 200m from the CP before crashing for 2.5hrs of sleep next to the river. A bit of faffing made our start a bit slower than planned but we all seemed to be rejuvenated and walking along the Kei River in the early morning of Thursday was refreshing and we found renewed energy.

We came across the UK team Halo waking up from a sleep and together we made our way to Moodenaar’s Kop as the temperatures climbed. We had to stop for me to cool down at one of the animal water holes (my water bladder had popped the night before so I was carefully trying to ration my bottles, but luckily the water in the animal troughs allowed us to fill up). We were treated to a wonderful view and Bontebok and Impala on top of Moodenaar’s Kop where we stopped for a quick snack while deciding on a route to CP28 and the rope work. From experience the night before with supposed tracks off the side of mountains we went with the safe option of following the road all the way around to where the river in which the ropework was situated met the road. We then made our way up this river bed which seemed to last way too long, we were also running out of water and desperately staring at the cliff faces in order to spot the ropes. Eventually they came into view but still in the thick vegetation we managed to overshoot the base of the cliffs a bit which resulted in some bundu bashing and hair raising sandy bum slides to the base of the ropes. Sharing 1 bottle of water we slowly got our gear together and talked through the ropeworks. Kel and I climbed on the left with Tam and D climbing on the right over the 3-tiered 150m+ climb. The last bit was very frustrating with the completely twisted ropes, but eventually we made it up having taken some lovely photos on the way up.

Vandre (from the medical team) informed us that the cut-off time at CP 30 had been moved forward from 8am on Friday to 8pm on Thursday night- we were disappointed that we would miss this cut-off resulting in a short course but at the same time also acknowledging that our pace had been way too slow (mostly on the hiking legs) for the full course anyway. We found a water trough and all had a rehydrate before heading off to CP 29 at the Boma. We followed the roads and then decided to follow a dry river bed all the way down to the river in which the CP was situated. Although this was time consuming it paid off and we walked straight into the CP a couple of hours later. On the way we had seen quite a few team’s headtorches wondering around searching for the point, so I was even happier that we had just stuck to the river bed. The next leg to CP 30 is a bit of a blur, we had been warned not to take any short cuts because of high game fences so after not finding the road we thought we wanted to take we opted for a complete round-about route, along the railway line and around on the road. Team Katberg were with us on the railway line and opted for the route up under the powerlines, the end result- they got to CP30 about 2.5hrs before us having fought through fences and thorns on the way. CP 30 at Mpotshane Lodge was breathtaking; the view when the sun came up was amazing. We slept for an hour from 5-6am on Friday morning and then had the standard cheese burgers for breakfast. We also ordered some toasted sandwiches to take with us and after assembling our bikes we set off towards more game farms and the Transkei…I was very excited about this next section of the race and I was dying to see the sea and experience the friendly Transkei locals. The shortened course meant that we had to go straight from CP 31 to CP36 cutting out the leg up to Mazeppa Bay and the 30km coasteering leg and also not seeing our 3rd crate for new clothes and food. We made our way with no errors and not much game spotting all the way to the Kei. Our feet took some strain crossing the rocks but the cold water was refreshing and soon we were grinding our way up the valley, climbing and climbing and being greeted by lots of friendly locals going about their morning duties of collecting water and tending to their land! Being an all-ladies team drew quite a bit of attention and resulted in even louder cheering and encouragement- we were having such fun!

As we exited the valley we had to fix a puncture which attracted quite a crowd- we then made our way to CP 31 at the Qolorha Trading Store making sure we didn’t make any wrong turns. The trading store was like stepping into another world- bicycles hanging from the roof, wire, animal feed, toiletries, drinks, tinned food, farm animals and a VERY friendly Hulley family who cheered us on and fed us delicious fresh rolls and bread. The ice cold cokes were a heaven send and we left the trading store with renewed vigour and immense excitement taking the short course route straight from CP31 to CP36 at Seagulls Hotel. At Seagulls we were hit with a curve ball, through some confusion the marshals thought that we only had till 6pm to decide whether we were going to carry on or not (it was 5:55pm), a decision we didn’t have in our repertoire as there was never a question of withdrawing! Anyway, after a phone call to Hano and all confusion ironed out we checked out the rest of the route and mentally got ourselves ready for the coastal leg. Team Katberg (who had already lost Werner to injury) had decided to withdraw here but David decided that he’d like to join us for the rest of the race. As the cold front moved in our mood was a bit dampened but Garth from Team Katberg helped us out with meal replacement shakes and extra warm kit and after a quick bite in the restaurant we set off on the last part of our epic journey.

It was pouring with rain but we found our way straight to the Kei river crossing and having especially delayed our departure from Seagulls to coincide with low tide, discovered this was in fact the worst time to cross as we physically could not get through the mud. Tam tried and sunk up to her armpits, we had to use the safety rope to pull her out. Dave also badly twisted an already compromised knee trying to get to the water and after ages standing in the rain and repeated attempts the kind marshal organized a boat for us which took us across to CP 39 at the River Lodge. Dave’s knee was buggered with huge fluid build up already. He decided to withdraw and stay at the lodge while we tried to get a bit warmer with coffee and drying our clothes a bit in front of the fire. Eventually after a few hours we knew we had to get going and so we set off into the night. There was much cursing as we slid all over the clay mud roads and we were just hoping that we were staying on the right track as there were lots of cross roads. There were a few moments of real frustration and colourful language and Tam was falling asleep on her bike so we decided to crawl under a bush and have a power nap. After 10 minutes a massive storm came through and we could virtually not see just in front of us. I heard a cock crowing and decided there must be a farm or something nearby. We continued about 300m down the road and discovered a farm house and realized that by pure fluke we had stayed on the correct road all along. Looking like a drowned rat Kel knocked on the farmer’s door at 5am and we were given a room to get out of our sopping clothing and crawl into a bed for a nap. We slept from 6am-7:30am and planned to leave by just after 8am Saturday but the Jefferies were so friendly and gave us a warm breakfast and tried to dry our clothes a bit in their tumble drier. Their kids helped us dry off our bikes and brought us towels- just so special to be looked after like that. By 9:30am we finally got going with a magnetic pull drawing us to the end of the race. We still had the most beautiful section to come as we cruised down through Morgan’s Bay and started along the coast to Double Mouth.

Luckily the rain had eased up a bit by now and it wasn’t too cold. We took loads of photos and savoured our surroundings while reflecting on the distance we had covered to get this far. At Haga Haga the CP was gone and there was a note telling us to head straight to the finish. After a bizarre encounter at Ninky Noo’s pub on the hill (I wasn’t sure if I was hallucinating, beer-drinking sheep and chickens in the bar, guinea fowls scratching in the dirt at the door- all just too weird for that stage of the game) we plotted a route down to Bosbokstrand, only realizing with chilling reality that it was high tide and we wouldn’t be able to ride on the beach. I think this was a blessing in disguise; we walked along barefoot pushing our bikes and reflecting on the race. We knew we had a lot of people waiting for us at the end and so many people who had been willing and cheering us along all week. We collected some shells and smiled as a beautiful rainbow appeared over the sea. Those 5kms on the beach to Cefane will be even more engrained in my memory than most other parts of the race. Kel and I had jokingly dared each other last year October to take on The Bull and then built it into a fundraising initiative for Masimanyane- we could never have imagined the power of the whole experience.

As the sun faded on our 7th day of racing we got our shoes on and started up the hill for the 10km to Inkwenkwezi. When we reached the Chintsa East road other teams in their cars saw us and hooted and cheered us along. We were completely overwhelmed by seeing friends and family who had spent the week worrying about us and supporting us and had now come to find us and cheer us into the finish. We couldn’t believe it was all coming to an end. My legs pumped up the hill with renewed energy and we turned into Inkwenkwezi Game Reserve. Nothing could have prepared us for the reception; I supposed you could say it was extremely good timing on our part (all planned of courseJ) because every single team, their friends and family, sponsors, marshals, logistics crew were on their feet cheering us in with virtually no room to wheel our bikes through- it was completely surreal and fantastic! We had raced for just under 178hrs on little more than 12 hours of broken sleep and made it across the finish line.

