Phuthu Stay Phut, Don't go!

I don’t usually let my delusional husband on the loose on Phuthu.co.za but he wrote such a lovely post that we made an exception!

So how did our Cape Epic adventure all start you may ask? A friend suggested that I take a lottery entry last year. Without much thought I entered, not thinking much of my chances of winning an entry.  I had the attitude that if it was meant to be it would be!

Then, on 13^th of July I got the email: Congratulations, your Absa Cape Epic lottery entry was successful! Wow, now what to do? Could I manage the 8 days? Who would I ride with?

My obvious choice of partner was Louise (KAFNO (known as from now on) as Hungry), my wife and best friend, but would she been interested? I asked her and she said she would think about it! She said nothing about it for a few days, then at midnight on my birthday, 16 July, whilst I was getting up to go to the loo, she pipes up; “yes, ill do the Epic with you”

So, we needed a plan on how to get prepared for this thing. We got a training program from Polar and decided on the 16 week program which peaked at 18 hours per week. Think about it, 18 hours is 3 hrs per day 6 days a week!

We decided to make the training fun and set our goals at doing a new fun ride every week where possible. We had two other members keen for anything, the ever cheerful and positive Tony Cole (TC) and the ever so elegant Carla (Binky Bonker). The  “hardcore four” is what we named ourselves!

We had others join us for most rides and another regular fixture to our group was doughy Di. These fun rides with fun people made the training easy for me. I never had to drag myself to training, the ride and the gang was foremost and the training was secondary.

The first 7 months or so of training went rather slowly. However, it seemed as though the closer we got to the event, the faster it approached. The last month just flew past and before we knew it the Epic was upon us! The reality of the event finally hit home the Monday before we left for Cape Town when I packed up our bikes and delivered them for courier to Cape Town. Next thing I knew we were on the plane to CT and the next thing we were on the start line!

The week of the race seemed to go so fast.  Time ticked on relentlessly and the days we were dreading (long days of 115km) soon came and passed. It’s strange how time just keeps moving whether you want the moment to last forever or hurry up and move on!

The race went perfectly to plan; we had no technical problems or punctures. And although there were some tough sections and long days, I can honestly say that we thoroughly enjoyed the actual event, not just the satisfaction of reaching the finish.

The race was so much more that I had expected it to be, it was special for many reasons, the satisfaction of completing a tough event, the support of friends and family before, during and after the event, the camaraderie of the other riders, the genuine congratulations at the finish and just being outdoors having adventure in one of the most beautiful places on earth.

The finish was also a very special experience. I have finished many long tough events, the comrades being one of them but never before have I felt quite the same emotion just getting to the end. I am not sure why, if it was for myself or for my pride in my partner and best friend, Hungry.

The finish atmosphere was also amazing. Massive green fields full of smiling, happy riders and their friends and family picnicking all over the show on a beautiful sunny afternoon in a spectacular setting was awesome, we didn’t want to leave….

I suppose the main reason for the event being so special to us really was the people:-

To our fellow riders who we trained with week after week and finished the race with us: Carla Binky Bonker and Mylo, Doughy and Paul  M, Ursh and Paul, Gary and Howard, Jason and Chris (with a broken hand!) Jimmy and Roddy, Gordon and Jess, Phillippe and Rafael, GI and Travis, and all the other Toyota guys.

And to so many people who helped and supported us is doing this wonderful event, our good friend and doctor Stevie B for his daily calls, and to TC, Bridgi, Shane, Shirl, Chris VK, Jay Hall, Jilly, Mom, Dad, Sharon W, Craigie, Wobber, Mark F, Mike Bosse, Trav W, Juan, Terry F, Tim W, Jonny Dangerous, Eric for their calls and messages of support.

And at the race villages, to Rohan for personalized deliveries of results, Colin and Kirk from Morningside Cycles for their tech help, Mike and Des for being the worlds best seconds.(unluckily they weren’t seconding us!), to Maddeliefie for the great soothing massages and Ian for all his running around.

Also to Team Toyota for inviting us into their VIP enclosures and treating us as a part of their team, many thanks! Go out and buy a Toyota Folks!

To Trevor for house sitting and for feeding our cats, George and Frank and for the cake (We didn’t get any SMS’s from our cats but I think they were out of air time!)

And finally to the hundreds of volunteers who gave up their time to make the race a success. It was your spirit that made the event such a success.

All those people mentioned above combined to make the whole experience such a special one. So all I can say now is, if you haven’t done the Epic, do it! We have proved that anyone can do it if they are prepared to put in the training. Sure it’s expensive but well worth it, it was an experience to make you feel like you are alive!

