My experience at the event:
It all started so well. A weekend away with my brother in law Curtis while camping by the beautiful Buffelspoort in order to avoid an early wake up and drive. Some good training sessions. A good feeling.
And yet it ended up in a disaster. The signs were there the evening before, after pitching the tent. My mountain bike fell on my toa and pierced it, leaving a hole in it and a broken spoke. In the morning though, I thought that everything was going to be ok, after all I never had any issues in any triathlons so far.
It all came at once: after a decent, but not brilliant, swim (Curtis exited the water just ahead of me, as usual), I felt that something wasn't going to be ok when my back brakes kept rubbing on the tyre (the broken spoke the night before made the wheel a little skew). Unable to push - I couldn't just remove the back brakes in such a hilly and rocky bike leg, I started to suffer soon after we left our transition zone. And then, with maybe 5kms to go, disaster happened: some guy didn't brake in time coming down from a steep hill, and crashed into my back wheel just as I was around to turn. The back heel smashed against a rock, I managed to stay up, but my race was over. Tyre out, tube destroyed and frame bent.
So I did what I always do: I kept going. I pushed and carried my bicycle for 5km on the hills, and by the time I reached the transition area, in the sun, I was dead. Somehow I managed to get up and start running, but those 6 hard kms in the forest took everything from me. I finished the race long after Curtis, but hey, at least I got my medal!
Details of the race here:
http://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/682248246Some pictures:
Relax before the race
Bye bye Mountain Bike
Struggling in the run
And finally the medal
This is how my MTB looked at the end
(the rest of the pictures are here
https://www.flickr.com/photos/olafmeister/sets/72157650665637326/:)
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