Chasing Oupoot

Some people seriously don’t know how to take a holiday. Send them to Mauritius and instead of sitting at the pool bar with a Pina Colada cocked and ready, they go rent a canoe and paddle across the bay against the wind and tide. The brief was to try and avoid that category and do all the fun stuff and still hit the pubs running. Throw in 6 events in 7 days, and it’s easy to see why there was mild relief at the lack of bums on barstools midweek.

First up was the 85km MTB race, the MacDaddy cheese puff of them all, part of the national Mazda marathon series, and a classic. This bad boy pretty much does the last 30kms of the marathon route before hitting some severe singletrack sections in Petrus se Brand forest. Then it’s a rejoin with the speedbumps from the 50km route, cross the N2 and you’re almost home - if you can grit your way through the final muddy hills without losing your sense of humour.

Got up in the morning to see the predicted rain had come, and it was really chilly – 5’C kinda chilly. Luckily it disappeared about half an hour before the start, and we got going 5 minutes behind the elite riders with a massive bunch of probably 600+. The red zone was visited going up the first climb past Simola Golf course, with the front bunch within sight. The first 18km has something stupid like 700m of altitude gain, and the KOM marker is quite a relieving sight. That’s pretty much the last thing Jimmy saw, as he pulled off a great wipeout on the descent – breaking a collarbone going down at 52kph. Tough takkies for the poor sod who organized the whole week! By now the field had been sorted out, and I yo-yo’d between a dozen riders in a mad sequence of racing across the flats, and the inevitable splits down the hills and big moves up the climbs.



The waterpoints flew by, and at about 50km it hit me how much of an undertaking this was going to be. Feeling rather poked, there was also the worry about now running out of liquids. It would take forever to refill the camelback, so the next waterbottle found lying on the ground was duly picked up – a dodgy but necessary move. The two courses converged, and picking a way through the back end of the 50km field became a side issue. These guys (and girls, in plentiful numbers here) will get off and walk for anything resembling uphill. There was the slight issue of crossing the N2, at which we were told 12km to go. Either my speedo was reading wrong or the organizers had cocked up the distance, as I was banking on 23. The latter was true, and while it is quite pleasing to know you are closer than you thought, it’s pretty unprofessional for a big race to state distance falsely – especially when the route has been used before.


The last climb is a bit of a snorter, really muddy and you’ve had enough by then. Crest the hill and it’s a bomb down some steep field to the finish. I did my best to try and sneak under 4 hours, but just missed out. The bonus was that I missed the first 3 minutes of the SA/Aussies tri-nations game, so just in time to find a seat/powerade/beer. Very disappointing to hear Kevin Evans had been in for over an hour, and even worse – bike chick Sara had some mechanicals and I almost caught her – will never get another chance like that. We hung around for a while, which helped me win a(nother) hydration pack in the lucky draw – but miss the R25k road bike by a whisker.

The 100km road race has a smaller field than the mtb, probably because it’s a really kak race. Start with the lekker hill going east past the squatter camps. Rolling up down till you get to Plett, do two more hills and come home on the same route. Yawn…., not recommended.

Despite the massive R280 pairs entry fee, Dave and I jumped in for the Petzl Nite bike. After chilling on Noetzie for the day it became a rush to actually get there. Way more admin when you need to sort out lights/batteries etc. The mercury went down with the sun, but there was quite a buzz round what turned out to be a bona fide olde English pub.
These dudes really went to town, all checkpoints were timed by using a dual entry transponders. To top it off, some teams had Sportstrack units for the crowd at the start/finish to monitor on the big screen. We headed off with superhero Hanlie Booyens getting dropped on the first corner, proving it doesn’t help to be superfit if you go the wrong way. Luckily it was dark, as the course went through some ridiculous hay fields, even the moo cows knew that it was not for mountain biking.

Navigation wasn’t too hard, as the intermittent throb of red taillights lit the way. A fair amount of overtaking was achieved before one wrong turn sent us bombing down some path. As much fun as it was hacking a route through virgin bush, the turn around vibe killed it. We rejoined the route with some losses, and returned to overtaking whenever possible. A mad navigational dead end brought stacks of teams together, at what can only be described as the three dams foul-up. Water is black in the dark, how no-one rode into one is a mystery. We then got hit by a serious mechanical bummer – my daylighter had had enough, and Dave’s wheel had spokes looser than NPA’s lassoo on brother Jacob. So spoke tightening on the side of the road it was, we did feel a bit better when some dude came running past pushing his bike (long way home!). The next stage was a bit bizarre – water section. Jump in a canoe, get passed two bikes and a teammate….slowly pull across the water and get out other side. Quite an ordeal, and it was a little bit chilly, hard lines to the dude who fell in.

There was a rushed out and back course to an orienteering section, which was quite easily followed, but with another long stop to retighten spokes. Tough takkies to the team not listening to race briefing, and fell off the map into a kloof….and kept falling! The pull to the finish a formality, only to be ridiculed for losing to a girl (but that always happens?!). Then they give you a print out of route timing, as if you have just bought a trolleyfull at woollies. Next job was to get stuck into the rhino priced draughts, hit the potjie and the oh so obvious war stories of where everyone got lost. Great fun, there’s another one in Grabouw soon, sort some lights out.