I am so proud of my girls- Kel, Tam and D, well done ladies; it was a pleasure racing with you! I had such fun and enjoyed sharing this incredible experience with you. Now, already 5 days have passed since we finished but I still wake up every night trying to navigate to the next CP, I wonder when this will stop? There are so many people to thank for supporting our dream, not only to complete The Bull but also to raise funds for Masimanyane.

Of the 42 teams that started, 12 completed the full course, another 7 completed the short course, 10 were unranked due to losing at least 1 team member and 13 (?) withdrew. We ended up about 19th on the leaderboard.

To Pam, Val, Grant and Justin for cheering us up those last hills to the finish and all those family and friends who supported us through the training and preparations and who sent us over 50 pages of messages during the race- we knew you were thinking of us and trying to make our Sportstrack triangle move faster!

To Hano and Sonja and your fantastic sponsors and support team, thank you for a life changing experience. We thought the route itself was beautiful and you can certainly be very proud of putting on a world class expedition race- thank you!

To our fantastic team sponsors without whom our participation would not have been possible, we thank you for your loyal support.

Shape Magazine for your financial contribution (http://www.shapemag.co.za/)
Salomon for Salomon XA Pro 3D’s and XT Wings (http://www.salomonsports.co.za/)
Kreature.co.za for your financial contribution (http://www.kreature.co.za/)
Safari Dried Fruit & Nuts (Pioneer Foods) for snacks throughout the race (http://www.sadfoods.co.za/)

Jockey for our sports bras and pants (http://www.jockey.co.za/)
Whasp Gels for that extra boost of energy (http://www.whaspgel.com/)
First Ascent for the excellent technical gear which we relied on so heavily (http://www.firstascent.co.za/)

To Dr Lesley Ann Foster and all the angels of Masimanyane, we hope the R100 000 will enable you to continue your fantastic work successfully empowering women and children! It has been a pleasure getting to know you and the work you do- we wish you every success for the future. http://www.masimanyane.org.za/

CONQUERING THE BULL OF AFRICA AND R100 000 FOR MASIMANYANE!

2008-08-20T04:41:00.000-07:00

WOW, Team Dew Point successfully completed The Bull of Africa 2008 (short course) completing 178 hours of mtb, paddling, trekking, ropework, coasteering on little more than 12 hours of broken sleep and experiencing the incredible scenery of the Eastern Cape and Wild Coast. We ended up ranked about 19th out of the 42 teams. The locals were so friendly and land owners so welcoming and hospitable, offering us food in the dead of night and drying our clothes in the tumble drier...

Bull was a life changing experience and one we could never have fully grasped beforehand. You can put in the hours of physical training and prepare yourself mentally as much as possible, but day after day as the race unfolds you learn to push your body and mind further and further and you are challanged on a number of levels.

There was never a doubt in our minds that we would cross that finish line, even if it meant doing it right before the prize giving and official closing ceremony. We are so grateful to all those who sent us messages and cheered us along- we knew there were lots of people willing us to get to the end and we thank you for your support and encouragement along the way! http://www.checkpointzero.com/adventure_racing_world_series/2008/08/race-wrap-up.cfm

Prior to the race we had the priviledge of handing over a cheque of R 100 000 raised for Masimanyane, once again this would not have been possible without the support of many friends, companies and colleagues- THANK YOU FOR EMPOWERING US to give this money over to Masimanyane- it will be put to excellent use and we can never thank you enough for helping us so much! http://www.sleepmonsters.com/race_article_window.php?race_id=5224&article_id=5246 and http://www.masimanyane.org.za/news.htm

I am working on a race report and downloading photos from the race which I'll post shortly. In the meantime I am enjoying putting my feet up a bit and eating anything that doesn't move fast enough! http://www.sleepmonsters.com/racereport.php?page_action=lea&race_id=5224

FANTASTIC MABALINGWE PRIZE VALUED AT R13 000 DRAWN!

2008-08-04T01:30:00.000-07:00

TEAM DEW POINT and MASIMANYANE would like to congratulate Louw Pretorius on winning the self-catering accomodation for 6 people at Tlou Lodge in Mabalingwe. It was a much anticipated draw and we would like to again thank Venue Experts Africa for donating such a fantastic prize to help our fundraising efforts. Check out their website at http://www.venueexperts.co.za/

Congratulations Louw and enjoy your holiday!

PERTH FUNDRAISER AND THE TICKING CLOCK!

2008-07-31T00:26:00.000-07:00

Well, today leaves only 8 days before we set off on the adventure of our lives...No one in our team has gone further than 250km or longer than 60 hours (in an AR) heading into The Bull of Africa, and it will take us 6-7 days to finish! None of us have done an unsupported race so this will be...very interesting. The training is done, the packing is NOT finished and we are very excited about tackling this challenge. Team mate Kelly arrives tomorrow from Perth off the back of a fantastic fundraising evening held in Perth last weekend. Final figures are still being caluculated from this fun auction and quiz night...but all we can say is that we are VERY excited about the amount of money we will be handing over to Masimanyane next week. I must congratulate Kel on the hard work she put in for this event and recognise and appreciate the difficulties she has faced in working so hard on fundraising when she is the only Team Dew Point member in Perth.

This has been a journey of self-discovery and much reward already, and we haven't even tackled the race yet. My motivating factor whenever I was struggling to get out of bed at 5am to train was thinking of the many women and girls who will benefit from these funds- how they will be empowered to stand up to their abusers, how they will be helped to deal with trauma already experienced and how they will know a bit of comfort in some way or another. Part of the funds will go towards setting up another "Victim Support Centre" which is like a satellite counselling and treatment centre usually set up within the perimeters of rural police stations. These Victim Support Centres provide counselling to women and girls who are victims of sexual abuse, rape, domestic violence etc...and they are afforded counselling and assisstance in lodging reports with the police as well as education about their human rights and HIV/Aids counselling. If all this can mean that even one less woman is infected with HIV or one less little girl is the victim of a rape, we have already made a difference.

Our sincere thanks goes to all those who have supported us on this adventure already and will watch our progress in The Bull as we climb mountains, cross rivers, traverse valleys and stay out of the way of wild animals...thank you for coming with us on this journey so far!

The nerves are starting to build, last night I dreamt that I was in EL preparing for the start and had forgotten to buy half the compulsory kit...and this morning I double checked my lists and lists of lists just to make sure!

Sitting on my spinning bike this morning reading "Conquering the Impossible" by Mike Horn about his journey around the Artic Circle, I was reminded how logistics and prepartion are often the biggest hurdle to achieving a goal and just to get to the start line is a mission in itself. I can taste The Bull, feel The Bull, hear The Bull and smell The Bull, now it's not a question of whether it will trample us or not, just how bad the damage will be:)

AdventureLisa: Playing B.I.N.G.O. with Team Dew Point

2008-07-18T06:29:00.000-07:00

AdventureLisa: Playing B.I.N.G.O. with Team Dew Point

Safari products for The Bull and media updates

2008-07-17T00:26:00.000-07:00

We would like to thank and welcome Safari (Pioneer Foods) on board as a product sponsor for The Bull. Being converted users of their products already we are very grateful that they will be providing us with snacks and energy treats to keep us going. Thank you!

Look out for different articles about us in the July issue of Go Multi magazine, the August issue of SHAPE magazine and on the following website:
http://gsport.co.za/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2149&Itemid=52

Three weeks to go...

BINGO NIGHT A GREAT SUCCESS!