My husband is crazy. He’s going through a definite delusional patch. I would be more descriptive but I can’t find the adjectives. Let me do a day-by-day run down.

Saturday:

We finish ABSA Cape Epic. 8 days of gruelling riding. We trained for 9 months. Nine, nege, neuf, 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9 months!

Sunday

• Wake-up, pack bags, scoff food down. Collect bike bags from Cape Town B&B, pack bikes into boxes…I’ll save you the detail…we did admin
• Wait around at airport
• Spot guys wearing their mustard Cape Epic finishers t-shirts. Dorky but cute.
• Devour bar of Toblerone
• Kulula flight is delayed. Wow what a surprise!
• Cringe whilst listening to cheesy Kulula jokes
• Nudge the stranger next to me. His chubby arms are on my side of the arm rests and I’m starting to feel claustrophobic. This is my side and that is your side buddy, see.
• Start dozing off, keeping one eye on the drinks trolley. Need water.
• Crash out for 2 hours
• Collect baggage & drive home. Intermittent outbursts of “Put your handz up in za aire” song although not with the same vigour as usual. Too tired.
• Make happy, baby-like cooey noises when we reunite with our felines Frank and George. “Helllllloooo my boooooys, aaah yes, hellllllloooo my precious little things, we missed youuuuu”.
• Brother has left big, dark chocolate cake for us (with lots of icing). Scoff down with 5 Roses tea.
• Husbands loopy, delusional phase begins: Go to Woolies – need healthy food. Waiting in line, CamelToe comes up to me and says “Hey there is a race this weekend in Baynesfield, you wanna do it?”. The expression on my face says WTF? – “uhhhh, let me think about it, uhhhh, NO!”
• Haven’t you had enough of mountain biking yet for crying in a proverbial bucket!
• Eat
• Bed
• Both wake up at 2am. Wide awake. Hunger pains. Scoff Cake.Chat.

Monday:

Husbands loopy, delusional phase continues:

CamelToe mistakes the delusions for PJD – Post Jol Depression.

So…..he starts thinking about the next event he can do. He doesn’t think little 40km event here, 80km event there. No nee no no.

“Hey do you wanna do the TransAlps in July.” He says out of the blue.

“Uhhh, that one with almost 3000m climbing a day…uhhh, let me think about it, uhhh, NO!”

My WTF? facial expression follows

“Maybe I’ll do it with Pieter (our Austrian mate) then”

“Good idea hun!”

Camel sms’s Pieter his Austrian mate.

Austrian mate is keen but entries have closed.

Austrian mate pulls some strings.

They’re in.

The face of delusion..my man

Wooooooooo Hoooooooooo! We finished! We can finally tick the Cape Epic check box. It seems so surreal.

So our last day, which was Saturday, was short (60km) but tough. CamelToe clearly had the “turbo engine” whilst I just had, well, an engine. About an hour in, we spotted Paul and Ursula who had started in a batch before us. Needless to say that CamelToe fined tuned the turbo when he spotted them. This was great for me because it meant that I got sporadic pushes up the hills. Heaven!

We got to ride down a mother-of-a-mother climb that we rode up on the first day. Man it was fun. I passed quite a few riders, each time shouting “Overtaking on your right” and then thinking please don’t let me wipe out now, you’ll look like a real tonsil. Anyway, I got to the bottom in one piece.

I didn’t have any falls during the entire race except for the last 5km. I went around a corner, probably got a bit too much front brake and the next thing I knew, I was sniffing gravel. Ugggh. I gave myself an 8/10 for dismount, It could’ve been more spectacular if I had done an endo or something, but no I just did a side swivel thingie.

It happened in a neutral zone which meant that no one could pass me at that stage so I had to get back on my bike real fast. A cyclist behind me shouted “Rider Down” to warn everyone else to slow down. Am I down? Really? Oh crap I am too. Shoulder intact, collar bone intact, no bleeding, sjoe! But I still got such a fright, I could feel my bottom lip doing one of those jelly-type wobbles that usually precede a tearful saga.  Pull yourself towards yourself demmit!

Then in the semi-emotional state that I was in, I started imagining myself and CamelToe crossing the finish line and the mere thought made me let out a loud, real dorky, gasp. Pull yourself towards yourself demmit! Peddle. CamelToe looked over his shoulder to see where I was and I bravely put on my serious-racing-no-daydreaming-expression. You know that one?

Finally we reached Lourensford. Spectators were cheering along the finish chute as we rode in. The cheers were loud and genuine. Don’t ask me how I know what a genuine cheer is, I just do okay!

