BULL OF AFRICA

Team Comor / John Henry

Megan Rose
Graham Tutti
Adam Smith
Adrian Rothwell

Race Pics http://picasaweb.google.ca/smitty0476/BullOfAfrica#
Race Video http://www.youtube.com/smitty0476


I know there are a few of you wondering what happen to us in the race - so here it is - the breakdown ..... ok sorry this is going to be long ..... pick and choose what you wish to read !!

I guess most of you know that I have been suffering from ITB Syndrome since February, and leading up to the race a month out I was finally back into running and doing long treks with no pain. We had the team discussion of whether we all were fit/healthy (injury free) enough to compete in Africa, and at that stage me injury was finally looking promising.
2 weeks prior to leaving we did a 24hr training session, and my knee become evident of pain again, but a little too late for replacement of myself on the team. My thoughts "lots of pain killers and anti-inflammatory's during the race and I should be fine !!

We arrive in South Africa after hour and hours of travel (think I was 62hrs from the time of leaving Vancouver to the time of arriving in Eastern Cape!!).
One of my team mates boxes never arrived with all his racing gear. So we spent 2 days driving around eagerly trying to put together enough stuff for us to race! Amongst our race registration, gear checks, and skills test .... and after discovering how everything runs on 'south african' time, then it made it even harder !! (ie if they say 8am.... they really mean say 10am ... or could even be 11am !!)

RACE OVERVIEW

10km Trail / Bush run (2.5hrs)
15-20km Mountain Bike (3hrs - we did it twice :-(
Paddle with a Trek (3.5hrs)
25-30km Mountain Bike (2.5hrs)
50-60km Trek (28hrs)

Transition 1 - After 40hrs of racing we finally get our first food and gear bin !

50km Mountain Bike (5hrs)
10km Paddle (4hrs)
55km Mountain Bike and cliff scramble with bike! (10.5hrs)

Transition 2 - Get second gear and food bin

50km Trek with Rappel/Abseil and 160m Ascend
95km Mountain Bike to the Coast
30km Coasteering Trek along coast

Transition 3

Then get the next instructions from there.

DAY 1

Trek / Run 10km 2.5hrs
After a busy crazy 4 days leading into the race, we have to be up at 2am the morning of the start, to load an old freezing cold bus at 3am for what was meant to be a 3hr drive up into the mountains. After our bus drivers getting lost we arrived in 5hrs!! It was so so cold, frost on the ground cold. We got ourselves ready and we started at 9am. We had a 10km run/trek to begin the race and split the field up. We did great (my knee from the beginning was not good though). We come in at the end of this short leg within 20mins of the leaders.

Bike 20km
We were on our bikes for what was an easy nav 17km mountain bike to our boats. We were setting a good pace. To find that we had nearly made it to the boats and our navigator realised we missed a check point right back at the beginning, we had rode straight past it. We had to back track and watch 15 or more teams filter past us. Not a good start.

Paddle with Treks
We re caught a few teams and head out on the kayaks for a bunch of treks off the boat.

Night 1
30km Bike (7pm)
We get back on bikes for a 25-30km section with one big arse climb - but I was loving it - no pain on the bike and I like long steady climbs!! The temperature starts dropping like crazy. We get to the top of the climb, put on every piece of clothing we had, lifa shirt, fleece, wind breaker, and waterproof jackets !! and start our descend into the transition. No kidding it was that cold!

50-60km Trek (10pm)
We spend a few minutes warming up by the fire before we set out for what we know is going to be one long long trek, through networks of trails and bushland. Knowing already we will have to ration our food as we had to take 40hrs worth of food in our packs from the start line!

Day 2
Still Trekking
We are still trekking we make up a few places throughout the night near a waterfall checkpoint. But come about 3am, we lost our way for a few hours. On sunrise we start climbing the ridge we had been looking for - the wind is bitter and again we have every piece of clothing on we had, with our toques on and hoodies up! What an amazing view and amazing sunrise. We take a few seconds to take some pics and then heads down to get off the ridge and out of the wind! We then make our way over a few more big climbs and down into a hut for our next checkpoint. We managed to recover to 17th place after our mistake at the beginning and our slow moving through the night. Still only early days and we know there is only 2hrs between 10th and us! We push on through, more steep ups and more steeps downs, and the craziest bushwakes South Africa has to offer - thorns thorns and more thorn trees to push through. We make to to the next mountain by mid afternoon - after now have been trekking for 17hrs and to see what we still had left before we would see more food and water - Adrian begins to tell us 'see that next mountain - well not that mountain, but not the one behind that, but that ridge on the mountain behind that - well that is our next checkpoint - and then from there we still have 15km to the transition !! we sit and take this in for a little bit - build up the strength and get on our way to make the most of the sunlight.

Night 2
Still Trekking
We did a nice steep climb and scramble up to the peak for our next checkpoint just after dark. Our feet were done and my knee was done - more pain killers, a little nibble on what food we had left, and a long long descent following a fence into our first major transition and food box. We would have been happy if we would never have to see another barb wire fence again after that night !! So now about 27hrs into the trek and just under 40hrs into the race we are descending our last little bit - we can see the lights of transition ahead - maybe 1km away - oh how excited we were! To then get the biggest shock ever - I look down to see a massive lake between us and that transition, that would have to be 10km to get around. I inform the others they don't believe me as its not on the map, and I tell them 'turn off your lights and look ahead' Its 1am in the morning and we all stand still looking at this massive lake under the moon light feeling devastated for one that its not on the map and for two what turned out to be a 1km to the food is now 10km - hours longer. We are shocked. We send down Adrian to check it out, what looks to us that he is now walking on this 'water/lake'. He shouts back 'its grass'. The night was so cold it sent a mist right through the valley, and to our tired eyes it was 100% a big lake !! ha ha.

