Justin Porteous

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Tuesday, 05 January 2010 00:00

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Justin Porteous

South Africa has a proud tradition in XTERRA and Justin Porteous seems to be continuing this legacy. The 25-year-old Team Jeep athlete took his first strides in the international XTERRA arena with a strong age group podium finish at the XTERRA World Championships in Hawaii.

How did your training go leading up to the race? It went well. I started training with Lucie Zelenkova and the Tri Factory team after XTERRA SA Champs. Lucie really jacked up my training and got me going on the right road, before then I was just messing around. It was really difficult trying to work and train at the same time and took lots of determination.

Are you planning a full-time career in multisport or as a sideline to your career as a hydrologist? I would really like to look at taking my sport more seriously, without affecting my career as a hydrologist too much. I am thinking of some ideas of how to work less and train more; however to do this and survive would mean getting some sort of income from sponsors, so I’ll just have to see how it goes.

What was it like being beaten by a girl? And how did it feel being just two minutes behind the 20-25 World Champ? Julie Dibens is an amazing woman, but I’ll be honest... it always sucks losing to a woman (laughs). She is super strong and given the fact that there was no real technical riding in Maui, she had the upper hand. I’m happy with my silver medal, but I would have loved to have won my category.

What makes the XTERRA World Champs in Maui so tough? If you had to take the same course and run it over South African conditions, it wouldn’t be that tough a course. The bike route is pretty tough. You climb 1000m over 30km. There is no singletrack and the route predominantly consists of rocky off-road track, which can get pretty scary on the steep downhills, when going over 50km/h. The rock is formed from broken-down lava. It is very light and sharp and causes the bike to bounce all over the place. The run is definitely the toughest part of the race but only because of the 1600m-long haul along a really soft sandy beach, known as Makena Big Beach. The real difference is you are now racing with the top XTERRA athletes in the world, so the competition is like I’ve never experienced, which means you have to push harder than normal and the speed is ridiculously fast. For me the biggest factor was the heat. On race day it was roughly 35 degrees celsius with humidity at around 90%. It’s tough just to sit on the beach in that kind of heat never mind race!

What is it about multisport and XTERRA that appeals? Team Unlimited actually used a quote of mine for the race, “XTERRA is an exhilarating adventure set in a realm provided by mother nature”. It was even put on the main poster for the race, pretty cool. But for me what I most enjoy is the excitement of multisport; it’s fast, explosive racing and my body is only just starting to come to terms with the transitions of different disciplines. I love the outdoors and socializing and that’s what got me into it. I really enjoy the training side of things too as it’s not all the same thing so it helps keep it interesting. As you guys say “Life’s too short for one sport”. A great motto to live by, especially for me as I’ve always been a jack of all trades, master of none! Hopefully someday I’ll get closer to being a master of multisport.

Were you more focused on MTB before you discovered the joys of multisport? I wouldn’t say I’ve ever been too focused on any sport until now, but yes, I did mostly mountain biking before. I did my first Mudman race in 2006 and the bug bit. I then went onto to do my first XTERRA last year at Shongweni. Now I race in many multisport races such as XTERRA and the Jeep Multisport Series. I only started training for multisport seriously in the last couple of months. Before Grabouw I was running once a week and swimming twice.

How has being part of Team Jeep Apparel helped you? Team Jeep has been great for me. They have helped me financially and given me great support. Plus it’s always great having a place to crash at Max Cluer’s Athletes’ House when I head down to KZN for a race.

Originally published in Go Multi issue 13.5 (January/February 2010)