2008-07-10T05:37:00.000-07:00

Well, what a fun night! Leroy had us entertained all night whilst ably calling out bingo numbers and handing out prizes from our generous sponsors. A huge THANK YOU to all who attended as well as the following sponsors who made the night possible. We had a super collection of prizes which went to the various bingo game winners as well as some being raffled off.

Kinetic Gear (http://www.kineticgear.co.za/)
Salomon (http://www.salomonsports.co.za/)
Skin Sense Day Spa (http://www.skinsensedayspa.com/
Kreature.co.za (http://www.kreature.co.za/)

Dunkeld Cycles (http://www.dunkeldcycles.co.za/)

Big Game Parks and Mlilwane Wildlife Sanctuary (http://www.biggameparks.org/)

Riverside Café and Bistro- Village Walk

White Water Training (http://www.whitewatertraining.co.za/)

Foodstate Vitamins (http://www.foodstate.co.za/)

Riverside Woolworths in Bryanston

First Ascent (http://www.firstascent.co.za/)
Venue Experts Africa for donating wonderful accommodation prizes (http://www.venueexperts.co.za/)

Dunkeld Fruit and Flowers for the flowers

Steve from Live Sound for the sound equipment

Debi from Culinary Productions for delish food and super hampers (http://www.culinaryproductions.co.za/)

Pirates Club (http://www.piratessportsclub.co.za/)

Leroy Gopal, you were excellent, thank you for hosting our evening out of the goodness of your heart. All in all we collected R13 000 from the evening which is fantastic fundraising to go towards our growing fund for Masimanyane Women's Support Centre.

Thanks to all of you for contributing to the success of the evening.

ACTOR LEROY GOPAL TO HOST FUNDRAISING BINGO EVENING!

2008-06-11T02:30:00.000-07:00

Actor Leroy Gopal has kindly offered to host our fundraising evening for us- thank you Leroy!

Leroy completed a BA in Motion Picture Performance, and landed himself lead roles in the popular TV series “Backstage” and “One Way,” as well as supporting roles in “Home Affairs,” “Jozi H” and “Jacobs’s Cross. He has also featured in various short films, including “4 Days” and “Sirene’s Feast.” “Yellow Card” was Leroy’s debut feature film, but when Leroy isn’t acting, he is a professional emcee and voice over artist. Leroy is also a skilled puppeteer.

We look forward to being entertained by Leroy:)

FUNDRAISING BINGO NIGHT FOR MASIMANYANE

2008-06-05T06:48:00.000-07:00

WE WILL BE HOSTING AN ENTERTAINING FUNDRAISING BINGO NIGHT ON FRIDAY 4TH JULY IN ORDER TO RAISE FUNDS FOR OUR CHOSEN ORGANISATION- MASIMANYANE WOMEN'S SUPPORT CENTRE.

I WOULD LIKE TO TAKE THE OPPORTUNITY TO THANK OUR VERY GENEROUS PRIZE SPONSORS FOR BEING WILLING TO SUPPORT US FOR THIS EVENING. SOME PRIZES WILL BE FOR BINGO GAMES AND OTHERS WILL BE RAFFLED OR AUCTIONED OFF TO THE HIGHEST BIDDER.

• 2 NIGHTS FREE WEEKEND ACCOMODATION FOR 2 PEOPLE FROM BIG GAME PARKS IN MLILWANE WILDLIFE SANCTUARY- SWAZILAND http://www.biggameparks.org.za/
• 2 X VOUCHERS FOR FULL BODY MASSAGES FROM SKINSENSE DAY SPA - http://www.skinsensedayspa.com/
• BEGINNERS KAYAK COURSE FOR 2 PEOPLE FROM WHITE WATER TRAINING - http://www.whitewatertraining.co.za/
• A R500 GIFT VOUCHER FROM SALOMON – http://www.salomonsports.co.za/
• A R500 GIFT VOUCHER FROM KINETIC GEAR - http://www.kineticgear.co.za/

AND WE'RE STILL WORKING ON MORE...

OUR THANK ALSO GOES TO DEBI FROM CULINARY PRODUCTIONS FOR BEING WILLING TO SPONSOR US THE FOOD FOR THE EVENING YOUR HELP IS MUCH APPRECIATED. CHECK OUT http://www.culinaryproductions.co.za/

THANK YOU

Training through the night and Salomon/UGE Sprint Race

2008-05-19T07:25:00.000-07:00

A group of us got together on Friday night to do an all night training session and go straight into the Salomon/Uge Sprint AR on Saturday. Bennie from Team Where the Hell is North? kindly let us use his house as "central transition" and him, myself and Daleen and Clint and Thursia from Team Hawkstone set off into the night at 11pm. First we tackled a paddle on the Olifant's Nek Dam in the skinniest boat I've ever been in, it was either that or a VERY heavy plastic and with the 1 km portage to and from the dam we decided the skinnier...the lighter...the better. Well, Daleen and I made it past the dam wall without taking a dip...that would come later. What a beautiful, still night. the moon was very bright and only disappeared at about 4am so it lit our way up the Magaliesberg range and along the ridge above The Amphitheatre- just stunning! We visited 2 of the beacons in the area with short stops for snax along the way. The terrain up there is very technical due to the large amount of loose rock and very uneven ground slowing the pace significantly, especially on the return descent. Not wanting to cross private land we retraced our steps back to the dam for a total of 6 hours of hiking.

Not completely happy with no swimming leg I managed to capsize Daleen and I on the way back resulting in about a 100m swim to empty out the boat and get going again. Swimming in FREEZING water at 5:30am is not really my idea of fun- and even less so for D, but she still managed to keep smiling. The mist was very thick and we had to switch off our headtorches to avoid any other obstacles and a fast portage back to the house meant we could jump into a hot shower. Mabel (Bennie's wife) very kindly made us some delish breakfast rolls and by 7am we were on our mountain bikes riding to the start of the sprint race at Konka Camps.

As usual, the organisation was excellent, and with sponsors like Salomon, USN Kinetic Gear, Suunto, Foodstate Vitamins, New link computers and First Ascent the branding was super and all ran pretty smoothly. The course itself was short due to the very technical mtb leg, and we also got to try our chance at archery and an obstacle course. Bennnie got a bull's eye and the best shot of the day and we all had good fun. Daleen and I were entered as a ladies pair and managed a second place which we were chuffed with. After chatting after the race and prize giving we rode back to Bennie's house to finish off our 15hrs of training- a great feeling! A well-deserved afternoon nap was definitely called for.

Thanks for a good session guys, I had fun and think it's excellent training for The Bull!

Swazi Xtreme Pro Adventure Race

2008-05-12T01:20:00.000-07:00

TEAM MEMBERS: Lauren Greeff, Kelly Botha, Daleen van Staden and Tamryn Taylor.
SECONDS: Pam Goulding, Michelle Harvey and Valerie Dovey.

Having had a couple of days to reflect on this AR here goes with our report…

Our all-ladies team was very excited about this race as we would be racing as our official team for The Bull later this year. Kelly flew out from Australia especially to be here and 2 of ours seconds flew up from Cape Town to share this racing experience with us. After fighting the torrential downpour we finally arrived at Riders Ranch, eager to get our maps so we could start plotting our routes. We were faced with compulsory points (CP’s) that we had to get to stay official as well as a multitude of optional points (OP’s) which we pretty much decided we would be leaving out from the beginning if we had any hope of meeting the cut-offs for each stage.

