Recovery, a visitor to the pink room and the Nissan Down and Dirty Marathon

We arrived back late last Sunday after a long trip back from the Cape with our MTN-Qhubeka team mates. The race and travel took it out of me and it took most of the week to recover. A really good yet somewhat painful deep tissue massage on Tuesday and some easier riding helped though and by Friday I was starting to find my legs again just in time for the Nissan Down and Dirty marathon.

On Thursday we helped with another school’s MTB skills clinic this time for Sutherland High. It was great to offer some on the bike advice (I was still off my MTBike at the last one) and to see our junior up and coming talent; boys and girls in action!

Up and coming junior talent

Andrew Warr travelled up from KZN to and stayed with us Friday night. We offered him our best hospitality and put him up in the infamous pink room. Pink as it is very pink and made infamous by all the MTBikers we have had stay here ;)

The Pink room

I had a good warm up to the Nissan Down and Dirty race which started at Cornwall Estate, Andre; our Epic Sport team mechanic double checked my Volcan and I was off to the start

Once again I was unsure what the days racing would bring for me especially as the route offered very little climbing and consisted mainly of long, open gravel roads which doesn't really suit my strengths.

The start was flat out with the men and women starting together. I took the lead of the women's race down the first fast rocky downhill but was soon caught by Yolandi Du Toit up the next drag. I didn't realise it at the time but Theresa Ralph passed me shortly after that putting me in 3rd.

I pushed hard to try and close the gap that I knew Yolandi had on me but didn't seem to be making any ground. We had a very strong head wind for the first 40kms and with the no draughting rule there was no hiding!

I was very grateful when we turned back towards Irene and for the most part had a tail wind to help me home. I caught back to 2nd place and kept chasing hard through to the final 5kms where we met up with the 40km riders through a long technical single-track. This was quite frustrating as it formed a near impenetrable traffic jam and eventually I realised I would just have to be patient and slow right up till we reached the last open jeep track and climb where I could start overtaking. 

I crossed the line in 2nd about 5minutes back from Yolandi again happy with a solid race and result for my current fitness.

2nd at Nissan Down and Dirty

Thanks to MTN-Qhubeka for all the support, Andre @Epicsports for the race support and congrats to my MTN-Qhubeka team mates for a good team effort helping Jacques to get a podium finish!

Next race will be the MTN Hilton Marathon in 3 weeks time.

We’ll be travelling down the Wednesday before with the team to help and be involved in a Qhubeka Wildlands project; an experience I’m really looking forward to!

Congrats to all our South African MTBikers for their World Champ results in Champery, it was great to read the updates and Paul and I watched the live coverage of the Elite men’s XC and DH on Freecaster; really exciting racing that kept me on the edge of my seat!

Cheers for now

Yolande