XTerra South Africa - RACEDAY

Short Racereport of one of my favourite XTerra's - XTerra South Africa (1,5km swim, 27km bike, 12,5km run).

I was really looking forward to the race. Because of the soft winter in Austria, my training went very well and I felt very strong for this time of the year. One week before at the Silvermine Trailrun, I could confirm my good shape at the moment and the win gave me a lot of self-confidence.
But on raceday, I didn't find the race mode :-(

My normal race routine before a race looks like this:

• About 3 hours before the start breakfast (normally bread with honey, prorridge  and coffee)

• About 2 hours before the start beeing at the race venue

• About 1.5 hours before the start preparing my transision are
• About 45 before the start warm up (running and if possible some strokes in the water)

 However this time my race routine was not as usual:

First of all I woke up with no electricity. It was hard to find everything and get ready with just the light from the mobile phone… also the breakfast was a bit different no coffee, no warm porridge,…
But I could manage everything and was still positive for the race....

When we arrived at the race venue we had to park far away from the start, which was a bit strange for us. After cycling to the start area we noticed that the start of the race is in 10 min. (We tought the start is at 9:00, but it was at 8:00 o’clock). So I just put my bike and running stuff into the transition area and ran to the swim start. Luckily they started 5 minutes later and I could start with the other professional women.

After the chaotic and hectic morning, unfortunately my day didn’t get better. I started a bit to fast into the race and after about 500m my arms felt like stones. After a bad swim, I really looked forward to the amazing bike and running course.

But also on my favourite disciplines I struggled on this day. On the bike it was really hard to take over the faster swimers on the trails and especially on the uphills I couldn’t push like I could :-(.

However after taking some extra meters on the run, because I missed a marker, I ended up at the 6th place. I was a bit disappointed… I felt very good and I really love the course. But this day, was simply not my day. Nevertheless it was a great weekend and I am sure the next race will be better :-).

For more impressions of the XTerra you can watch the video from XTerra South Africa.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQgBFv0m98o&feature=youtu.be