X Terra Firma, now mud!

So, there I was, swimming across Homestead Lake in Benoni, admiring how pretty the lake and surrounds were since last I’d last swum there many years ago and wondering if Charlize was around again locally since breaking up with that Townsend fellow. Apart from that I was also thinking how I could beat Nando at the Xterra Triathlon the next weekend. This training swim could just be a ruse to spy on his technique, and strategize accordingly. I wondered, just momentarily, about nudging him into the water weeds that grabbed at our ankles and legs, and seeing if he would surface again. Or maybe, with the river flooded as it was he would wash over the weir. No, unlike the Xterra that would be too extreme. Eliminating the competition is not as good as beating it. Of course Adri was swimming circles around us, at home like a duck in the dam. Maybe she would push too hard at the beginning and tire on the run. Not much chance of Nando tiring on the run though, no, his Comrades training was making him fast and lean. I had no plan, no strategy. I told everyone I was going to take on the race at a slow pace, to give them a false sense of security while I planned to beat them with underhand conniving.
On Friday, the day before the race Trish, Rich and I went and camped at Mountain Sanctuary Park, to acclimatise to the altitude, scout out the route and conditions, and also so not as to miss too much sleep on Saturday morning. That plan went awry when a huge thunderstorm caused havoc at our campsite, with rivers and dongas appearing from nowhere. The effect on the course was to make it very muddy, every bit as good as Bonamanzi. Thanks Trish for your wonderful support.
I really enjoyed the race and seeing Sue and the rest of the eager Lickety Splitters at the start. I swam well and uneventfully. The trick of keeping an aerobically sustainable rhythm while slipping through the water like a dolphin made sense, and I closed my eyes for the most part to feel and hear the water gliding over me. Aaaah – wonderful open water swimming!
My transition to the MTB leg was slow but I left just after Nando and Adri. Mountain Sanctuary Park was beautiful and interesting, with good technical sections and the challenge of mud riding and river crossings. My poor bike eventually sounded like a pepper grinder and had no brakes. Into Transition I again saw Adri, but she soon left me behind. The best part on the run was when we ran down behind the Buffelspoort dam wall and across the flooded river at the bottom and could look up to where the water cascaded down in a massive waterfall over the weir, leaving the whole area in spray mist. The climb up the other side was fun too, climbing up the huge steps of concrete blocks and a steel ladder to get back onto the path which ran back down across the river again. Not even a Lara Craft look alike who passed me on the path could inspire me to pick up my pace and run up that hill. Nor could Nando as he passed me on his second lap of the two loop run. I rather took the river crossing opportunities to lie in the river, hanging onto the flooded causeway, to let the flood waters rush over me, pulling me this way and that. I guess if I’d wanted to beat Nando badly enough I should rather have been running. That would have been a better plan.

Night Riding

Night riding is all about feel. You see nothing, but feel everything. I remember my first night ride when we went out up the long hill past the shebeen, to the top of the downhill they call the mineshaft. Apt name that! I like riding uphill because the anticipation of the downhill rush makes up for the effort. What goes up must come down! At the top you pass by a bright streetlamp that shines in your face, visually focusing your mind on your immediate goal, that of getting to the top, pushing as hard as you can. Feel your heartbeat climbing, feel the burn. Breath. Know it’s good for you, it’s about fitness, health and happiness. It’s about personal motivation. Mind over laziness.
A trick is to divide the hill in half and each half again in halves. Or, is that thirds and thirds of thirds, then putting the effort in to do just that part. Count out the pedal turns. Deal with the other parts later. Focus. Feel your body responding to the call. Breathing. Heart. Head. To the top and over.
And that’s when the rush starts. With the drop your bike accelerates. Your night vision lacks because of that darn light, so it’s darker than dark, and you know that any rock, or pothole, or discarded old shoe will send you tumbling, and now you can just make out a bend in the road, which is gravel, so don’t skid, don’t lock-up the breaks, turn gently, easy through the turn. And before you know it you’re doing 50km in the dark on a gravel road you’ve never been on before and you know this is madness. A depression you can’t see makes your bike dip, and you feel it. You follow it through, just managing to stay on top. What else can you do? Your adrenaline heightens your senses and you feel the wind in your face with your skin cold from the uphill sweat. The roar of your tyres in the dust and the smell of the rhinos from the game park next door makes it wild, and you feel it all, the exhilarating rush of Dark and Dirty.

Rogaine Thoughts

Thinking!
You can do that on a mountain bike, and you do a lot of it while you ride.
You think about all sorts of things, like route choices and strategies.
You think about where you are and where you are at.
You think philosophy and know you are free to think.
It’s the feeling of freedom that endures. Your thinking mind is free, detached from the mechanical constraints of place and time.
With your body plugged into your machine your soul can fly.
And it does. Wonderfully.
Memories take you back to your last goodbye, flash forward to your next hello. A fragment thought about a faraway problem, and flash back to the present to avoid a branch, navigate a corner, adjust speed. Philosophise.
It was like that as we rode, William and myself, on the MTB Rogaine in the forests near Dullstroom. William said he noticed how broad was the range of subjects we spoke about. He said “We speak so much nonsense about everything”. It was true, but isn’t that the nature of friendship? Sharing nonsense. Sharing freedom. Friends in the forest. Friends of the forest.
This is how it should be. The openness of the grasslands merging with reeds at the marsh. The marsh merging with the lakes. The forests running up the hills. Green forests. Brown grasses. Blue and yellow veld flowers intense in their freedom.
Here, there are not many people. It’s like this for miles around. No others to invade our thought space, to intrude with impatience and rudeness. Brash, in your face bustle. City life. Randomly moving crowds. Noisy trucks and cars and endless tar, melting in the heat, unnatural smells that choke the senses from what life should be. Unshared selfish existences. Meaningless.
A buck runs out of the reeds, a little startled by our speed. A hop, a jump and then gone, hidden again. What else lies hidden in the marsh? An owl? Rabbits? A kite looks down at us, unperturbed. Looking for those rabbits?
This is how it should be, and that is how it was.