XTERRA Grabouw

Grabouw is a tiny village nestled in the beautiful Oak valley lined with apple orchards as far as the eye can see. Hard to believe that this tranquil valley was the setting for the biggest XTERRA event (off road triathlon) in the world, but quite fitting considering the event also incorporated the South African XTERRA Championships.

 

Grabouw would only be my second ever triathlon, or in my case ‘try’-athlon. It’s supposed to consist of a 1,5km swim, a 27km mountain bike leg and finally a 12km trail run, but for me it is more like a 1,5km survival float, a bike sprint and capped off with a 12km suffer fest!

 

At 8:35am on Sunday morning the gun sounded and we started our swim/self propelled float around the buoys in the Eikenhof dam. Despite the fact that it was a wetsuit swim I still lost a lot of time to the leaders, but this only served as motivation to make up for the lost time on the mountain bike leg.

 

The mountain bike course was really to my liking and although I was delayed through a few singletrack sections (damn those fast swimmers!), I could feel I was going pretty well on the bike. The final stretch of the bike course was also pretty technical and a lot of fun to ride. By the sheer volume of riders I had passed, I knew my bike leg had been strong (and my swim leg slow – but that would be seeing the glass half empty) and a decent run would render a solid result.

 

I set out on the run intent on keeping a good rhythm the whole way. It was a lofty ambition as the course was anything but easy with steep climbs, and worse, steep downhills or quad killers as I have dubbed them...

 

In an attempt to improve my transition times and on the ill fated advice of some (ex) friends, I was also running without socks. Now this might look fast, but the sad truth is that barefoot trail running leads to badly blistered feet. Needles to say, by saving 20seconds in transition I have become good friends with Merthiolate in the last few days...

 

Only 3 guys passed me on the run and that only in the final kilometre by which time my legs had no resistance to offer anyway, netting me 15th place on the day. At first I was disappointed with the result, but upon reflection it was achieved against a much stronger field than the same result at Buffelspoort, so I guess it was okay while leaving plenty of room for improvement.

 

I also won my age category and along with it the age group title for XTERRA South Africa which was very unexpected and a nice bonus.

 

Meanwhile, in the real race South African Olympian Richard Murray edged out the legendary Caveman, Conrad Stoltz for the win with Dan Hugo rounding out the podium. Unfortunately Conrad had taken a wrong turn during the run and upon review the officials disqualified him. Not what anyone wanted, but I’m sure the Caveman will bounce back at the Abu Dhabi triathlon next weekend.

 

Final results:
1. Richard Murray
2. Dan Hugo
3. Nico Pfitzenmaier
4. Stuart Marais
5. Bradley Weiss

 

It was good fun to try something new and a big thanks to everyone who encouraged me to try a new sport and supported me during my transition (excuse the pun). I will definitely not be hanging up my wetsuit and running shoes soon and will look to add a few of these suffer-bike-survive events to my racing calendar.

 

Until next time, happy trails!

 

Melt