Crater Cruise 2007

Well, one thing is clear, training once a week for the crater cruise just isn't enough. Had a very tough race right from the first 100m until I crossed the finish line six hours later. Six hours of pedaling, no wonder my rear end felt like the saddle had been surgically implanted. Of the six hours I would guess that about four of them were after I had run out of food reserves and I spent about 3 hours resisting the impulse to bring whatever I had down, up. They've changed the route a bit this year, substantially for the better but some of the rocky descents were so rough that it was tough to just hold onto the handlebars let alone steer and brake. I think I'm going to wake up with aches and pains in muscles I don't know that I have. At the end of a race I am normally ravenous, not this one - I think I was so tired that even though I knew that I should eat, the thought of it was repulsive. Spent the rest of the day drinking and having small snacks when I could stomach them. By the evening I was feeling a bit better and on Sunday morning, I felt great. At the second last water stop about 70km through the race we got talking to some guys sitting just behind us. He was reminiscing about how he sat in exactly the same place last year and swore that he was never doing it again, as did I and yet there both of us were - torturing our bodies for some undefinable reason. Due to the amount of rain we have been having recently, not only was the vaal river full but there was lots of mud that needed to be pedaled through which was great fun if a bit messy and I am really glad that it wasn't 100km of mud.

Woke up on Sunday morning just before 08:00 to a brilliant summers day. Cool, clean and fresh from the 30mm of rain that we had overnight.