Pre Race Prep

We’ve all arrived at the Balugha Inn which will be race HQ. Our digs are quite comfortable, with good food and coffee on tap and plenty of other international teams staying here. Race

preparation is in full swing with rego, competency checks, marking maps and organizing food taking up plenty of time. We were pretty pleased to find our Torq gear waiting for us in East London. Everyone was very nervous sending it on ahead of us, and it’s a relief that this part of the preparation went to plan.
We were asked by Sonja (one of the race directors) to take part in a project they have organized to give out footballs to the local schools. The program is a Christian initiative where the balls have a Christian message printed on them. We went along to one of the schools were the children from three secondary schools had gathered. They sang songs for us in the African way, with lots of harmonizing and clapping, in what was a truly uplifting display. We made some short speeches and then played soccer and rugby with the kids. Grant and Stewart then tried to teach them how to kick Aussie rules style. It was a real privilege to be involved and it was an experience none of us will forget in a hurry.
Competency checks were pretty basic. Although with a huge abseil (180m) and a big 150m Jumar expected our climbing skills were thoroughly examined:
Climbing instructor: “So Del, you’ve climbed before?”Del: “Uh huh”CI: “Can you rig up your Jumar for me?”Del clutches a random piece of nice shiny climbing kit and holds it up; the CI raises his eyebrows and shakes his head.Del: “He he he, that’s the going downy thing, not the going uppy thing isn’t it. You mean this don’t you?”CI: “Yeeeees, you sure you’ve done this before”. The others in your team have they got any climbing experience?”Del nods enthusiasticallyCI: “and will they look after you on the ropes?”Del nods even more enthusiasticallyCI: “Goood, I think were done here, you can unclip and make your way back up……NEXT”
Luke has been flat out marking up 15 maps all of which are 1:50,000, navigation is going to be challenging, but it’s the same for everyone, and even without local knowledge, Luke will be better than most.
The African way is certainly different to what we have come to know as typical in Australia. In Africa it is understood that we have signed up for an adventure. We are expected to be self sufficient and have the knowledge to be able to look after ourselves. We will only see our gear boxes three times in nearly 600 km, so we will be carrying heaps of gear and food in our packs. Torq bars and gels will certainly make this part of the race easier for us than most of the other teams; trying to carry enough normal food to meet the ~10,000 cal we need per day, would be hugely taxing. We always expected this to be a tough race; we are only now coming to realize just how tough it could be.
Race start is at 3:00AM in the morning, when the buses leave for Katberg resort where the race start is a 10 km trail run. There’s nothing like a full night’s sleep before you start a big race.

Cape Town "Acclimatisation" Phase!

After a few days we are all still waking up at 4:30am; not sure if it is jet lag or just because there are so many exciting things ahead of us! Our city centre apartment was pretty full with 8 people ans 8 bikes whilst Rob, Kim, Richard and Damon of Australian tema team Blackheart/Stingers crashed with us for a night. They are currently driving East towards the race via an elephant park. KEEN Torq'ers are all flying over tomorrow/Weds.

Here in Cape Town we just got back from an incredible ride up the tracks and road around Table Mountain. We took some video and photos of us riding with a backdrop of impressive mountians and sheer cliffs on one side, and spectacular city scape on the other. We were grinning and laughing like kids all the way - Somehow the boys managed not to kill themselves larking around though I did nearly ride Grant off the track at one point (serves him right for undertaking!). The contrast between poverty and affluent society here is stark, and we have not quite worked it out yet. But one thing for sure, Cape Town has an enchanting natural beauty which our cameras won't do justice to.

On Saturday we went to the Cape of Good Hope, we saw Osrtiches on the heath, Baboon (eating it's lunch on top of a car) and had a great walk along the coastal path. Stew and Grant couldn't resisit doing a timed run up the staircase from the beach (homesick for Torquay sets?) . By that time Lukie had "seen enough rocks" and went back to watch the baboons! It was pretty chilly and blustery - we started to worry that packing just a light weekend size bag of clothes each

might not have been so smart.

We remedied this by conducting a thorough survey of Cape Town outdoors stores and climbing stores and bought lots of adventure gear (most of which we do actually need!). Despite feeling white and wealthy and conspicuous we have had a good time exploring, we found some nice places to eat, made friends with the Big Issue seller at the market, Luke and Stew saw squirrels for the first time in the botanic gardens. Tonight we have done some final race prep and gear organising, and are starting to get focussed the race (i.e. we ate a bit less cake today!).

The pictures are taking an age to upload to blogspot so Stew has jsut given up and put them on Facebook instead (see link on the right og this page)...

'till next time..
Delxxx

Leg # 2 KL to Cape Town via J'Berg

Getting on the plane in KL we were informed that we had to have a stopover in J'berg. Not welcome as it added and extra 1 1/2 hours to our travel time, but it did give us the opportunity to watch the sunrise in Africa for the first time. It was just what we expected; a brilliant deep orange glow followed by a burning sun rising out of the plain (or should that be plane, we were sitting in an airport and out view was obscured by the tail of plane sitting on the tarmac). Walking casually to board after an hour in the cafe, we were told by some staff that we were late and our bags were about to be taken off the plane. That solicited some hurry up, and we raced into the plane, only to sit patiently for another 40 minutes as we waited for another recalcitrant passenger to fiond their way onto the plane.

