I did not think my legs wanted to pedal a bike fast again a week after Joburg2c! I did not want to put pressure on myself to do the Gravel Travel during the week, so I did not pre-enter. I left the decision to last the minute, I wanted to see how I felt. Since the race was a series race, and only 35 minutes away from home and on some of my favourite single tracks I decided to give it a go, but completely without expectations since I didn’t know how far I had come in the recovery process after Joburg2C and a week of rest.
It was a relatively big ladies field on the start line and the race started with a steady uphill which after 3-4 kilometers got very steep. I knew Mariske Strauss would be a hot contender for the first spot today so I gave everything to stay with her up the steep climb, Robyn De Groot was also with us. At the top it was only the 3 of us and when I turned around I could not see anyone else. Mariske is a cross country rider so guess she had an advantage on the 2 ex-roadies on the single tracks. Me and Robyn worked together to get back to Mariske and road together for a while before she got away again on another single track and we chased her back again, and so it went on until the 40km mark when Mariske eventually stayed away.
Me and Robyn road the rest of the race together and I guess we gave up the chase a bit, maybe we should have chased a bit more cause we were only 1 minute behind at the finish, but both of us had Joburg2c-legs so not sure we could have done it anyway…
Getting closer to the finish the racing-devil kicked in and I wanted to lead the way through the corners but it did not help so when we reached the last downhill before the last corner 500 meters from the finish Robyn was right on my wheel. There was no other tactic to follow then to take the corner first and then give it my all and hope for the best. I did exactly that and just just managed to get over the line in front of Robyn to grab 2nd place.
It was my first podium in a MTN Marathon series race so I am very happy that I decided to do the race.
Now I have another few rest days coming up before I start Sani2C in the colours of Asrin on Thursday!
Where will they take us??? Am looking a bit worried;)
Podium with Cathrine, Robyn, Mariske, me and Samantha
Also won the sub-vets category:-)