I was very excited to be riding my new bike and back on a duel suspension. What I did not expect was the floods and rains. I won this event last year so I definitely wanted to defend this title but I was up against Multi sport nemesis Dan Hugo. Dan and I have a great racing history and we have a very healthy battle on the race course. Our track record for this course was 2:1 to me. Dan is an exceptional Mountain Biker and I am a faster swimmer and runner. Put the race together we have a head on battle to the finish.
As I had hoped to do, I led the swim from start to finish. However, my lead ended going into the mountain bike. I had clearly not paid much attention to the JHB weather these last few weeks, and, what is usually a dry, sandy, rocky course had now been turned into a mud bath. I was caught completely unaware and was therefore badly prepared with incorrect tyres for this type of terrain. I crashed my new bike 6 times, so ended up loosing valuable time on each crash – the very first crash knocking my handlebars and seat skew.
I eventually reached the run leg where I managed to catch up valuable time lost, however this was not enough to take the win. I finished in 2nd place behind Dan Hugo and ahead of Rob Worstenburg from Belgium (2006 World Duathlon Champ).
My next race is National Xterra Champs in 3 weeks time where I plan to be back with a vengeance!