We arrived at Cape town at last, made our way casually through customs to find Rob waiting for us with a great big van. Rob is racing with another team from Australia who we will be knocking around with for a day in Cape Town. A lazy lunch and a few hours were spent getting our bearings in the cafe district before the keys to our apartment were ready. We can now concentrate on finding the stuff we still need for the race and doing a bit of sight seeing.

Bring it on :-)

Stew

Leg # 1 Tullamarine to KL

After LOOOONG negotiations at the airport we managed to get on the plane after copping (only) $1000 in excess baggage fees. Which the airport staff assured us was a really good deal. Now after 8 and a half hours on the Melb-Kuala Lumpur leg KEEN Torq'ers cramped up like tetris pieces we are preparing for another 14 hours to Cape town. At this stage the movie tally is Grant= 4, 9 holes of Golf and 2 games of Galactica (yes in just over 8 hrs) Luke 3 movies 2 documentaries and some cyber golf Stew= 1 movie couple of rounds of Galactica and half a book.. Del 1 movie, and lots of sleep. So with some duty free chocolate, a bowl of noodles and several chocolate muffins we're off to the boarding lounge for leg #2.

Packing and schmoozing..

Some of us got some sleep last night, and all of us are nearly on our way to the airport... we've packed absolutely bare minumum to avoid excess bagage fees of $30 per kilo ( if we run out of clothes it will be cheaper to buy new ones there!) It looks terrifyingly little - but lets face it we'll probably wear the same jersey for the whole race, few thermals and couple of pairs of shoes.. easy! All have our fingers crossed that we get a friendly person at checkin; SA here we come!!!

What taper week is really all about.

After off-loading the to-do list in his post below, Stewie resorted to the infamous Cowey spreadsheet (6 pages) to whip us all in to shape. I'm anticipating the updated versions in flow-chart and spider diagram format any day now ... Thanks to the spreadsheet at least we know who to blame if anything goes wrong!

We are hunting for new accomodation in Cape Town because in between Tuesday, when we paid for it, and yesterday, they sold the appartment we'd booked! The Cape Town adventure gear shopping list is growing VERY long since we discovered that 1. Excess baggage fee is $30 per Kilo, and 2. the biggest adventure shop in CT is in the Stellenbosch wine region 3. "ZAR" the South African Rand is a wonderful currency to do business in.

This weekend:

• I learnt that when paddling in zero degrees, the boys are not as tough as they like to make out.
  


• We decided that KEEN Ridgelines are great shoes, and come in fancy colours (see picture) but my pink laces won't fit in Grant's size 13's
  


• We confirmed that catching a chill can be remedied by eating a lot - and we are all doing good on that front of late.



• We put all our faith in coreflute ("plastic cardboard" explains Lukie) spending vast amounts of time and energy building deluxe bike boxes which will not disintegrate in the rain.

Overall KEEN Torqers are having a ball. We've done all the hard work, will all surve our to-do lists, and in spite of practicing our sleep deprivation over the next few days we're going to be in South Africa in less than a week rejoicing in the fact that the world is a beautiful place..

NOW GET ME ON THAT PLANE!!!

:-)

Del

The Taper

It's just as well you're meant to taper before a big event,because there isn't much time to train. Going away for three weeks, there is always the inevitable rush to get things finished at work. I could quite easily be doing 12 hour days and still not get everything done that I would like/need to. Unfortunately, in getting ready for the race we don't have the same luxury....stuff just has to get done. The 'to do list' has been cut done dramatically in the last week or so, but there is still a myriad of of minutiae that needs to be dealt with. Everything from vaccinations to building bike boxes, from chasing up that last spare part for your bike to finding your headtorch, from naming 10 pairs of socks to re-stan'sing your tubes, from finalising accomodation to organising hire cars.....you get the picture. In amongst all of this you are trying to fit in 10-15 hours of training, it just doesn't all fit. And I haven't even mentioned trying to stay awake each night to watch Le Tour.

During the course of the week, we all recieved two new pairs of Keen Ridgeline trail running shoes. I tried mine out at the You Yangs last night, in two words; "Bloody Fantastic". I've been hanging out for these puppies since my Wasatch's finally died after the Keen Adventure Race, and they haven't disappointed. Hopefully I'll write a full review after the Bull, where I'll put them through their paces.

Another highlight was recieving not ONE, not TWO, but THREE boxes of Torq stuff. Heaps of new kit so we are once again the sexiest looking team out there. Enough electrolyte, natural energy, bars and gels to keep us powering through 6 days of racing. Due to excess baggage restrictions we have to post this stuff over ahead of us. It will be a nervous wait for all of us (including Gen) until we hear from a friend of a friend who is picking it up for us in South Africa. If something goes wrong with the post, I'll need Gen to calculate the energy equivalent in creamed rice. I really hope it's there to meet us when we get to East London.

I'm so looking forward to getting on the plane. All the organising, preparation and training (or lack of it) will be behind us and all we'll have to think about is racing and enjoying ourselves while we do it.

Stew.