Mid-year Update - Arno du Toit

During the past month or so, I had a couple of good races, but there were a few misfires as well. After Joberg2c and the nine days of breaking my legs, I had to take some time to recover with about half of the season still lying ahead. This is not an easy task to pull off if you want to race almost every weekend! Luckily I can depend on Paul to get this balance just right and if my legs don't pitch, I have someone to blame.

So I did Mabalingwe, aka The Lion Man, and it went pretty well. I tried to make the racing hard after the first 10km and I was surprised to see that only about three guys could follow. Then Lourens Luus destroyed everyone on Vodacom Hill! Taking a few risks, I managed to pull him back on the decent and from there on we rode together for most of the race. With about 10km to go he opened a gap on a portage section. Even though my Giro shoes are really great and comfortable, walking isn't one of my talents... The gap opened a bit, but luckily we were close to the finish, or so we thought! At the last water table we sort of took a wrong turn and ended up doing almost 100km instead of the 70km as planned.

I must say I was happy with 2nd place and after a few USN Spikes, the extra 30km didn't really seem that bad anymore.

Back to XCO racing! I decided to do a CGC Provincial – thought it would be a good opportunity for some high-intensity training, just to get back into aggressive race mode. I think it was the first time I lined up at the start of an XCO race without having done a practice lap. Well, let's just say it was pretty interesting. After some amateur riding I was lucky enough to leave with minor injuries and a silver medal. Well done to Stephan Reyneke for taking the win.

All and all it was a fun outing with the guys from Epic Sports!

After living out of a few bags for more than a month, I was happy to get home for a change, even though it was only about three days until the next road trip, this time the 3rd leg of the National XCO Cup Series at Addo Elephant Park near PE. The course had a couple of really nice sections. It was obvious that the organisers put a lot of effort into building most of those trails.

Race day came and everything was as ready as can be. I soon found out that my legs weren’t bad, but they were only going one speed, and I couldn't follow the sharp attacks. This is a problem when you're racing XCO. After the first lap it was all still pretty much together, but then we ran into some juniors, and the next lap some youth riders, which made it hard to keep a steady pace.

Passing slower riders was also a major problem on this course, especially if you don't have that kick in your legs! At the end of the day, looking at my lap times, the last lap was my second fastest lap which means there is nothing wrong with my fitness, it just needs a bit of sharpening!