I have always been a reluctant writer and updating this blog has been lurking in the recesses of my mind for a while now; adding to the thousands of other things on an overcrowded to-do list. But the morning of the prologue to the 2012 Absa Cape Epic might be as fitting a time as any to update this.
I will not bore you with all the details, but will give a brief overview of the prep during the past year. It was with a familiar sense of unease that I watched the finale of the 2011 Epic at Lourensford; this race was something that I simply had to do again. Little did I know that Johan had the same feeling; and his phonecall on the Monday morning came as a pleasant surpirse: "how quick are you on the computer" was his loaded question. The early bird entries opened at 4 that afternoon.... It turned out that my fingers were indeed rather quick on the keyboard and we got our entry. Excitement!
Having already entered the Cape Pioneer Trek earlier in the year that became our main focus throughout winter. I must confess that 2011 was not my greatest mountain biking year ever. Work stress, moving house and the arrival of our 4th child all took its toll. I ended up going into the Cape Pioneer Trek by the end of October seriously under trained. Looking at my training log is a shocker - 12 hours in August and 40 in September is hardly what one would call adequate prep for a 6 day stage rave of the intensity of the CPT. This showed on day one and I seriously felt like I had let my partner down. Fortunately the legs and lungs returned and by day 4 I was strong and comfortable. In the end the Pioneer was an amazing experience and very good prep for the Epic. I felt invincible, on top of the world and super fit at the end of the race and nothing was going to stop me now on route to the 2012 Epic....
Then BANG, what started as low grade fever turned into something really nasty. Blood test confirmed our worst fears - Hepatitis A. This could have meant up to 6 months off the bike as a worst case scenario with 4 to 6 weeks at the best. Being a believer in God this was not something that I could fight alone and I do believe that it was through miraculous intervention that I was able to be back on my bike after only 17 days. But the disease has taken its toll and I battled on long rides. My endurance was shot, there was some definite damage to my lung capacity and my eyes suffered as well. It was also as if my liver just stopped storing glycogen and I had to eat continuously during long rides.
I did manage to train through most of these difficulties and by the time the Attakwas came I felt almost as strong as after the CPT. I improved my time by a few minutes and this gave me a lot of confidence towards the Epic. Because I struggled to put in the hours necessary I focused a lot on higher intensity training and my training partner Riaan helped a lot with this - he is so strong that his base rides constitutes a tempo session for me. Johan and I rode the Tulbagh race together to test the legs and see how we ride together (us moving to Franschhoek meant that Johan and I had very few rides together). The race went well and it was great to know that we were evenly matched; slotting into each others strengths and weakness like a well made jigsaw puzzle.
Having ridden the 2010 Epic and the 2011 CPT on a 26" aluminium hard tail I felt that it was time to upgrade to something with slightly bigger wheels and maybe a bit more comfortable. That is a story for another day, but this time around I will be on a 29er full suspension.
So here we are - the morning of the BIG ONE. Absa Cape Epic 2012 here we come. Bring it on!