German commentator, Mike Mike called our names “and hea are my bez friendz zee Camel and zee Toe and zee Hungry and zee Bum, Jeremy and Louise Sanders”. As we crossed the finish line we both felt overwhelmed by emotion, a bit choked up.  After 9 months of training, we had achieved our goal. Finally.

For any mountain biker out there, you simply have to do this race. I can’t explain everything we experienced, there is just so much to tell, but what I can say is that this was one of the best experiences we’ve ever had. It’s more than we ever thought it would be; the scenery, the people, the atmosphere, the laughs, and the challenge – everything was exceptional.

Thank-you:

CamelToe: I couldn’t have asked for a better partner, you rock! xx

Des and Mike: Thanks for shouting for us and for giving us a taste of the campervan life. Thanks Dawg!

Kirk and Colin from Morningside Cycles: Thank-you for sorting out our bikes. Yeti’s are the bomb!

Maddie (Physio-in-the-making): What a precious girl you are! Thanks for all the massages and support along route. You worked so hard and yet you were always smiling, you go girl!

Ian: (biokineticist-in-the-making):  The best premium host ever! Nothing was too much for you, you were professional, hard working and had an awesome attitude to the whole event. Good luck with the studies and we hope to see you doing the Epic some time!

G.I and Trav: Thanks for the Toyota VIP access guys! And Trav..well done on your first mtb race.

And to all our friends for the sms’s and phone calls.

This is sounding way too “Oscar”

Well Done:

Binks, Mylo, CamelToe, Pinkie and Paul M, Ursh and Paul P, Grandma and Jesse Boy, Gary Green and Partner and everyone else who finished!

Official ABSA Cape Epic Results can be found here

Sportograf – Official Cape Epic Photographers and Your Cape Epic Photos

I’ll leave you with the “Putt your handz up in za aire” song (our favourite at the start line)

…but this is the official ABSA Cape Epic 2009 song by ACDC

In line to receive our medals

Maddie – Our Physio Angel!

Ian – The Best Premiun Host Ever

CamelToe, as always, took some awesome pics today.

Fun descent.

Happy snap with Mike Mike.

Chilling at the start chute.

Commentator ,Mike Mike dancing to the music in the morning, getting everyone all pumped!

What a pic!

We thought yesterdays last 3 km were mean. Well, we were wrong – that seemed easy in comparison to todays final 30km. The hills were relentless. Although we were only out there for 7 hours it felt much longer, more like 9 hours. I think both of us experienced more of a mental tiredness than physical fatigue. CamelToe ran out of water about 5km from the end and then I ran out at 2km to go so that didn’t help things and it was baking hot.  I had sweat running off my arms.. at one point I thought it looked kinda sexy but then I felt my nostrils caked with sand so that put an end to that…
 
Way too much sharing, sorry.
 
So although we curse about the unrelenting hill climbs, CamelToe and I remind ourselves every now and then that the Epic is actually not hard in the real sense of the word. We did sign up for it after all and when you think of people, like those who we saw today working in the blistering sun repairing railway lines, you realise what hard is. Living below the poverty line is hard, being homeless is hard, losing a child is hard, the Epic is merely physically challenging at times. 
 
Getting sentimental… moving on.
 
5 Days down, 2 to go!
 
Time to get some sleep.. zzzz

How pretty is this photo?!

Another beautiful morning.

Getting warmed up for the mountains ahead.

Cyclists snaking up the mountain. Eish!

The Epic course designer goes by the name of “Dr.Evil” and aptly so because he does evil things! Today we were about 3km from home (we could see the town it was so close) and Dr. Evil took us off the relaxing district road that we were meandering along and sent us up the mountain..and up..and up some more..and then down…and then up some more. Needless to say I thought of a lot more descriptive names than “Dr.Evil“.
 
We were on the bike for 7 hours today and up until the last 3km, we loved every minute. Thereafter we cursed a bit.
 
Eish… the leaders got a one hour time penalty today and won’t even make a podium finish… bummer!
 
I had a little fall today, was actually quite funny. I had just come out of the water stop and the premium package hosts (all varsity students) were shouting our names, “Go Jeremyyyyyyyy, go Louiseeeeee, woooo hoooooo”.  I got terribly excited by their cheering and then to add to the excitment, I had a packet of Jelly Tots in the other hand waiting to be devoured and before I knew it I had lost my concentration and crashed into another cyclist who had stopped on the side of the road. Doh! It was worth it though.
 
Anyway, we’re over the “hump” of the Epic, 4 days down and 3 to go!  And I have no chafe.

Us at the start.

Varsity students cheering for us. This is when I got a little excited.

Up we go again.

Cursing Dr. Evil.