Friday, 18 March 2011 12:14
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250km in 26 hours
This past weekend, Team Cyanosis entered a male pair team into the Kinetic Double Moon Adventure Race. Racing as Team First Ascent Cyanosis, the team blitzed the course around the hillier parts of the Free State, including the towns of Bethlehem, Fouriesburg and Clarens. 250km and 26 hours later, they were the first team to cross the finish line.
The race was superbly well organised by Kinetic, and served as top-class training for South Africa's big one, the 500km Expedition Africa race to be held in May in the Western Cape.
Here follows Nicholas and Nathan's account of the race....
Day 1: 05h00 - 06h00
The 'gun' went and the teams were off. Seven check points, on foot, any order, navigation in the dark. At least teams were fresh after a good nights sleep in tented accommodation provided by the race organisers, Stephan and Heidi of Kinetic. We even had a chocolate for each racer placed carefully on our mattress.... sigh. Back to the action. Nathan Thompson had once again joined Team Cyanosis, who has far too many team members currently trotting around the far-flung reaches of the globe. Nathan and I (Nicholas) were racing as a male pair, having tried in vain to field a full mixed team of four. No luck, so now all we had to do was race each other into the ground and see who cracked first.
We streaked off to find what we termed an easy control. We'd tackle the harder ones when the sun rose. No luck. My Suunto compass is brought into play. After a couple minutes of searching with Kelvin and Lightee from Team Salomon, we realised we were still too short. Sucess a few minutes later. Off to the next one. The sun rose and Teams First Ascent Cyanosis and Salomon kept up the pace, ticking off the check points one by one.
Day 1: 06h00 - 07h00
15 km and a hill or two later, the two teams run into the first transition. Two minutes later we were on the water, paddling a sit-on-top kayak around a small dam in the mist. Team Salomon, being somewhat famous for their paddling ability, claw back the one minute deficit and opened another one.
06h58 - Nathan takes an unexpected swim whilst portaging the boat over a low-level bridge... he he. Team Assitport will encounter the same swim 48 hours later in their Land Cruiser... he he he. Who said Land Cruisers could go anywhere?
Day 1: 07h00 - 08h00
Into transition and a very quick change gives us a gap on Team Salomon as we fly out on our mountain bikes. We even catch race photographer Erik napping. Nathan tries to run him down as a wake-up call... more he he.
Lots of fast district dirt roads means high speed. We find ourselves averaging over 25km/hr. This is BIG training for Expedition Africa.
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