My 1st Cape Argus Cycletour - Results

The stats are out...

Results For: Cronje, Tharina

Event Date:	Event Name:	Race Time:	Position:	Gender Position:	Start Group:	Group Position:	Age Group:	Age Position:	Avg Speed:
10/03/2013	Cape Argus Pick n Pay Cycle Tour (110km)	04:33:31	15636/31305	1867/6114	JJ	267/573	F 30-34	240/790	24.13

Cecilia, myself, Elisca & Simon set off to the start line. Elisca & I bumped into Ray Hince that Elisca has met in 2010 whilst training for The TRansAlps, it is so nice to see a familiar face. Ray is also working at the ABSA Cape Epic with me on Waterpoint 2.

As we stood at the start line all my favourite songs played, Rihanna - We Found Love, Yeah-Yeah-Yeah from Chris Brown I think, Pokkeltjie's Waka Waka and off course Eye of the Tiger.

I got told, keep right, whatever you do, do NOT get caught in the middle. So I stayed on the right most of the time and if I was anywhere else I soon realised why I was supposed to keep right, so I quickly made my way right again.

After working hard on my own to get back to my group I decided this is going to be a long & tiresome day, so I jumped onto the slip of groups as they came past, shoo-wee that made a difference, I was sommer quickly back in a bunch.

Realistically I thought 5 hours would be do-able for me, so when I got to St James station at the 26km mark, I saw on the race pace chart that I was on track to finish in 4:30, so I wanted to do my best to finish in that time.

Now when we packed my bike, they guys wanted to mark my saddle and I said, no don't worry about that, but then when I got to this side, my sister's friend, Niklaas saw the state of my bike. By the way according to my standards, my bike was clean... As we put the bike together Niklaas went home to get grease, on his return he only then saw my cassette and at that point he told me the following... "Tharina, I'm going to put your bike together now and then I'm taking it home and you can pick it up later today." He also wanted to mark my saddle to which I said, no don't worry. So on Saturday night we picked up my bike, I have never seen any bike let alone my own bike SO CLEAN. It was as good as new. I felt ashamed that someone else that I don't even know that well washed my bike so well, but I also felt so PROUD and CHUFFED about this new bike of mine. #inmynoppies.

Just after Fishhoek I realised I will have to stop and adjust my saddle as my knee was getting sore. If only I marked my saddle, but no I knew better and thought I'll be able to see the marks of where I usually have is, but as a matter of fact, Niklaas washed my seatpost so clean, that there was NO TRACE of any markings.

A guy with calves, hairy legs and not a fancy bike came past me and made a comment, he just sounded so happy, I saw that he had a nice pace that I could keep up with so I sat in his slip for a bit and he paced me back into some faster groups, Simon then caught up with me as we approached the 40km mark, he started about 8 minutes after us. We stayed together for a while before he went off again. It was so nice to have some company for a while.

I also made this deal with myself that if I have to stop it will only be after half-way.

On the decent of Smitswinkel my knee really started hurting, it was fine whilst I was pedalling, but when I had to free, it was so painful, so I stopped at the waterpoint with 54km to go. It is incredible how you are in auto-pilot when you are on your bike, I was like a druggie asking for coke, on a normal day I don't even drink coke. I then saw physio's... ahh physio's. A little boy took hold of my bike and a lady started sorting my knee out, I was so grateful. I tightened my saddlepost as I think it was sliding down whilst riding and off I went. So I lost valuable time on this, but I just thought I'm not risking going through so much pain for the next 54km to the end.

It took a while to get some nice rhythm again and I've also lost my group again... at some point on the back of the mountain, I'd like to refer to this as the 'darkside' of the mountain I cycled passed an old man who looked up and told me, "You are going like a boeing." This made me chuckle, but lifted my spirits so much.

The next 20km I tried to figure out where I was on my race chart, if only I studied the map, but then I do better when I don't know what lies ahead of me. I was subtracting distances, adding them etc etc, it made me forget about the pain. Just before Noordhoek, there was a few easy gradient slow hills and the wind was blowing a bit, I moved to the left of all the riders, using them as wind shelter and made up some time.

