New Balance Trio, Totalsports Challenge, 12 January 2008

 – By Sean Hutchinson

 Driving through to Rooi Els the night before the race had me worried. The wind was pumping!!! I really did not feel like paddling into the teeth of a howling South Easter before sunrise the following morning. Oh well, after a thorough equipment check we were in bed early listening to the blustery wind outside.

4:30 am. The alarm’s start going off and some strong will power was needed to stop me from pressing the snooze button. However, the alarm was the only thing I was hearing…. No wind!

After a quick breakfast, we were on the road towards the start with some very tightly packed cars. 2 bikes, a surfski, a k1, a cooler box, a race crate as well as Mike and Quintin all crammed into my Jetta (The bikes were on the back seat).

Arriving at the start, the conditions were sublime and with many surfskis lined up on the beach the excitement and anticipation started to build.

6:30 am. We were off on the 13 km paddle, over 100 surfskis crammed together as we made our way out into the bay. The beginning of the paddle was great; I managed to get into a good rhythm and glided along with the 1^st half of the field. Things were going well, as we knew that paddling was not going to be out team’s strong point. However, about three quarters of the way out to the turn buoy on the first lap, my shoulder started to give me some trouble (apparently I had still not recovered from dislocating my shoulder a few weeks prior to the race) and I slowly started loosing positions. Though I was hurting, I pushed on as hard as I could; knowing that I would not be doing any paddling later in the day and that a nice two hour break was on the cards until my next leg. After almost one and a half hours paddling, I exited the water a broken and furious man to hand over the “Livestrong Band” to Mike to take on the swimming leg.

Here is Mike’s account of the 1,5km swimming leg:

“The swimming conditions were great with flat water and a comfortable water temperature. I was able to quickly slide into a comfortable stroke which saw me passing about 15 swimmers on the first lap and then another 10 on the second. The wetsuit that I used from orca helped considerably and kept me buoyant, allowing me to transfer all my energy into maintaining strong strokes. I really enjoyed the swim as it has been a long time –since school- that I have competed in a swimming event. Considering two weeks of training I felt very strong in the last 200m and caught the 3 swimmers ahead of me before handing over to Quintin who headed off and warp speed bike leg!”

Now, for the legs which we were good at. With Quintin heading off on the 50km road cycle through to Klienmond, Mike and I decided to have a nice relaxing shower, to get rid of the salt water, and slowly packed the car before heading off towards the end of the bike leg. Driving along the road we kept an eye out for Quintin as we passed many a bunch of cyclist, plus the odd individual caught in no-mans-land between bunches. Quintin was nowhere to be seen, he was having a scorcher. We eventually caught up to him just outside of Klienmond, where he handed over to Mike for the 13km road run.

Hers is Mike’s account of the run:

“Hot hot hot! Felt a little drained after and the swim and the heat. The run went pretty well. A little slower than I would have liked but I did pass about 30 other contestants. Found the road running to be very hot and unshaded with a long run until the first refreshing water table. Once that was on board felt much stronger and surged ahead taking more of the quicker contestants. My time was between 47 and 48 minutes which is around 3:50 a km which is fine considering the conditions. The most enjoyable part was launching off the road into the bush where the terrain was less monotonous and the shade more forgiving. Had my music pumping in my ears which offered motivation on the long hard straights.”

After leaving Mike at the beginning of the run, we headed through to the next transition. On turning off the main road towards the transition area, we were greeted with bumper to bumper traffic as the seconds tried to get their athlete’s boats and mountain bikes down to the combined transition area. While trying to find a parking space, Quintin got changed into his paddling kit on the fly next to the car as we slowly made our way forward. Once down by the water, the paddling conditions looked fantastic, but no sooner had Mike come storming into transition to hand over to Quintin did the wind pick up turning the calm estuary into a windswept nightmare, with crosswinds battering the paddlers over the whole 12km route. With paddling times being greatly affected my the wind, Quintin managed to push through in a little over 70 minutes while still holding our overall race position. He handed over to me and I set on the 25km mountain bike leg on a huge mission, still fuming from my terrible paddle earlier and needing to make it up to my team.

Starting the bike leg at an immense pace the heart rate quickly shot up into the mid 180’s, and there it would stay until I came blasting into the final transition 75 minutes later. All the time in the mountains of late paid off, assaulted the initial 6km climb with out any problems, overtaking about 15 other racers during the climb. The rest of the bike leg saw me picking off competitor after competitor, with some serious disregard for my safety on the downhills!

Coming into the transition for the 9km team beach run, I was feeling strong, and we set off onto the soft sand of the beach in good spirits. Mike was feeling very strong and shortly after the 4km mark, Quintin and I grabbed a tow from the shoulder straps of Mike’s camel back as we glided past many a fading team in the last 5km to finish strongly in 12th position.

All in all, it was an amazing race, though we all think we could have done better, we enjoyed the race and will take what we learned for the race into future events. Anna and Ryan had a strong race as Team New Balance in the Terra Firma event finishing in 3^rd place (1^st mixed team, though there was not mixed category).