The return of the Mountain Goat

This time it was at the Helderberg Mountain Extreme. Only 24km......That's nothing.....Right?

On Saturday night I thought it might be a good idea just to check last year's times. O my shattered nerves.....this will take me longer to finish than the Jonkershoek race of 2 week ago. And Jonkershoek was 30km!! So I new something was cooking with this race, ain't no flats involved.
And that was the correct assumption. It was up and up and up and then down and then up and up and more up.

The start of a LONG climb



Long walk to freedom

My quads were killing me....but what can you do. I can stop, gooi a tantrum, but then what. I'm already halfway up the mountain (for the SECOND time I might ad), so lets just finish this mother.

One thing that I realised at this race was that I need to work on up hills. Alot of people passed me as I missioned to the top op the West Peak. But then when it came to the downhills, they had to get out of my way, cause I was FLYING down. I was running on pure adrenaline! I politely ignored the fact that if I do slip and fall, I'm going to be falling for a LONG time! Block. Ignore. Run.

The Helderberg Xtreme is 60% mountain (and rock) climbing and 40% running....well that's my opinion. I think if I knew what I was getting myself into, I would have thought twice about entering. But by next year, I would have forgotten about the 'bad' things of the race...and will enter again.


Boulder hopping....ps. slippery when wet.

Even though this race, for me, was tougher than the Jonkershoek one, I felt like a million bucks afterwards. Ignoring the fact that when I finished the race, I was sort of covered in blood. A certain young lady decided to buy a piece of single track on the Helderberg Mountain. Flat piece of single track. Only a few rocks. And those few rocks connected with my hand, arm and both knees. it was a spectacular fall. And I did check....no-one saw me. . I fell so hard that I had to wait a few minutes for the air to return to my lungs.....Girls don't cry. Girls don't cry.

This was truly an extreme race, very technical downhills and very steep up hills.

For those +/- 5 hours I felt ALIVE! Un-stop-a-ble.

The mountain goat is back, for the time being....giving the queen of the desert a bit of a breather.

Queen of the Desert turns Mountain Goat for a day

......at the Jonkershoek Mountain Extreme.

What a lekke way to spend a Sunday morning.....At least this time the weather was perfect. As we trekked up the mountain the temperature did take a bit of a dive, but you could still feel your hands and feet. So nothing to complain about. It was absolutely BEAUTIFUL up on the mountain.

OK, first you have to get up the mountain..........all the way up Swartboskloof!!!!


Trekking up Swartboskloof

Trail running.....lets call it trail walking rather. It was this snake of colourful trailrunners hiking up the mountain. I didn't feel bad not even attempting to run up this monster, because everyone infront of me was walking...Phew. Thank goodness.

Spectacular view from the top

Once I got to the top - it was a mixture of run, walk and caution caution. For one split second I did not concentrate .....and down I went. Crash boom bang. At least I connected with a grass patch and not the rocky single track. A well, that's part of the whole adventure. Scars are cool!
In the back of my mind I sort of recall from last year, that there is a very tricky downhill coming up.
Tricky might be a bit of an understatement. Nerve-recking.....mountain, single track, slip and fall and they will find me days later. This race is NOT for my friend Mike in the UK....his got a bit of a vertigo thing going.

Concentration to the max, as we all venture down a very steep and technical downhill.

                                                          Caution Caution

And suddenly it was over, and I could start running. At this point the 19km competitors joined the 30km competitors. We(the 30k'ers) must have looked like a bunch of wild creatures, running as if something was chasing us. After over 3hours on the mountain, this was the first time we could actually run.....that's what we came here to do. RUN.

ps. note to self: If one enters a mountain race, one must train on the mountain.

My technical running ability was not what it's supposed to be - not use to rockhopping! that is more Linda Doke's scene. Linda, next year you have to run, to show us how it's supposed to be done!

and then, nothing like ending a day with a bit of an injury. I could feel the inflammation in my foot getting real bad from about 6k's to go. But what can you do. Finish the race and deal with it afterwords.

Self-treatment 101: nothing that duct tape and mixed veg's can't fix.

Cheers
the wanna-be Mountain Goat