Our super seconds set to work setting up camp while Tam and I (the 2 navigators) stuck maps together and chatted routes and strategy. After a few hours sleep we got going on the first hike at 5am on Friday morning amid a mass of headtorch beams. Not a great start as we took a bit of a round about route to CP1, but it seemed like most other teams did as well. This would be 1 of the only legs where we picked up a couple of OP’s as they were basically on our route anyway. We were treated to the first of 3 beautiful sunrises and were soon swimming madly through the raging brown Lusutfu River and making our way through a very manicured golf course to T1. We also collected CP2, CP3, CP4 and CP 5 on this leg. Our seconds had dropped our bikes off here so after a quick change we set off on the mtb ride, collecting another 2 OP’s on the way. Soon enough we met our seconds at a very rocky soccer field at T2 where piles of stones were neatly packed around the perimeter of the field. (Darron had made a deal with the local community that he would hold a competition amoung the seconds to see who could collect the most stones to help them clear up their soccer field a bit).

We did a quick change of kit and headed off on the next hike which soon turned into a whole lot more effort than planned. We stayed on the road too long instead of cutting across the valley and in so doing added about an hour and unnecessary climbing to our route. Then we hit CP 6 and the boulder avenue and fought our way over car-sized boulders enroute to the first FP (a compulsory floating point which indicated a specific route to be taken). After the FP we got onto a path next to the river so the going was much faster. We clipped CP7 and CP 8 at the homestead and did a steep climb up to T3 on top of a mountain. What a treat to be able to experience such beautiful views. At this stage we already realized we wouldn’t make the 6pm cut-off at the end of the next hike and bike but got a quick refill and kept going on our next hike. The area was so green and the locals very friendly- we were treated to lush green valleys and even got introduced to one homestead’s pet pig “Pinky”. Down into the next valley and we clipped CP9 at the cottage while the locals had a very loud game of soccer going on! They were only too happy to pose for a quick photo before we headed up the road and looked out for our turn down to the kloof. The kloofing leg had earlier been cancelled due to high water levels, but we caught a glimpse of the kloof and were very glad we weren’t heading in there. Alex was the marshal at CP10 and was waiting patiently for all the teams. We pushed it out of there as it would soon be getting dark and managed the climb out of the valley up onto the saddle just as the last light faded. At least we were able to catch a glimpse of where we were heading and check our maps while some coughing cows kept a close eye on us. Now completely dark we watched as headtorches seem to weave all over the hillside. We found a good route straight across a valley to a nice road on the other side which lead us straight into T4. Mark and Cheryl were the welcoming marshals here and chatted to us as our super seconds fed us and gave us updates of what was happening in the race further up front. It was now quite clear that we would not make the 10pm leaving time from T6 either as we still had a 16km mtb and 5km hike ahead. Our seconds for this race were Pam, Michelle and Valerie and they were just great. Yummy sarmies, warm meals and lots of smiles and encouragement kept us all in good spirits as we headed out at 8pm from T4. The mtb leg was quite muddy and we made an error after CP11 which wasted some time and after climbing a hideous hill and flying down a fantastic 7km downhill we went wrong right at the end of the leg at the dam. We had just come past a huge crowd of Zionist Churchgoers finishing a session and this crowd of about 50 people stared at us as we quickly rode past. Not really spotting the dam in the dark we did a bit of a detour before backtracking and finding the marshal up on the very muddy road. By this time it was around midnight and we weren’t sure if we would make it in the next morning by 6am if we did the next hike so our seconds drove us the next bit to T6. This also meant that we could start again at 6am and not be short-coursed throughout the next day- although we were now racing unofficially having being transported to T6 as well as missing “The Bull” night hike.

After grabbing some food we eventually got about 3 hours sleep on a cold classroom floor. Day 2 dawned with bodies sprawled all over the place. Some Pro teams were getting back from the night hike which we were disappointed to not have got a chance to do from a night navigation experience point of view, but we felt good and were soon flying down super downhills. An aspect of this format of the race that we really enjoyed was that we got to cross paths with the top teams all through the race as they did extra distance picking up OP’s along the way. Very quickly we had clipped CP 16 and done the 12km downhill, passing weary-looking teams returning from the night hike on the way. From T7 we left our bikes for our seconds and headed off for the hike and ropework section.

From the start of the hike we spotted where the ropeworks would be taking place and got very excited for what lay in store. We crossed another wide fast-flowing river before climbing 400m up to a koppie where we searched for 45mins before another team phoned Darron who said the point was marked on the wrong koppie on the map. A bit frustrated we headed across to the ropes and clipped CP 17 before tackling the fantastic ropes section where all the points were OP’s but we decided we couldn’t pass up such a awesome section and it’s good prep for The Bull. The teamwork activity involved getting across a crevasse of sorts and was quite nerve-racking. Tamryn got to go first and as we lifted and pushed her across she was comforted by Darron who jumped out the way and said “I’m not here to help, I’m just taking photos of you”. As Tam slid down the rock we managed to push her up again and the rest of us got across a bit easier. Next was an awesome traverse which we did 2 at a time. Gustav double checked we were all clipped in before we slid across the great divide, the earth falling away beneath us! We landed on a rock pinnacle where we quickly clipped in and did the +-40m abseil. Team Kreature.co.za were up there with us, thanks for the help and photos- they came out brilliantly!

Then it was my turn to ascend the rope on the other side of the pinnacle. Quite hard work, but the views of the Mkhondvo River below were fantastic. Back on top of the pinnacle I was entertained by Thursia from Team Hawkstone as she screamed her way down the traverse with Clint. Bonus that I got to abseil off the pinnacle again. We got all our stuff together and set off for T8. Although this section took long we thought the experience definitely worth it. We found a good path and made good time but were then stumped with trying to find FP 3 below T8 in the kloof. In our attempt to find it Tam had a scary slip, nearly taking a big fall while her hiking pole bounced down the rocks and over a waterfall- luckily we caught her by her backpack and she didn’t suffer the same fate as her hiking pole.

It was good to see our seconds who had been looking at the ropeworks point with binocs all day. We moved quite slow in this transition but had good food and drinks before setting off on our spotless bikes for a 25km mtb leg. Our super seconds had very kindly taken our bikes through the car wash (the attendant was very confused and not sure what to charge for bikes) and it was a relief to not have slipping gears. Not far into the ride we did a river crossing with our bikes at CP 18 and soon after the darkness set in. We made a slight error but corrected pretty quickly and slogged our way towards CP 19 as Team Boerewors kept us company for a short while. We could see the flashing light of CP 19 from far away and on climbing the last hill thought we were approaching a shebeen. Marshals Cheryl and Mark had some very happy spectators for company and Mark had put up the team rankings for us to see so we spent a few minutes checking out the progress of the teams in front of us- it was interesting to read, thanks Mark! We flew down the next hills as fast as our fast-fading breaks could carry us and soon arrived at T9 at 10:05 pm. Here we chatted to Darron, Lisa and Anita and although technically we could have left immediately on the next legs we knew we would never make the 6am cut off the next morning. Again disappointed in missing good night time navigation experience we got moved to T12 and put up the gazebo in the freezing wind. (T10 and T11 were bike drop offs and pick-ups during the night legs).

We got about 4 hrs sleep and woke surrounded by mist and some tired looking teams. Our choice from the night before was reinforced as we chatted to Kinetic USN and Kreature.co.za who had left T9 the night before at 7pm and got into T12 just after 5am. We left on the final bike leg of the day at about 6:30am, initially keen to do the rafting. The views descending down into the valley were just stunning and we stopped for numerous photo stops and to enjoy the view. We clipped CP23 and CP24 and it was only as we were making our way along the road to the rafting that we remembered that they were closing this section at 8am, glancing at our watches as we rode in it was 8:10am we realized we had missed the opportunity to raft, which in the end was better as we would have run out of time for the 11am cut-off. We saw Uge.Cyanosis as they got back from the rafting with stories of John Collins having been caught in the swirling pool below the waterfall. It sounded scary and hoped he was ok. Soon we were back on the road and heading for the widest river crossing of the race. With bikes on our backs we crossed the Lusutfu River as Uge.Cyanosis, Kinetic USN, Salomon Pro, Olympus, Siyeza and more teams also crossed. Darron was there taking photos and the film crew was following closely behind. With about 1.5hrs to go till the cut off the excitement was tangible and it really was fun to be in between so many other teams. We made the dash up to the last CP25 and then back down to the railway and realized we had 1 hour to do the final 14km mtb ride.