I have never been so cold, we make it to the lodge, order up a big meal, the water bottles on our bikes that had been waiting there for us at transition have an inch of frozen layer on the top - there was no way we were getting on those bikes and riding in this temperature. It was the middle of the second night and with no sleep we decided to stop and get about 3hrs in.
What turned into very little sleep or rather maybe no sleep by all of us in the noisy (but warm) hut didn't help!

Day 3
50km Bike (8am)
Ok so we head off about 8am, pealing off the layers as we start to climb and the sun warms us up. We had a great bike to our next paddle. After laughing at Adrian for him biking for the first hour with only 1 lens in his sunglasses and him not even realising !

10km Paddle and trek (2pm)
We got a few checkpoints and then had to land our kayaks at the other end, while 2 of us stayed with the boat and two had to go 6km for a checkpoint, we only had our bike shoes, so Graham and Adam did amazing by running the 6km in their bike shoes and making up some great time.

Night 3
55km Bike (7pm)
We had another strong bike with some good climbs. We knew of a swim we had to do with our bikes to cross a creek on this leg that we were dreading in the middle of night because of the temp. We arrive at this creek to find that the lack of rain in the last 3 months, made it nearly dried up - what a relief! We then had to find an opening in the cliffs on the other side and scramble up with our bikes bush waking at the same time! My knee was done, the only way I could walk up or down hill was with my treking poles as support. So I now had my bike with no poles, and had to step up this steep climb with the weight of my 11kg bike on my back - mmm not fun :-(
After we made it up we got to a game reserve at about 2am. Best hospitality and got served some amazing burgers! We pushed on to a long walk with our bikes down to the creek and a half hike a bike half steep climb out to our next major transition and food box 2.

Day 4
Sleep 1.5hrs
Trek 50km - Rappel and Ascend
We grabbed a few beds at the lodge transition which was in the middle of no where - got an hour of so of sleep, and a quick shower with our now swollen eyes feet and hands !! Got some route knowledge from a local (which didn't help) and we where on our way with our packs loaded with all our climbing gear, a ton food and water and warm clothes!
Note- roads on maps are no longer there, one dotted line on map could mean a trail, a full on road, a jeep track, or nothing at all. After evidence of no trail we had to balls up and bush wake through the thickest sharpest craziest thorn bushes of all time down to the creek that we were going to follow to next CP. A few hours later and a bunch of blood and scratches later we made it through the heat of the day - yes down to below 0 degrees at night and up to 25-30 during the day!.

Night 4
Still trekking
The creek was not walkable - we find a road and take the long route around. What we thought would take us a few hours has now taken us all day. We pass through a hunting reserve at about 9pm with a lodge, the lodge is closed down, we sleep on grass for 45mins, then continue on, down a long descent back to the river for the checkpoint. After 4 days of knee/ITB pain, I can't travel/walk down hill anymore, even with my weight on my trekking poles. I am done - the pain beat me. There we so many points where I wanted to say that I could no longer carry on, but it is not just me I had to consider. This effected 3 others, that had but their time, effort, and money into coming to South Africa to race. 3 very good close friends. This was not an easy decision and an even harder one to let the words come out of my mouth. I was finished. It brings a tear to my eye just having to write this now a week later. I waited there on the trail with Graham, while Adrian and Adam went down to get the CP from the Creek. A few hours later we made our way back up to the hunting lodge and the farmers house. It was now 2am, we woke them up. The nicest people ever, they took me and adrian to the lodge to spend the rest of the night while Adam and Graham decided to carry on. Adrian too was also suffering knee and back pain so decided he would not go on. We slept till morning, then the maids made us the best breakfast ever while we waited to be picked up.

Day 5
Adam and Graham made it through the rest of the next day, after another long trek in the heat of the day on little to no water and a long ascent Adam started seeing the signs of dehydration and vision problems. They were in a serious situation if they didn't get to water soon. They made it down to the next little town where they refueled and went to a B&B to recover. They made the call to not go on as signs were not improving and we got the message to pick them up.

SUMMERY
Well I owe a massive thanks to the boys for helping me get as far as I did. To Adam and Graham for carrying my pack on the last few downhills to try and save my knee and keep me in the race - thanks for your efforts and strength. Thanks for understanding the position I was in and being supportive of one of the hardest decision I had to make.

I did have a great race with great memories up until the point I made it. I learnt how diverse the terrain can be in South Africa and learnt that we had to forget looking for the trails, and just armor up with long pants and long shirt and push your way through the thorns as that was the only way to go !! Hano for sure puts on a hard race, with a lot of hours on the feet, with very minimal chances to see our food boxes and water stops ! Had we been prepared a little more with some local knowledge on the terrain and maps, and un-injured then we for sure would have had a good fighting chance. We are prepared to come back in 2 years with a regence and complete this race ! Bigger and tougher ! ha ha

This new team is amazing, I have grown closer to these boys, and we know that we have a very very bright future ahead - also knowing that we have a bit of work to do and learnt a lot from this race.

I am now taking the rest of the year off running, doing everything I can to fix this ITB ready for a strong season next year. Thanks to all those that followed and I can understand the frustration for you with our satellite tracker not working properly and you wondering what happened to us !!

It was a little comforting to know that only 12 teams out of 43 finished the full course - as thats is an indicater of how tough it was ! ha ha - and would have been great to know how we would have ended up had I not been injured.

Many Pictures to come when I arrive back in Canada in a week or two. We are now enjoying driving down the coast line back to Cape Town.

M. x