Next up was the Xterra Offroad Triathlon. Despite the luxury of a rare lagoon, there would be no water events and it would be a duathlon – run/bike/run to the clueless. It was hosted by Pezula Estate, at their ‘Field of Dreams’. In the classroom of golfing estates, Pezula is the spoilt little rich kid. The have the best view in Knysna, the best golf course, a private nature reserve, a hotel and spa and soooo much money. I almost forgot to thrown in the two castles on their own corner of a beach. Despite this, I was actually quite impressed by the lack of development. It’s all tastefully done with endemic vegetation and the plot sizes are really huge to spread the housing density out. It was quite a miserable day, windy and cold; but once again the sponsors had gone to town. Huge marquees with heaters and full-on bar with free stuff, all missed as I hit the rush to get ready in time.



The ‘lite’ event had just finished and a nervous huddle of about 150 waited and waited for the start. Letting the real hotshots go, the pace was quite comfortable until we hit the first climb. They don’t do flat round here, and the pack thinned out quickly by the time the bike transition hit after 3km. Managed to overtake quite a few early on in the bike section, clearly some runners had never seen singletrack in their lives before. It was a windy rolling course, and quite scary to see how huge their property actually is. The real bonus was overtaking the guy who had come into the transition first, didn’t look like he’d ever been on a bike before. Transition was fun, mainly because I couldn’t find my shoes – with all the lite people removing their bikes I got a little lost! The second run is always hard, as the hammies suddenly pull up. Starting off with a real steep road, it was all about keeping up with the dude burning up the hill. Better news yet, he was running in a team, so had just started. The rest of the run was a little bit wasted on me - really beautiful terrain, but none of it flat. In the final stages, I realized I was close to the 2 hour mark, and managed to dip under it. First stop was the bar for a well earned burger and beer. Really cool race and the goodie bag was beyond ridiculous.




The Camel Guys who did the night race put together the Twenty20 of Adventure racing at the Knysna Waterfront:
Roll down a ramp in a whitewater kayak, paddle round a few buoys
Jump in a ‘floating hamster wheel’ and hydrobronk round a buoy.
Run over ‘lilypads’ to another canoe which takes you to a climbing wall.
Climb the wall.
Looked easy enough, what am I kidding – they only gave me 20 minutes to get ready and I got to watch one heat to see exactly the order. The one guy fell over in the kayak and had to be rescued by divers in wetsuits – so he lost to a girl. Luckily I managed to stay floating from the ramp, but snaked the kayak round the course – my competitor mocking me with his whitewater skills. The hydrobronker went a bit pear at times, really hard to control; and I hadn’t banked on the lilypads sinking so easily. Using my long lost knowledge from Venture Club at junior school I caught up a bit of time on the climb but came in a bit behind him. The bonus was that I had a second round the next day, to be squeezed in between the half marathon and one mother of a braai. At least I knew what the deal was the second time around. The tide was low now, making a massive drop from the ramp and the start to the climb that much higher. It all went a lot easier, save the climb as the legs were just not happy and I probably owe the belayer a beer. All in all a time six and a half minutes was only 90 seconds out of qualifying – saw the finals the next day, those guys made it look so painfully easy.

The whole big shebang of going to Knysna is all about the forest half-marathon, the entries open in April, fill up in two weeks and then become available again through the grapevine as people realize they actually couldn’t make it in July. Some people miss the point and do the full marathon. This is quite unnecessary as we all go to the same party in the end anyway (my word, what a bash it is). The second biggest social scene of the week is the race registration on Friday night, with half of cape town offering their excuses for bunking work early to make it to Knysna early enough to pick up race numbers the night before.

Most races have a common start/finish point - logistically it just makes sense. One of the key attractions is that the race is run through the forest, and the taxi/busride to the start is part of the experience. Queue up in the cold for half an hour, cram into a hi-ace that’s seen better days and try not bump your head on the 6x9 that’s dangling from the roof. It’s quite a din at the beginning, 5000 nervous souls trying to ignore some idols reject who’s been given a microphone, the five sponsor’s names and the personality of a dishcloth. Was it really necessary to continually inform us that we were indeed at the start of the race? Pour pity on the fool that only worked this out from his blabberings. Of course the real fun is had by those trying to do some sort of warm-up and the anxious few trying to get a last visit to the john. Using stubbornness gained from numerous clogged startlines and not wanting to ruck overzealous walkers, we find ourselves 10m from the front with a minute to go. About 100minutes later I am sitting in the Knysna Rugby Club bar watching the haka. Must admit I did have to push it once I realized Mickey Mouse was right behind me coming into the stadium, there’s nothing wrong with letting girls beat you, but I draw the line at an 80 year old cartoon mouse. The highpoint was probably getting out of the bath to answer my phone – my sister had just come in and wanted to know where I was. Also a big russpect to big daddy rich who managed to find Jimmy’s jockey wheel on the route – lost a week earlier in the middle of the forest!