Luckily service roads next to railway lines are great to ride on and we picked up the pace and made our way towards Sidvokodvo Village. One error getting on the wrong side of the railway line at the station was quickly corrected and having a few minutes we clipped OP56 in town just for fun. We saw Uge.Cyanosis and McCains Addicts racing to get 1 or 2 more points and turned onto the tar as Salomon Pro flew past us. We crossed the bustling finish line with about 3 mins to spare, what a stunning race! We all hung around waiting to see if Cyanosis would make it and they snuck in with about a minute to spare, securing their victory with 1 extra point! Well done.

To Darron, Lisa, Anita and all the wonderful marshals and support crew, thanks for a super race, we learnt a lot and had such fun along the way. What a beautiful part of Swaziland to be privileged enough to race through!

To Kel, D and Tam, thanks for a good, fun race. Sometimes as 4 ladies we would approach groups of men in the dark hours with a bit of apprehension but we never had a problem, except for one over-eager onlooker getting a bit close to KelJ To Pam, Harvey and Val, thanks for the super seconding- you 3 were fantastic and we really appreciate your help and support.

Team Dew Point would like to thank the following sponsors and supporters who have committed to our dream of being the only SA all-ladies team racing The Bull of Africa and raising funds for Masimanyane Women’s Support Centre in East London. Shape Magazine, Kreature.co.za, Whasp Energy Gels, Salomon Footwear, First Ascent and we happily welcome Jockey on board as a product sponsor as well.

Any donations towards our cause would be greatly appreciated. Masimanyane is a registered Public Benefit Organisation and therefore all donations qualify for tax benefits. The following bank account has been opened solely for collecting funds for Masimanyane who is an organization that aims to stop violence and abuse against women, offers counselling and support services to these women and educates about gender equality.

Name: Team Dew Point
Bank: Standard Bank
account #: 027195368
branch code: 018105
Ref: Your full name
Type: Enterprise Savings Account

Lauren Greeff

"Let us Support Each Other"

2008-04-15T02:55:00.000-07:00

Towards the beginning of the year our team decided that we wanted to give back to the community we will be racing through for The Bull. Being an all-ladies team (only SA all-ladies team and 1 of 4 in total out of 53 teams) and with the race starting on Women's Day, we came up with the idea of selecting a charity or NGO that helps women in particular. After lots of research, emails, calls etc...all roads lead to Masimanyane Women's Support Centre in East London. Obviously without knowing the exact route of The Bull we decided Masimanyane would be a good choice as their head office is based in E.L. but they run programmes and workshops throughout rural Eastern Cape (see photo to the right). Masimanyane is a non-profit organisation that focuses on awarness raising programmes, counselling, educating and interventions dealing with domestic violence and sexual abuse mainly of women and girls. They also educate women about their human rights and promote gender equality in the communities. HIV/Aids is also a large focus of their programmes.

I recently visited Masimanyane (which translated means "let us support each other") and I was priviledged to meet some of the wonderful women who counsel and run various programmes for these extremely vulnerable women. Many of the staff were themselves victims of domestic or sexual abuse and thereore have valuable insight and skills to help women who would otherwise have no one to talk to. Dr Lesley Ann Foster is the founder of Masimanyane and has grown the organisation to be one that is greatly respected. She was one of the 1000 women nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005. Masimanyane was 1 of 2 organisations that started the now national campaign of "16 Days of Activism against Women and Child Abuse" which is run from 1-16 December each year. Much of the research they have done has been utilised by the SA government to guide policies and programmes.

Team Dew Point has opened up a bank account for the sole purpose of collecting much-needed funds to enable Masimanyane to continue their extremely worthwhile and invaluable work. Funds can be deposited straight into the account through electronic transfer or deposit. Details are as follows:

Name: Team Dew Point
Bank: Standard Bank South Africa
Acc #: 027195368
Branch code: 018105
Type: Enterprise Savings Account
Ref: Please use your full name as a reference.
Swift address: SBZAZAJJ

Any amount would be so gratefully received, the area that Masimanyane works in has shocking stats and much work still needs to be done.

Eastern Cape of RSA

· Poorest province in RSA
· 50% unemployment rate
· 80% illiteracy rate
· One of the highest rape rates in RSA
· 8 out of every 9 rapes are unreported
· Over 41% of rape victims are children
· 22% under 11 yrs and 9% under 5 yrs
· HIV rates in 15-19 yrs – fastest growing in world

Satellite victim support centres.

2008-03-28T01:26:00.000-07:00

Wow! What an amazing Easter “break”! Four days of pure mountain biking and adventure bliss!
Singletrackminded is the brainchild of Ian Wilson and it aims to expose people to the beauty of Pondoland while enriching the surrounding communities. See www.singletrackminded.co.za for more info.
The group gathered at the undercover parking at the Wild Coast sun, got into our cycling kit, had our photo taken and then set off with our local guides, Spring, and Ian’s adopted son, Siya.

We sped down the hill towards the river mouth at the Wild Coast for our first river crossing. Some of us opted to ‘swim a bike’ while others paddled across with the ferryman. From there we cycled along the beach for about 3km with all the guys jostling with one another in the front, popping wheelies and falling on their butts – what fun!

Then it was into 30km of the most awesome singletrack cattle trails and beautiful waterfalls. Luckily it was raining so it wasn’t too hot, but of course that meant we had tons of mud to deal with!

Towards the end of the ride in you hit really fast flowing jeep track which we all raced along at a frightening speed. Before we knew it we were on cellphone hill (the only place near camp where there is reception) and could see the camp perched on the cliff overlooking the ocean and the estuary – Beautiful – home for the next 4 days!
One of the attractions at Mtentu Camp besides some of the most spectacular scenery in the world is that when you’re not on your mountain bike Ian really “wraps you in cotton wool” to steal his phrase. Your cabins are awesome, you have hot outdoor showers, and the local ladies whip up the most magnificent creations in the kitchen while Ian works his magic on the braai.
Dinners included things like fillet steak, sticky ribs while desserts like chocolate and malva pudding had me asking for more. I think I was the only person there who actually out on weight on this trip – I just couldn’t resist all the food!

Day 2 we opted for a scenic paddle and kloof up the river.

All the waterfalls we passed were breath taking but the one at the end of the kloof is unbelievable.

It is almost a cave from where a 150m waterfall plummets down into a pitch black pool –amazing.

Day 3 We cycled out to the vulture colony through the mkambathi nature reserve – wow!. It is a beautiful but taxing ride especially when it is as hot as it was that day. There were a lot of attempts to hide in the shade and avoid delirium in the sun! The only bummer was when we got to the top of the really long hill where the spaza shop is – and it was closed! If it wasn't for the whasp gels I don't think anyone would have made it through the heat of that day!

The last day everyone was very sad to leave but also looking forward to the scenic cycle back. We took a different route to the way in but still stopped off at beautiful pools and waterfalls for a swim along the way. I unfortunately was beginning to get gastro (which I’m only recovering from now) so had to fight the urge to throw up for 6 hours… not ideal but I still enjoyed the ride out. After conquering the final river crossing and the BIG hills up to the wild coast we all jumped I our cars and went for a celebratory drink and bite to eat at South broom beach. What and amazing experience and what awesome people I had the privilege of sharing this time with! Thanks Ian for throwing us all together and making sure we had a blast!

Is it still called training?