As we got to Noordhoek everyone knew Chapmans Peak is next up, now I've never even driven round this way so I did not know what to expect and I didn't even look in the starter pack at the route either. It's a good thing and a bad thing. I felt good, my knee was fine, I've popped a few shot blocks down the road. I overtook people as we were going up, we got to the top & I thought, is this it? So I asked a guy was that Chappies? He said no-no-no... I now know that, that hill is referred to as fake Chappies. At the bottom of fake Chappies, I also witnessed my first crash of the day from the corner of my right eye. A mountainbiker was getting tired, not thinking, not indicating, sitting on the right of the road, stopped dead and another mountainbiker was overtaking him on the right. BOOM CRASH!

Soon I went round the bent and knew what people were talking about, a young guy came round the corner and saw the long line of people at the same time as me & he was just so deflated. I said to him, don't look up, look in front of you & just keep on pedalling. Half-way up Chappies, a guy came passed me and said good going or something, I looked up and saw it is the mountainbiker that crashed, he was back on his bike and had only a hole in his tights, he turned out to be a brother of a guy that I studied with who's name I still can't remember, they all look the same that is how I knew who he was. It was nice to see someone you 'know or know off'. Chappies is a nice climb, the gradient is fine, it is nice in the shadow with the overhanging rocks and you just keep pedalling till you get to the top.

Now I was riding my mountainbike with slicks, so that justified wearing a camelbak. Sorry Bonty & Andy. I stopped after Chappies to fill up my camelbak as I didn't know what to expect from Suikerbossie & it was getting warm by now. Descending Chappies - KEEP RIGHT! On the left there are no barriers and if you fall there, you will end up in the sea. We have such a beautiful country, only one place like Cape Town.

This leads us to Suikerbossie. Suikerbossie is just unnecessary, by now I was running behind schedule to make my 4:30 and I just wanted to get it out of the way so I can get to the Finish. I didn't know how long it is, how much of this suffering I still had to endure... There was thousands of people sukkeling to get to the top, this is the only time I made use of my granny gear. The people on the side encouraging us was irratating me, you can do it, do this, do that. I just wanted to shout back, come climb on my bike and DO IT THEN. I think the heat played a role here and by now everybody was tired and people couldn't think anymore, they were doing silly things. Little boys were pushing larger people up Suikerbossie, that is against my principles though. If you get pushed or dragged by someone once, your mental battle becomes so much bigger, that is just my opinion.

I got to the 16km to go mark and had 30 minutes left, now I knew that I would've been able to make 13km in 30 minutes, but wasn't sure about 16km in 30 minutes. I just kept going...

When we got to Camps Bay all the Cape Argus poster were referring to it as Cramps Bay. I thought ha-ha that is funny, thinking no cramps for me today... Mmm just as I started freeing again, a little cramp in my left hammy appeared, so I quickly decided, you SHALL PEDAL TO THE END, no cramps today!

It was the longest 16km of my life... I stopped looking at my watch at 4:22 and decided to go all out and see where I end. My ETA in my head after my pitstops was 4:37/4:38... the last 3km ended up being a sprint and I even went passed a few people.

I FINISHED 4:33:31 and I am very happy with that!

Facts, tips and lessons of the day:

SPUR!!!

1. It was great seeing my Dolla again and starting the race with her
2. We have a beautiful city - only one Cape Town
3. Mark your saddle
4. Prepare better - look at the route so you know where you are on the race pace chart
5. Seeing people you know lifts your spirits
6. It sucks getting to the FINISH and there is NO-ONE there to support or receive you
7. Spur burger, chips and Spur sauce is the best after race food I was able to dream off
8. Always keep right and carry on
9. Agree a meeting place to find your friends afterwards before the race
10. It is very well organised and everybody is so helpful
11. Grateful I did it on my mtb - would've been much more nervous on my roadbike

Quote of the day:
You are going like a boeing. (Unknown man who finished his 12th Argus - I saw him in the bikepark afterwards again)

Ps. Sorry technology not working with me, that is why there is a lack of photos... another lesson to be learnt, time to upgrade to a smarter phone. #stubbornness

Bikepark for 35000 bikes

All the FINISHERS!