I was out at Theewaterskloof dam for the Spur Tri-Challenge short route (400m swim, 10km mtb, 4km trail run). Fortunately my training partner and I decided to downgrade from the full event (800m swim, 20km mtb and 10km trail run). They both have tri athlon experience where this was my first attempt at this sort of thing. The morning started off chilly with a north easterly wind chopping up the water nicely for the swim. Both the 800m and 400m swim started at the same time. I got advice from the pro’s and stayed on the outside of the swimmers ahead of me to ensure that the stronger swimmers don’t swim over me. The first 100m was great, then I swallowed a mouth full of water as a swimmer kicked me in the ribs passing me. I was about 40 meters from the first buoy and started to swim a breast stroke to the boey. There I caught my breath and vacated my spot for my training partner to anchor himself to the buoy. His fiance was telling me to carry on, she’ll wait for him. I was looking at her like she’s crazy. I was carrying on. That was my best effort! A combination of backstroke, breast stroke and G-stroke (new type of style that I will demonstrate at the next event that combines the butterfly stroke with a back stroke / water treading maneuver) got me to the slipway. As the 800m swimmers completed their second lap. Somewhere my partner passed me. He and his fiance waited for me to safely exit the water.
The bike ride was a 10km flat route with about 30m of climbing. The deal was that we wait for her on the bike, if she waited for us in the water and on the trail. I recovered suffiently to tackle the trail run of 4km.
The trail run was also a non-technical run with slightly more climbing than the mtb leg of the event. I did my fastest 4km yet in 21 minutes.
Sunday it felt like I did a 6 hour race. Everything was tired/sore, so I took the day off to recover for the Safari 10km walk with my wife the Monday.
How hard can a walk be? Well let me tell you, it seems harder on my legs than a 10km jog. We walked the 10km in just over 1h30minutes. My trail running shoes didn’t treat my shins well with the walk, and I am now nursing some early shin splints with rest and transact patches. It should be 100% for Grabouw this weekend.
Things I have learnt (and some of the stuff I knew, but deliberately ignored):
- 400m open water swim is about the same as a 1400m swim in the gym’s nice warm pool with a line tiled on the bottom to follow and a side to hang on to every 25m.
- Challenging your lungs with a swim before riding and running takes a lot out of you.
- Doing an event socially with no competitive motive is a lot of fun.
- Don’t underestimate a seemingly unchallenging, but new work-out. The 10km walk on Monday still hurts in some places.
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