2008-03-26T06:59:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I returned from an Easter weekend at Mazeppa Bay
on the Wild Coast and enjoyed some of my best trail runs ever. Is it still called training when you're having so much fun running in such a beautiful, untouched part of our country? WOW! My only company on my first day were a few cows catching the early morning breeze on the beach and dipping their hooves in the sea, and although running with a friend on the other days we saw only cows and a few fisherman. There's something magical about your footsteps being the first of the day on wet sea sand...and running with no rush to get to work. I tried out my new Salomon XT Wings and was very chuffed, not one bother for my feet and I made sure
that I ran in soft sand, wet sand, over rocks and through water
(sea and river crossings) to test them out- really great trail shoes:)What a super break from the everyday Joburg and mad rush, well worth the journey and certainly makes me think about being able to train in such scenic surroundings all year round...

Race Report from Nguni 120km AR March 2008

2008-03-13T03:30:00.000-07:00

BY TAMRYN TAYLOR

On the 1st of Feb I saw a note in my inbox from Fred Richardson with the subject
“Fw: Help/Suggestions needed for Bull 2008 all ladies team”…
Lauren Greeff (ex team Kreature) captain of Dew Point all ladies team for the Bull of Africa was looking for a 4th lady, and preferably one who could navigate! I have never followed up on an email so quickly in all my life. So that’s how it all started and how Team Dew Point consisting of Lauren Greeff, Kelly Botha, Daleen Van Staden, and me, was formed. Thanks Fred!
For Nguni Lauren asked a former Kreature team mate of hers, Kevin Rodwell, to join us as Kelly is based in Australia and couldn’t make it out for this race. This would be my first taste of what racing with Team Dew Point was all about.

Leg 1 – Ocean swim for 2 team members.

Kev and Daleen got to tackle this one from the Salt Rock main beach while Lauren and I feverishly plotted route choices onto our many maps. Curious onlookers asked questions about what on earth we were doing and why we had chickened out of the swim. I started to reply that we hadn’t chickened out but then looking at the surf I thought I’d just keep quiet. The swim CP was originally going to be connected to the shark net (400m off the beach) but the visibility was poor so Fred paddled out about 350m and held the first CP for the swimmers to punch. Our 2 swimmers did brilliantly in the tough conditions and soon we were off on the coasteering leg.

Leg 2 – Coasteering leg

Running the downhills and walking the uphills we chose to go along the road and not the beach for as long as we could. At some point while we were walking up a rather big hill Fred drove past and thought it an appropriate time to shout “you should’ve cut down to the beach sooner!” – thanks Fred – that’s always helpful J Before we knew it CP2 was in the bag and Lauren and I decided to drag the team straight through a coastal forest, complete with strangling vines, thorns and a few hornets for good measure. After much cursing we were out in the sugar cane and joggling along a sandy road looking for the fence line, row of trees and trig beacon that would guide us towards Cane Cutters. We arrived at T1 in high spirits ready for the cycle leg. After some refueling courtesy of super seconds Pam and my brother Rob we were off again!

Leg 3 – MTB

The cycle leg was easy navigation wise (although we did climb over a LARGE fence at one stage which was unexpected) and we had no problem with any of the check points, collecting CP’s 3, 4 and 5. What did take its toll though was the excruciating heat and humidity. Kev was taking serious heat strain and had to take a few rehydrates before we reached CPA- Sky Trails. Here we did a series of 4 zip-lines from decks about 2-3m off the ground, across a little valley. This was good fun and a welcome rest for all of us and perked up the team for the rest of the cycle into T2 which was situated at a very overgrown Polocrosse Club. Our poor seconds also looked wilted from the heat but were super with their encouragement and filling us up with fluids and food for the next leg.

Leg 4 – Hike

The scenery was beautiful and we walked and jogged merrily along picking up checkpoint 6 on the way, little did we know what was up ahead…CP 7 and beyond proved to be a bit of a mission.
At the litchi trees near the river we originally took the left fork (sorry team…) and continued down the wrong valley. Luckily Lauren was very persistent saying that this couldn’t be right as we should be surrounded by orchards all the way to the CP point and we were now out of them…
Eventually we went back to the litchi trees and took the right fork and found CP7 – thank you, thank you Lauren – this could have been a disaster! It did cost us quite bit of time though and set us up to complete the kloof in the dark. It was bizarre finding the waterfall with these cute little wooden chalets at the end of the orchards, seemingly on the middle of nowhere.

We clambered up the waterfall at CP7 (this one had a rope set up to help the climb) feeling all adventurous and excited for what was to come but soon after it got dark we hit the first of 2 rather large rock face/waterfalls that required us to get very wet and attempt to scale what we still feel was an impossibility to free climb in wet shoes! Luckily Team Alligatorz was right behind us and were also having difficulty. We decided to join our 2 ropes and help each other up.

In reality if it wasn’t for Team Alligatorz there is no way we would have made it out of that kloofing section and we can’t thank you enough, Wouter and John! We wanted to buy you guys a beer or 10 but didn’t see you at prize giving (and of course it was 9am…). I only discovered on getting to the top of the first climb that Wouter or John (not sure who it was) was holding the rope i.e. it wasn’t attached to a tree!

We were all so relieved to get up this obstacle, there were ‘thank yous’ all round, untying of knots, and off we went until low and behold another one! For the second climb Kev free climbed up and tied the (now 20m) safety rope to a tree. After a very scary ascent involving Wouter and John holding me from below, a tree root, and Kev pulling from the top, he asked me to sit and watch that the knot didn’t undo itself from the tree while the rest of the team climbed up! This is why we need that climbing refresher – for the life of me I cannot remember anything about knots!
Eventually we made it out of there and up that very step hill to the transition – thank goodness what and epic kloof! We were very glad to see our seconds and get a tasty warm meal before heading off again.

It was very interesting to find out from Heidi what Kinetic USN had done – their motto is don’t do a kloof if you don’t have to. They got CP7 and then exited straight out of the valley from there up past the CP7 waterfall and I imagine saved a LOT of time. It’s always good to hear these kind of stories because as a navigator it was something I hadn’t even considered as I’m just not clued up enough on contours yet.

Leg 5 – MTB

This is where the navigation and choices all round were going to get tricky…We punched CP8 and decided to take the road and leave out CP’s 9,10, & 11. I’m still not sure if this was the right move but I’ll chat with Fred next week to understand better.

(Note: The format of the race was that all CP’s were optional and all transitions compulsory. Each CP was worth 5 points, so you could leave out CP’s along the way depending on how your team was feeling on each leg. The race cut-off was 26 hrs, 9am on Sunday morning. It’s a great concept as it keeps the field together and allows you to be more strategic in your navigation choices. It also means you never quite know where you are in the field coz you don’t know what CP’s the other teams have left out.)

We had some interesting experiences going past rocking shebeen parties with all our lights turned off to try not attract any attention. There were also some rather large hills on this section that really tried our patience. Climbing 300m in 3km’s made us think we might as well have gone for CP’s 10 and 11- the beauty of hindsight. By this stage the sleep monster was also starting to bite. And at one point Daleen informed us she had fallen asleep on the down hill. We gave her a Whasp gel and I swear a few seconds later she was wide awake cycling at the front of our little bunch! We punched CP 12 on the pylon with no problems and then had a good look at the map.

Our navigation on this section was excellent except for one thing… both Lauren and I had marked that the R102 was out of bounds up until Darnall but then both of us forgot this and thought it was COMPLETELY out of bounds. This resulted in us plotting a sub optimal route choice that would’ve taken a lot longer. We navigated our sneaky approach to CP 13 on the railway bridge (luckily mostly on good, fast tar roads) and the paddle put in brilliantly but it was all unnecessary! At one point a police van found us, told us we were insane and asked why we couldn’t do something normal like play snooker? He then followed us to CP 13 at Mandini and the paddle put in because they couldn’t have 3 women cycling around in the most dangerous area in town on their watch. Thank you so much!

