This ATU Cup was going to be tough, being the second weekend in a row of Olympic Distance racing, and a week after finishing the antibiotics. Fortunately I didn’t have to travel far for this race, however there was still a lot of driving to Pretoria from Johannesburg, up to the briefing the evening before the race, and then the race itself.

The race got underway at 10am with a non wetsuit swim. The first lap went relatively well and then the second lap, when the pace increased, I started to go into a little difficulty. I did stay with the front pack and heading into T1 and onto the bike, I was just off the front four athletes. I couldn’t quite bridge and again, struggled with the change from swim to bike at this pace. Fatigue, whatever, it was mentally devastating. I re-grouped and by about 6km I caught Rudolf, who had dropped off Abrahm and Erhard (the group was 3 at this stage). I then rode with Rudolf for the rest of the bike stage and we ended up losing 3 minutes to the front 2. Onto the run and in the first 1km I was suffering and the hectic travel and lack of solid training in November had finally caught up (Colombia, PE, Zimbabwe were there first 3 weekends of November!). I then lost some time to Rudolf and the race became more about finishing within the 5% cut off for points. I had to draw an all my reserves and the final 1km was brutal. I did make the cut off for points finishing 4th and reclaiming the leading athlete in the African New Flag Rankings. My objective was met in terms of points; however, I went away from the race mentally battered due to the work that needs to be done! I am not scared of it, but know in order to ‘make it’ I have to implement some changes.

I am now heading into the 4th race out of 5 consecutive weekends and 3 countries, being the final of the 2011 BSG Energade Triseries. The race is set to be a ‘cracker’ with the main race attracting 900 entries!