Race Report by Team Giant/Jeep – Jan Schutte and Cass van Ardenne – Overall winners

Race Format:

• Two laps – starting with a 2-3km hilly run with a water crossing, then a 10-15km MTB with a tube/swim task

Having been unable to train consistently since the Totalsports Challenge, I was a little worried about my fitness coming into this event. There were a number of top du-athlete and tri-athlete pairings present including Richard Murray and Piet Jacobs, we would need to be on top of our game to ensure we could contend for a podium finish.

The pace started hard from the gun, but Jan and I had already decided to do the whole race at a consistent pace, so we let two teams pull away. As a result we left the first run/bike transition about 1 minute off leaders Murray & Jacobs.

The MTB route started with plenty of twisting single-track and hair-pin bends, which meant we couldn’t close the gap on the leaders as fast as we’d hoped.  It was not until we got to the first long straight that Jan and I could work together to close the gap on the 2^nd placed team, which we managed to do just before we started the first of two short, steep climbs. Once we had passed them, the leaders were only some 50m ahead, and after the next short climb we were in the lead.

Unfortunately as we tried to consolidate the lead we where met with a split in track ahead but there where no race board markings telling us which was to go. This resulted in a few moments of indecision and before we knew it all three team where together once again… our hard fought yards that we had just gained lost!

 The rule given to us at race briefing was to follow the green single track markings if there where no race route markings so all 3 teams headed down the green marked single track.

Jan led us smoothly through some great flowing single track and we emerged from a forest about 100 meters clear of the chasing 2 pairs… Then it was up and over the steepest climb of the route and down to the tube/swim task with about a 200m lead. 

It was during the swim that both Jan and I were caught by surprise – the previously 3rd placed team not only overtook us, but this “ Shark and Dolphin swim” pairing put about a 1 minute gap on us by the time we jumped back on our bikes!  So it was back on the gas as we tried to reclaim the lead on the MTB.

We entered the bike/run transition about 100m behind, but a quick transition had us level again heading out for lap two. It was here that I knew we had to push the pace on the hilly route to ensure we did not lose time to them again – they were about a minute quicker than us the first time round. Jan and I both ran very well and we even opened a gap of about 100m coming into the final transition.

From that point on it was all about ensuring we had a big enough gap before the next tube/swim leg .We pushed hard and I was beginning to feel the legs on the short climbs but as we dived into the water for the tube/swim we had opened up about a 2min lead. Would it be enough? The wind was up and the swim was tough trying to ensure the tube did not get blown away. As we rounded the buoy we saw they had already closed the gap to about 50m… it was going to be close!!

We dashed from the water onto the bikes with about a 50m gap and raced for home. This was more of a challenge than we had anticipated.  Not only did we have to negotiate the back-markers on the single-track, but I’d lost one of my contact lenses in the swim, making for a tricky final few km's – it can be pretty scary racing single-track with no depth perception!!!

It was all worth it in the end though – we crossed the finish line first with a full minute to spare.

It had been a great race and thanks to Ugene and his team for an excellent route and to his sponsors for the great prizes – I even walked away with a lucky draw from Thule.