Leg 6 – Paddle

Just before the kind police officers left they told us the river was full of crocodiles and Zambezi sharks at the mouth– they weren’t lying…We started the 17km paddle (entering the river at a suspiciously looking croc entry point) at about 4:15am unsure if we’d make the cut-off time. On the paddle we saw no less than 2 crocodiles, one shortly after we’d finished dragging our boat off a sand bank in the pitch darkness…those eyes are pretty freaky in the misty darkness!
We got to CP 14 at the “Ultimatum Tree” quicker than expected and at the same time as Team Blur, thanks to Jackie for clipping the CP for us while she was already out of her boat. When we finally reached the beach, we dragged our boats the 800m into the Tugela mouth parking lot with about 2 hours left and started emptying sand out of our shoes. The team was tired and we weren’t sure what the 200m swim in the Zinkwazi lagoon would be like at the end and if we’d make the cut off…

We walked the 7km beach hike at a good pace (with lots of fisherman and crabs for company) and as we got closer to Zinkwazi we got more excited as we realised we would actually finish in time! Team Yoshimi was just behind us and passed us on the swim but they had an extra CP anyway so we didn’t really mind! Wading into the finish I was feeling extremely chuffed with our team. We raced for 25.5 hours and I think we came in about 6th out of the 14 teams. We gelled well, we learnt a lot, Lauren and I complemented each other in our navigation skills, I stayed awake longer than I ever have on an adventure race for one stretch, and it was also the first time I was completing Fred’s Nguni race which has always been jinxed for me! All in all it was just an amazing experience! BULL OF AFRICA – here we come!

Thanks to:
Fred for an AMAZING race.
All the Marshals/ and George the trusty medic for your help
Wouter and John (wherever you are?)
The friendly police officers for looking after us
The crocs for not eating us
Whasp Energy Gels for supplying the stuff that kept us going for 26 hours!
Lauren for being an awesome co-navigator
Daleen & Kev: you two are tough as nails – respect for keeping going even when you were hurting!
And last but certainly not least super seconds Pam and my brother Rob for seconding us so fantastically – you guys rock!

Race report from UGE/Salomon 150km race

2008-03-13T03:15:00.000-07:00

Lauren Greeff, Kelly Botha, Daleen van Staden and Mark Goulding.

It would be Kelly’s first official AR so we were very excited about racing together and I couldn’t wait for her to try it out for herself after listening to all my tales of adventure over the years, whilst living in Australia.

We arrived at the Sterkfontein Nature Reserve, after fighting the traffic out of Joburg, just in time for the race briefing. Nic showed us some beautiful photos of the race area and we couldn’t wait to get our maps and check out the first leg (we received our pre-plotted maps for each leg as we arrived at each transition), we knew we’d be heading out on the dam in the morning and we were just praying for calm waters and clear skies. After the nice concise race briefing and some words from Eugene and Nic we headed for our chalet to pack last minute goodies and get as much sleep as possible.

LEG ONE 21KM PADDLE ON STERKFONTEIN DAM

7am Friday morning and a quick sprint up a little koppie to receive our first map laying out the paddling leg. From our race booklet we already knew it was 21km in length, so we hopped into our boats and set off. Passing a fisherman on the first bend I thought how this poor guy is probably usually the only person in sight and then we come along and disturb his peace…hee hee. The paddling leg was very straightforward, with clear weather, each cove and inlet was easy to spot. We cruised around the dam at our own pace collecting CP’s 1, 2 and 3, and a little jog up to the significant tree on the top of an island to collect CP 4. Next thing we spotted the First Ascent banners and our paddle was over. We got our things together and checked out with Mich for our first hiking leg. Pam was our super second for this race and already she was doing a super job cheering us on and helping us get going. We left T1 at about 10am.

LEG TWO 25KM TREKKING THROUGH STERKFONTEIN DAM NATURE RESERVE

We set off on the road with our 2 sets of maps in hand. I am trying to learn navigation so I was very keen to get going and see how I’d do. We headed off in the direction of CP 5 and were treated to a sighting of 2 very curious Eland who came quite close to check us out and then galloped off, but only after posing for a photo with Kel. Closer to CP 5 we had a route choice to make, through the valley and cross the river or walk around. Team Siyeza was just in front of us so we decided to go opposite to them and choose the valley, their route must have been faster because we didn’t see them again till the next transition. Anyway, soon enough we found CP 5 and contoured around towards CP 6, the views up there were just stunning, we were looking off the escarpment down into the huge valley below with little dams and bright green hills. Here I wasn’t 100% sure of the CP position, but with Mark’s assistance we found it soon enough and Team Freegone came running past with Bruce leading the charge…The drop down towards the dam provided brilliant views of the surrounding area and the dam itself, we heard baboons barking as we moved towards the swimming section. We were looking forward to it so we could cool off a bit, but luckily the overcast weather had also cooled things down. Kel’s first experience of having to cross a fence in an AR went off injury free and we were greeted by Mac at CP 7 (the swim). It was quite short but did the cooling job well and soon enough we were climbing the metal ladder and heading for T2 at the end of the hike. New instructions from Mac were that we had to stay on the roads as an earlier team had broken a fence which annoyed the farmer so we couldn’t cross his land. This extended the hike a bit so it was a very welcome sight to reach T2. Teams Siyeza, Bee Attitudes and a couple others were all refueling when we arrived. A quick kit check went without any problems and then we could enjoy the comfort of Pam’s royal transition treatment. We had a bite to eat, filled up with fluids and changed into our MTB gear. Already I was so impressed with how Kel was handling her first AR, her only bother being a very swollen right wrist as she had developed tendonitis from the morning paddle from using an unfamiliar paddle. With us ready to go, Pam cheered us on and we set off around 6pm on the mtb leg. As we left Team Siyeza were heading back towards the transition- turned out they had forgotten their passport so they had to turn around…a painful lesson to learn, but we would be in for our own lesson later.

LEG 3 42KM MOUNTAIN BIKE LEG TOWARDS SWINBURNE

The navigation on the ride was pretty straightforward, just a few junctions and turns to take note of. We waved at Pam as she drove past us and we turned off in search of CP 8. The last light was fading here so we put on our lights and soon found CP 8 on the causeway. Team Galloping Geckos were just ahead of us and we could see lights behind us as we left the CP, probably Siyeza. The roads were in pretty good condition so the riding was straightforward. We saw a small brown snake crossing the road and passed a team fixing a puncture and before we knew it we could see the lights of T3 off to our right. We followed the road around to Swinburne and then the turn off to Appin farm. The light on the boulder where the ropework was happening was visible all the way down the road and soon enough we saw USN banners and were greeted by Liz and an ice cold USN drink. Pam welcomed us with warm, delicious food and updated us on any info she had heard about the upcoming hike which promised tricky navigation. We had come in around 10pm and we organized all our gear for the upcoming hike. Most teams were in transition, having food and a nap so around 11pm after chatting options we decided to sleep for 1.5hrs so we could go straight through for the rest of the race. We also knew the navigation was probably more tricky so decided to rest. Mark was lights-out in no time, I think Daleen managed a short snooze but Kel, Pam and I struggled and couldn’t sleep at all. Noise from the generator and in transition, mozzies etc…not conducive to sleep at this stage of the race. We were a bit slow in getting going after that and only checked out with Liz just after 1am.

