Triple Challenge 2009

On Sunday the 15th November, Mike and I took part in the Triple Challenge. As mentioned before, I was helluva nervous for this tri-athlon and I can now confirm that all reservations and fears of excruciating pain were not unfounded and it was by far the toughest physical experience I have ever endured. The good news though is that we finished, and in my mind, that’s all we set out to do. I have never been so happy as I was when after 8 hours and 53 minutes we finally crossed the finish line.

Out of the 3 legs, the run was my biggest concern, but as it turned out, I actually enjoyed it the most out of everything. It probably had something to do with the fact that it was the first leg of the day and my body felt fresh for most of the route. Anyone who says it’s downhill from PMB to Camperdown though, obviously hasn’t tried running it. There seemed to be an endless amount of hills and each one was tougher and tougher to get through. Overall though I was happy with the run because my hip and knee injuries that have been plaguing me for quite some time held up nicely, and I entered the transition area feeling good about the day. The 20km run was ticked off and we were ready for the ride.

An obvious occurrence on the day was that Mike waited for me quite a bit on the run and he was always just ahead of me trying to pull me along. No surprises there – Mike is substantially quicker than me in the running department. But the surprise of the day was by how much he effed me up in the ride as well. All his talk of me being the better rider had clearly gone to my head and I had completely underestimated the brutality of the 52km mountain bike ride from Camperdown to Inanda Dam. Quite a lot of the route was on tar, but a substantial amount was dirt roads and single track. The continuous onslaught of hill after hill took it’s toll and that coupled with the fact that my legs now had 21km of running fatigue in them saw me spiral into a very average pace on the riding leg.

About halfway into the ride, my right leg started cramping and every time it completed one pedal rotation it felt like someone was hitting me just above the knee with a ten pound hammer. One rotation **HAMMER** two rotations **HAMMER** three rotations **HAMMER**……etc, etc. At one point I almost collapsed while I was walking up a hill to catch up to Mike when my leg went into spazm and I had to quickly swing my left leg into place to catch my falling body, while at the same time trying to stretch my right leg out to halt the seizure. This of course sent Mike into heaps of laughter.

The last 15km of the ride almost went better for me than the preceding 37km. We finished by riding some very technical single track sections and a moment’s lack of concentration would certainly have resulted in some heavy injuries. As we entered the final transition area at Inanda Dam, it was heart-breaking knowing that we still had a 3 hour paddle ahead of us.

After some quick re-fuelling, Mike and I ambled down to the water’s edge and lowered ourselves into the boat and began the monotonous paddle around Inanda Dam. The change from using legs to arms didn’t do anything to ease the pain and initially I actually found it tougher than the cycling (if that was at all possible). But once we got into a rhythm my arms and shoulders held up quite well. There was no shortage of ‘rests’ out in the middle of the dam where we both just completely stopped paddling and attempted to regain some form of strength to carry on. These rests cost us at least 5 or 6 places and watching boats pass us along the way reminded us of how little we had trained in the paddling department. In total, Mike and I had paddled 3 times in preparation for this 18km paddle. Oh well. There was one main portage of 1.7km where we had to get out the boat and carry the dam thing over a big headland and onto another section of the dam. At that point, Mike and I were definitely ‘over it’ and were simply moving forward by putting one foot in front of the other and taking one stroke at a time. On the portage it became obvious that sitting down after all that running and riding was doing nothing for the joints and Mike and I both battled big time to bend the knees and walk comfortably up or down hills. Once back on the water it was a seemingly never-ending paddle back to the start (and finish). The sheer joy of seeing the finish line gave me goose-bumbs all over and I actually couldn’t believe we had done it. We felt like heroes as we approached the shore as well because there was nothing short of 15 friends and family members to clap us in.

As we got out the boat, we realized that the prize-giving was already underway and they were announcing the lucky draw prizes. Imagine my excitement when I heard my name called out. It was awesome, I had just won a prize. It was common knowledge that the Triple Challenge lucky draw prizes were always of a high caliber. Previous prizes that I was aware of were hi-fi’s, Garmens and other expensive items. Imagine my confusion then, when I was handed a 4kg yellow box of instant mash. There was enough powder in that box to make 240 servings or the equivalent of 24kgs of mash. While I was still reeling from my booby prize, Mike hobbled back from the prize arena because his name had also been called out…he had won a new pair of New Balance running shoes….no limit on the price. Yup that seemed like fair way to finish the day.

Thanks to our seconding team (wives, girlfriends and moms) for driving all over the place and being at the right places at the right time. That along with putting wheels on bikes, grabbing contact lenses and making sure we were eating and drinking sufficiently made for one of the most enjoyable days out. It was great seeing your faces at those transition zones.