Team Hot Pigs.... Race Report
By: James Lea-Cox
Team Members: Corne van Biljon, Pierre-Andre van Leeuwen, Elsie Bezuidenhout & James Lea-Cox
Seconds: J-P, Ina and Louise.
The power of visual marketing hinted that the Team Red Ants Rumble 150 km Adventure Race would be the sort of event that would knock you flat on your back panting and sweating with spectacular scenery, challenging race legs and quite a few interesting additions. Well it delivered and did so brilliantly.
I was invited to race, and later informed that I would have to navigate, for a team who enjoyed hiking in trousers, towed tyres around the streets in their spare time and really struggled to come up with a good team name. So 2 weeks before the race, Team Hot Pigs was formed consisting of Elsie (tows a tyre), Pierre-Andre (has problems with Stan's), Corne (Colonel Coetsee) and myself (the nav).
We left the City of the Tshwanepoels and headed up north in the direction of Polokwane. Just before the city we branched off towards Tzaneen. The vegetation and climate went from hot and dry Bushveld to humid forest very quickly and within no time we were driving over a really noisy cattle grid, which I learnt to embrace later that night with limited affection. We quickly set up camp and started sorting out our kit and kindly informing our seconding crew how we like our sandwiches and how many sugars to add to our tea. Registration started at 18h00, or thereabouts, and we were issued two standard topo maps and two A4 photocopied maps. A plotting session ensued while team Hot Pigs tried to refresh the 1,2,3 of plotting following a extended off-season of beer drinking and beach lounging. Some staring out of the window, and at the teams with a myriad of sponsors names displayed on every visible piece of clothing, sort of triggered a mental response and the pencil found its way to paper. Plotting finished saw us enjoying a top quality pasta before shouts echoed through the campsite of something called a "beefing"?!
Brian Gardner of the Red Ants had us gathered in the main building for a quick and concise 'briefing' in which he highlighted the various aspects of the course and that of a seeding prologue event to be held within the hour. Race briefing finished had us running to our respective prologue events. There were three. Firstly, a sprint around two dams followed by scaling a really high wall; secondly, a go-cart race on an off road track; and lastly, a mini obstacle course with a bit of paintball target practise to boot. All this was to be timed and the fastest team would start first the next day with subsequent teams at 30 second intervals. Great fun was had by all before we made our way to bed for a 3 am start.
Sleeping was difficult. A well placed cattle grid and a constant entourage of vehicles resulting in a really bad version of 'tubular bells' had every attempt at a bit of eyelid analysis thwarted on a regular basis. However, we awoke just after 2am raring to go... All the teams lined up on the starting blocks in between various Deposita banners and cameramen. I found team "Have Beer's" debut interview particularly amusing. Our results from the prologue had us leaving in 9th place out of 18 teams. On Brian's go we headed down the forest track to CP 1 located at a weir. This clipped had us moving up hill at a fast walk to intersect the main road and an access track to the dam. And so came the first of two navigation errors. On hitting the main tar road I overshot the track and we ended up at a security complex reminiscent of Smugglers Cove. After questioning the dozing security guard as to whether he had seen any foolish people wandering in the forest with candles strapped to their heads, we decided to hike along the shore on the dirt road in the general direction of the paddling put-in. A 6km run became 12 km as we watched the other teams paddling on Ebenezer Dam. Finally, we arrived at the transition in second last place. I was seething.
However, not be disheartened, we portaged our boats to the water's edge and paddled off at a furious pace. After a kilometre the mist came down and navigation became difficult. After a while we started passing yachts and I realised that we had missed the CP at the dam wall in the mist. Second error. A quick conference with another team who we had caught up to had us paddling back 1.5 km to clip the CP. We clipped CP2 just after the last team and concluded that we had passed the dam wall by probably 50 meters and not seen the red flashing light. A renewed paddling effort had us at the takeout point and our wonderful seconds.
The next leg was to be a short mountain biking section around the dam and over the hill to a transition. Once on the hill there was quite a bit of route choice and we bumped into Phillip Swanepoel and the Stanford Lake lot as well as Team Have Beer. Our route choice paid off and we cycled into transition in 10th or 11th place having caught quite a few teams.
The transition served as the entry point for the kloofing section, which proved to be fantastic. A short scramble had us swimming to the top of a 10 meter cliff jump or abseil. The lads took the plunge while Elsie took the civilised route. A bit more scrambling and swimming led to CP 5, which dangled 4 meters up in the air above a pool. We had to climb a rope to get there. Pierre-Andre attempted it but leapt free and said the youngest should do it. That meant me. A bit of struggling and cursing had the CP clipped. The last section involved descending a rope ladder and a few sailors' ropes before a short exit route to the transition. In between raving about the kloofing and sipping hot milo we got into dry kit and headed out on a short cycle to the Wolkberg. The cycle went well and we arrived to Nicky Booysens and our unassisted race crate that held a stash of food and drinks. Quite a few teams were lazing about before contemplating the mammoth 21 km circular hike.
