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| Sabie Course Profile |
Saturday morning wake up call at 5:30. I'm pretty much a zombie at this time in the morning. Get out of bed, brush my teeth, use the bathroom before the boys peal the paint off the walls, toast 4 pieces of bread slap on some Nutella and BAM, high calorie breakfast. Next thing I know there's a guy at the door from
Super Sport with a camera wanting to film our morning routines. Oh boy he was in for a treat. Brendon Davids, Patrick Belton, Travis Walker, and I enlightened this guy and the rest of South Africa how we get things done in the morning. Basically we talked about the boys blowing up the bathroom, figuratively speaking of course. Had the camera man laughing so hard he couldn't hold the camera up. We like to keep things fun and entertaining.
So we kitted up, packed our bags and bikes into the
Jeep and headed to the race. As soon as I rolled to the start line I was handed the white leaders jersey for U23 Women. Sweet! Lined up next to the pink polka dot climbers jersey, I started getting the pre-race nervous jitters on the line. 74 kilometers of pain awaits. The whistle blows. Stomped down into my
Bebop pedals and follow the lead motor bike out the first corner. I was sitting on the front going easy, but my heart rate was so high, I guess I was excited!
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| Start line |
Candice Neethling, South African 2012 Olympian, in the Pink overall women leaders jersey to my left and Ariane Kleinhans, Swiss MTB superstar, to my right and sitting on the wheel of Cherise Stander, roadie superstar. It's gonna be a fast day. We took off down a dirt road that went for about a kilometer before leading us out onto a tar road. It was false flat all the way to the first short climb. The race immediately blew up as we turned onto the Jeep track of the first climb. Candice and Ariane were already attacking each other. It was a long way to the finish, so I decided to ride a little more conservatively staying with the group. As we rolled down the other side of the mountain the "Mamba Switchback" climb was coming up. From driving the climb the day before, I knew ALL about Mamba Strike 1,2, and 3. Steep, Steep, Steep! The whole climb I tried to keep Cherise in my view, keeping her there as a nice carrot was a good call. After making it over the climb I just focused on drinking enough fluids and taking a
GU Roctane every 30 mins. Cherise and I pretty much rode the whole race together. See-sawing back and forth from 9th and 10th. I put in one last hard push a couple kilometers from the finish. Pulling away from Cherise.
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| Brendon giving me a big hug |
Finishing with a time of 03:58:45. I rolled in with a solid ride, 2nd U23 and 9th overall Women. Received a big hug from Brendon Davids, who won his race in the 75k overall and U23. Travis was 2nd in the U23 men and holds onto his U23 leaders jersey for the next Marathon. Patrick finished strong and was 3rd U23. What a great weekend for team Jeep. We pulled through with some good results.
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| Bronwen and I |
I want to give a big shout out to Naeem of
Valencia, thank you for your amazing hospitality. Your tent with food and drinks was a god send after a hard race on such a hot day. Also big thanks to the
MTN National Series and
ADVENDURANCE for putting together such an enjoyable event. The course was really well marked and so much fun to race on. Looking forward to the next one!
Thanks for reading.
Kendall Ryan
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| The Team Jeep Gang |
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