Sani2C Day 3 and beyond

Day 3 was supposed to be the easy day. It was easy but ONLY in comparison to day 2 - compared to anything else it is still quite a tough, albeit short day.

The day is fast and furious with an abundance of fast downhill and single track which was awesome, of course we had to pay for all of this with some really nasty climbs as shown below but there were some fantastic moments flying through the cane fields of KZN with magnificent view on both the left and right of the path.

Photo courtesy of Rob Mcloughlin

Yes, that is jason in the photograph PUSHING his bicycle up the hill. So it isn't just us back markers that pushed them up! Sid had a near accident experience around one of the corners behind me, his brakes just couldn't slow him down enough so he went off the road into the bushes and emerged back out bouncing all over the place with both legs around his hears. That has gotta hurt!

Just after this we hit the final tough climb, or so they said, called "heartbreak" hill but I think it should be renamed to "heart attack" hill because it feels like your heart is going to jump out your chest by the time you get to the top. From the top of this there was a quick water stop before a long downhill to the beach.

Rob and Jason. Photo courtesy of Rob Mcloughlin

We finally emerged onto the beach by Scottburgh for the 500m along the beach of which I think I did about 150m before deciding that it is a bad idea riding in beach sand and pushed my bike the rest of the way. The final hill of the race was the one up to the finish at Scottburgh High School which was just plain mean and nasty of the organisers. Sid helped by pushing me like he had on numerous hills but no matter how much someone pushes, you still have to pedal it yourself.

Photo courtesy of Sani2C website

Finished! I had made it intact, a little sorry for myself but basically in good spirits.

After the finish we found some accommodation in Umkomaas and hung around until the prize giving that evening, mostly because there was a chance someone would win a Subaru Emprezza which would be a pretty awesome finale to the event. Alas it was not to be, for us that is!

After the prize giving we tried to find a restaurant but everything closes on the south coast at 21:30 so there was this mad race around scottburgh and umkomaas until we found the one and only restaurant in scottburgh that stays open late. It was just in time for rob, he was starting to gnaw on his fingers he was so hungry.

Day 3 summary : 71km, 1200m ascent, 80% maximum heart rate average, 3500kcal, 3:46 elapsed time.