Coach Beck warned me about a stage like today. Totally
strung out, pace lined, working at maximal effort not to get dropped. Today was
that stage. It was mainly a 112 km gravel grinder through rolling farmland,
some singletrack but pretty minimal today, and a hard section of climbing right
at the end. But hey, it’s hump day today (4 out of 7 stages done) so why not
start to race each stage like it’s almost the last? Much of today’s stage was
spent in a paceline trying (desperately at times) not to get dropped and not to let
my partner down. There was a stiff headwind in the beginning of the race so it paid off to stay with a group. I did a good job with that today and was thankful there are
lots of fast roadies to train with back home because it definitely felt like a
road race today. There was some beautiful scenery too, and the mountain passes
we climbed through at the end of the stage were pretty amazing. We rode by
several bright blue lakes in the last 1/3 of the stage, and I kept thinking how
nice it would be to jump in. Today was a point-to-point race so we started in
Greyton this morning and finished in Elgin, where we will be for the next 3
nights.
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The stage finishing chute. So much relief when we make it here each day |
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The finishing line and view of the race village in Elgin |
We have fallen into a pretty good routine here in South
Africa. Our alarm goes off at 5:00 am, breakfast at 5:15, and buses leave for
the race around 5:30-6 depending on how far away our hotel is. At the race
start, we get our bikes from our mechanic, Grant, slather on sunscreen, and
check into the starting corral usually about 20-30 minutes before our start so
we can get a good starting position. At 7:15, the whistle blows, and we are off
for a day of racing. It is such a relief when we arrive back at the race
village and cross the finishing line. We get handed cold wet washcloths and
paper bags with sandwiches, apples and full cream chocolate milk, which I
usually try to drink down right away. We then change out of our soaking wet
racing kits and board the buses back to the hotel. The rest of the day is all about
recovery. Shower, massages, Normatech legs, snacks, dinner, lots of water, some blogging and then it’s time to pack for the next stage and get into bed
before 9. Every other day, we have to pack up our race suitcases with
everything we are traveling with for the race and they get transported to the
next hotel for us while we are out racing.
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Our hotel in Elgin - The Houw Hoek Hotel. One of the oldest hotels in South Africa |
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My room for the next 3 nights |
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Post-race meal with John and Reid. I'm pretty sure the salad balances out the french fries |
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The massage therapists getting our legs ready for tomorrow |
The stomach issues have definitely started for a lot of us in the CTS group.
Lots of Cipro, Imodium and Zofran being passed around. Apparently, because the water
reservoir levels are really low right now, the bacterial content in the water here is higher, so we are on strict bottled water precautions for the rest of the
race. Brad and I are keeping our food down though. Tomorrow’s stage is supposed to be
a lot of fun singletrack, and we are looking forward to that. It's raining
outside my hotel room right now, so I’m hoping the trails dry out before the
start gun tomorrow morning.
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