LEG 4 12KM TREKKING AND ROPES SECTION TOWARDS MOUNT LOUISE FARM

First stop was the boulder for the ropes section, which involved a rockclimb with Etriers (definitely a first for us) and then an abseil down the other side. I found the climb quite hard having to step up and pull up but tackled it quickly enough after waiting for Teams Sterling and Bob to finish on the rock. We punched CP 9 on top of the boulder. Ryno and his team were very cheerful (especially for that time of the morning) and after about an hour we were on our way towards CP 10. Team McCains Adventure Fanatics arrived just as we were leaving with tales of a hectic mtb leg with difficult hike-a bike. The mist had come in while waiting for our turn but luckily had lifted a bit again as we set off along a hiking trail. CP 10 was a bit tricky, we cut in towards the mountain a bit soon and wasted some time searching for a way through the vegetation but eventually bundu bashed through. We could see the teams ahead of us searching for the point and the Galloping Geckos and us were moving towards what was clearly a very large rock pinnacle. A very steep climb followed and a few teams converged on CP 10 (Teams Olympus, Bee Attitudes, McCains Adventure Fanatics and Galloping Geckos) at the same time. The mist descended again and it was pretty chilly, we had a quick roll to eat and dropped down to the hiking trail to contour around to CP 11. As we went past signs to Twin Caves and through the little forested area it started getting light and we were treated to spectacular misty morning views. Unfortunately we wasted some time being on the wrong spur to find CP 11 and Foodstate caught up to us after having slept in Twin Caves for a couple of hours while it was dark. We had another look at the map and realised our mistake and then found CP 11 quickly. We contoured again, passing cows and again hearing barking baboons on the cliffs above us. We dropped straight down onto CP 12 on the river bend and headed for the road crossing and CP 13 at the beacon. Soon Mount Louise Farm came into view and we checked in with Mich at T4 around 9am after about an 8 hour hike. Pam was fantastic as usual, rolls prepared for the next leg, a quick bite to eat, ice cold juice and nice cold water into our bottles and bladders. We even had a quick morning splash from the hosepipe. Again a few teams we chilling in transition. Kel’s wrist was still giving her grief so she got a voltaren shot from the medics who were very friendly and professional. We got into MTB gear and stocked up on munchies and drinks as we wouldn’t see Pam again till the end of the race. We left again at about 10am.

LEG 5 25KM MOUNTAIN BIKE TO PLATBERG NATURE RESERVE IN HARRISMITH

This ride was easy to navigate as we stuck on the railway line. It also meant the gradient was comfortable and as a result we could up the pace quite a bit. We punched CP 14 on the bridge and spotted a 220km team on the river paddle further along. I didn’t envy that portage of the boats down to the paddle put in….With Team Siyeza hot on our heels we made our way towards Harrismith, punched CP 15 at the sub station and navigated through the streets. We quickly found CP 16 (tree in middle of road) grabbed a seed pod for the marshal at T5, popped under the bridge and used WP 1 to enter Platberg Nature Reserve. Mark and I had both been here in early 2007 for the orienteering so knew which maps we would be getting. We slogged along the jeep track spotting zebra and wildebeest and were glad to see the Suunto banners and a very welcoming and friendly George and Joan van Jaarsveld as the marshals. Lisa was also there, friendly as ever taking pics and cheering the teams on. Teams Trojan and Galloping Geckos finished their orienteering while were checking the map and choosing our route. We were required to punch any 4 points in any order and were given a 1:15 000 scale orienteering map. As we left on this leg Siyeza pulled in on their bikes.

LEG 6 4KM ORIENTEERING LEG IN PLATBERG NATURE RESERVE

It was about 1pm by now and very hot, but we set off in good spirits in search of our points. We chose to get points A, D, G and J in that order. This leg was quite short and uneventful but it was nice to have to concentrate on the smaller scale and distances between points and also appreciate how much water was in the area compared to last year. It also broke the mtb leg up into 2 parts which was nice and both Kel and Daleen did well on their first orienteering leg spotting points and finding features quickly. Back at T5 we re-filled with water, grabbed a snack and headed out around 3pm. Who other than Siyeza were right there, all smiles and looking like they were also having fun, just finishing their orienteering leg as we left on the bikes.

LEG 7 20KM MOUNTAIN BIKE TO MOOIHOEK FARM

What followed was our error for the race, we thought we could head off to find another jeep track indicated on the map and have a more direct route but it backfired a bit when the jeep track ran dead and we had to virtually crawl though a Blue Gum forest with our bikes. Kel also got a stick lodged about 2cm into her calf muscle, so some bush first aid was required to clean it up a bit. After a bit of a mood dip in the hot forest we popped out into a clearing and managed to find the jeep track again but our joy was short-lived because as we joined the correct road at the base of the mountain we turned the wrong way- this resulting from not being on the jeep track we thought we were on. Anyway, we realised our mistake about 1km along through the mud and puddles and had to turn back 2.5kms to go and get CP 17 at the little dam. This whole episode probably added on about 2 hrs…bugger! The extra 5kms spent in the mud and water played havoc with Daleen’s bike, she would pedal and have power and then everything would slip and her legs would spin on the spot. Kel’s gears and chain were also not co-operating but for someone who has only been on a mtb a couple of times in her life, and who only bought cleat shoes the day before the race, she did brilliantly, with a few (luckily) soft falls into water, mud and grass…Eventually after some choice words and fighting the mud and rinsing our cassettes and chains with our bottles we reached WP 2 at the gate and realised the worst was over, all that lay ahead was a relatively quick descent to a good road and a little push to Mooihoek farm. We raised the pace a bit so we could get our map for the last leg while we still had some daylight to see the route ahead. As we pulled into T6 and got our map, we had enough time to check out the saddle in front of us before it was dark. As we left on the last leg we checked out the time and saw we had 4 hours left to make it in under 40 hrs so we knew we were fine.

LEG 8 5KM TREKKING AND ROPES TO EAGLE MOUNTAIN

The map scale was 1:15 000 again and we had to walk about 1km to the fence and WP 3 before we were actually on the map. McCains Adventure Fanatics came flying past us in good spirits. We took the easy route and followed the road all the way to the saddle and nearly walked straight past CP 18, but Mark spotted it and soon we were frustratingly following bunting towards the rope section. Daleen had forgotten to put in her contacts for the dark so everything was very blurry but she stuck on our heels and got through fine. We got to the ropes as McCains finished and were greeted by the cheery Gravity guys again. This section was a climb up using footholds and anything you could hold onto followed by another abseil. We punched CP 19 up at the cave and then abseiled down. It’s such a treat to get 2 great ropework sections in one race, thanks guys!! All that was left was to follow the path down to the road, a short walk along the road and punching CP 20 at a little dam before heading to the finish and enjoying the exhilaration and satisfaction that comes with finishing the race. We came in in 39 hrs and 36 mins with Siyeza managing to get past us and get the official 3rd spot due to our poor judgement on the mtb leg and the excellent pace they were maintaining throughout the race- Well done Fred and your team, you kept us on our toes!! To Mark, Daleen and Kel, thought we raced so well together and it was a pleasure to share this experience with you. Well done Kel for attempting and finishing your first AR with flying colours!! Pam, thank you for the super seconding, you were a great support and encouragement and kept us well-fed, hydrated and smilingJ

A H’ UGE thank you to Eugene, Mich, Nic, Team Cyanosis, Gravity Training and all the very friendly and helpful marshals and medics. We really enjoyed our race. The course was well laid-out, beautiful and the legs were a nice length and very manageable. Thanks also to the super sponsors for supporting our sport and the landowners for allowing us access to their land.

Racing a dream

2008-03-13T02:51:00.000-07:00

We are a team of ladies who have entered the 570km Bull of Africa unsupported, expedition Adventure Race from the 9th-16th August 2008.

We are currently the only South African all-ladies team entered in The Bull (and 1 of the 4 all-ladies teams in total). Currently there are 53 teams who have entered the Bull, with 28 being international teams.

We are a group of ladies inspired by a dream of racing together, but not just any race, a 5-7 day unsupported expedition race where we know we will be tested on every level and come out stronger women and with a renewed appreciation for adventure, friendship, pain, endurance and life.

We are still approaching potential sponsors but are happy to announce that some have already come on board to support us. Firstly Salomon is sponsoring us some of their fantastic footwear as well as backpacks for racing. Whasp Energy Gels will gives us that boost when we need it most and a fantastic deal from SHAPE magazine. Thank you for believing in our dream!