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