[rockracing]

this past weekend saw that Western Province Marathon Championships, here in Cape Town, South Africa. (kinda like state champs, so they could chose a team for the national champs and then for marathon worlds selection)

The race was actually 2 laps of a 35km course (22 miles each), about 1050m of climbing per lap (3500 feet per lap).

I rode the half marathon, one lap only, but it was certainly enough, very tough route, lots of open dirt roads and some great singltrack sections too. The start was a mess as there was supposed to be a neutral section of asphalt road before the flag would drop as you turn off into singtrack, but there was such a bottleneck leaving the start area, that i never even saw the official start and then with the singletrack right after the start it made it difficult to move up.

anyways it was a great sunny winter's day and I came in 17th place (out of 139) so i was happy, oh and 1h55 mins.

the winner of the 2 lap race clocked 1h26 mins for his first lap and like 1h27 for the second..........

 

[rockracing]

Full distance race winner had the following to say:

“Besides the world championship course I rode in Switzerland a while ago, this was definitely one of the toughest courses I had ever ridden in my life. In 70km’s we climbed over 2000m which was incredible compared to some of the other races we have here, and it could easily have been a world championship track if it was longer. But as far as the racing was concerned, me and the other team riders shot off early but after the first lap we broke away from the main group and from then on we just focused on keeping the lead.”