South African Safari II

Upon finding out that the World Cup series would once again kick off in South Africa after a year of reprieve, I jumped at the opportunity to return to this intriguing country. I was able to book the same accommodation only a couple of k’s from the Cascade shopping centre course. ‘A Room with a View’ was just as I had remembered it, remarkable views of Pietermaritzburg, beautifully kept gardens, quant room and friendly helpful hosts.

The 20 something hour travel to Pietermaritzburg from Melbourne was extremely straight forward, no excess luggage charge, easy flight transfers and a driver waiting to transport us from Durban Airport to ‘A Room with a View”.  The travel was actually a really good chance for me to get some rest in order to shake a cold that had interrupted my last few days of training. I slept for around 10 hours on the plane and then due to the time difference I was able to get another 8 hours that night!

The first few days were spent adjusting to the time difference and trying to get some feeling back in the legs after a few days off training. It was good to get into a routine of pilates (Erica from Genki Pilates has provide me with a great travel program), breakfast, ride, lunch, relax, dinner and then bed! All too quickly the first race of the trip come around being a SA National round on the Cascade course as a warm up for the World Cup. The weather conditions on race day were less than desirable and possibly the worst I have ever raced in, but it was a great opportunity to get a feel for the muddy clay course at it’s worst and test out the new Conti X Kings. I ended the race well off the pace of the leaders, but in 5^th without digging too deep and was happy to stand on the podium shaking hands with some of the best in the world.

Unfortunately over the next few days my cold deteriorated, even with easy training days on the bike and an improvement in the weather! The training rides were spent riding around Queen Elizabeth Park with the Zebra’s and Springbok’s, as well as checking out Karkaloo Falls and the traditional South African wears.

 

I ended up at the doctors and was put straight onto antibiotics, that combined with ice cream cleared up my sore throat, giving me the best possibility to have a successfully opening World Cup.

After another few days of light training including a few little hit outs on the course, race day had arrived. The race was extremely fast as expected, but my visualisation of how the race would play out for me didn’t quite happen.  I had a pretty big crash over the hangers on the start loop and although I felt like I had good leg strength, I didn’t seem to have the engine to back it up on the day. I was disappointed with finishing 46^th, but it was great to get a few points on the board and am looking forward to improving at the next World Cup at Dalby Forest in the UK!