The Hot Pigs transitioned quickly and accepted that the first 7km would be uphill and the heat was sweltering. We put our heads down, took a deep breath and set off at a fast walk. The start of the hike was also the scene of a kit error. Two of us had, while sipping milo and talking rubbish at the kloof, forgot to pack our shorts for the hiking leg. In other painful words, this meant that we would have to hike in cycling shorts. Now unless you have really thick arse skin, walking in cycling shorts for an extended period of time usually results in varying degrees of chafing discomfort, but I will get to that later.
The first part of the hike went well, and except for being passed by Phillip Swanepoel who was towing most of his team, we made up a few places. CP 7 was plotted just behind a hill and to the east of track. The Hot Pigs hit it spot on and couldn't understand why some teams had been wandering around for ages in the immediate area. CP7 was manned by the Ryan of the Red Ants and their boozing second Louis, who had hauled up a cooler box of beer. I was getting jealous. Before we could sneak a Windhoek, we were sent down a small opening in the ground which turned out to be the entrance to a cave system. The CP was located at the end so we had to scramble on our haunches while bumping our heads into any and every roof protrusion. The Hot Pigs really enjoyed the cooling-down this little caving experience had to offer!
On finishing our little subsurface foray, we made our way up onto the eastern flanks of Serala Peak before clipping CP 8 at a steep descent path. The scenery along this section was fantastic what with waterfalls, sharp cutbacks and steep drops. And we were further entertained by Corne's stories about national service in the Kruger Park. The descent from CP 8 into the Wonderwoud took at bit of time as losing a team member would not be ideal. We did, however, hit terra firma with relative ease and set off at a brisk walk down the valley to CP 9 at the Jeep track. The valley continued forever as we crossed streams, scaled fallen tree trunks, contemplated where the path went and tried to avoid the temptation of plonking one's self down and having a nap. After a while, the forest stopped and gave way to a short section of veld before we reached the river confluence and CP9. At this stage we decided that we had to sit down and take a breather. 2.5 minutes became 5 minutes which became 10 and eventually we were on our way. It was at about this time that my close fitting pair of cycling shorts, which one praises while perched on a Fizik Gobi, became the bane of my lower regions. I wanted to tear the things off! So as not to scare my team or risk a photograph, I kept my shorts on, applied a liberal coating of Island tribe sun cream, and marched off with a grim face. The jeep track led us to the initial transition and our race crate. Along the way we passed a few teams who had already started the cycle leg. The look on the faces hinted that the hill we were walking down was not entertaining when attempted in reverse on something with two wheels and not so many gears.
We arrived at the transition and spent a while sorting ourselves out. Let's just say Island Tribe featured quite a bit. We eventually left transition and headed up one monster uphill towards the forest station. The initial stages were spent cycling but as it got dark and hills became steeper we resorted to pushing our bikes. The climb was unrelenting and despite our pushing no-one caught up to us. On reaching the top, Pierre-Andre decided that now would be the time that his Stan's No Tubes would start to misbehave. Thankfully so this gave me some time to consider the next route choice as the expected road headed up in the wrong direction to which we wanted to be going. We even had a visit by a policeman on a motorcycle during this time. Bike fixed and route plotted had us once again cycling and pushing up hill until we reached the main dirt road to the Forest Station. Luckily it was all downhill from here to the seconding point. Unfortunately, we would have to reverse this route on the way out. I kept this from my team for a while.
Our seconds greeted us with mugs of steaming milo and plates of pasta. We also bumped into Brian who informed us that quite a few teams had dropped out. Stupidly he asked if we were going to continue or not. He received a sordid look of shock and disdain and not a word was muttered. We spent about 30 minutes at the seconding point as the next section was to be a monster cycle of 60 or so kilometres. Two pairs of cycling shorts, zambuk and Island Tribe, and we were on our way back up the steep hill. Our goal was a T junction and a small forestry road to another caving section. We located the Junction and raced off downhill to the cave passing two teams on their way back up the hill to the main dirt road. The marshal at this point was Chris Pretorius who directed us via some bunting to the cave entrance. A short scramble had us in a large chamber full of stalactites and stalagmites. The CP was located at the back of the cave. This we clipped and quickly posed for a photograph before heading back out to once again mount our bikes. I decided to use the main road as the navigation in the valley would have been slightly tricky at night. A short bike push had us on the main Wolkberg road. From here on it was cycle where you can and push the rest. I was feeling a little worse for wear as I had borrowed a bike for this race and as luck would have did the bike was too big. Much cursing and heavy breathing had us at the summit and some flat trails before the down hills begun. Absolute heaven!
The next CP was located at a Mine Shaft located 30 meters off the road. I kept a careful note of the mileage on the entire cycle as I was determined to catch a few teams and did not want to waste time bundu bashing for a CP! Just before the CP we bumped into Team Wasp who was resting and we happened to see quite a few frantic lights in the distance. A short distance further I decreed that this is the spot and I headed off the road. The spot happened to be right and sure enough we located the mine shaft and a camera crew. We instantly went from 9th to 6th place at this point. The CP was located at the back of a really soggy, guano filled tunnel which seemed to continue forever. Once again we learnt the hard way that it pays to lower one's head.
On our exit the other teams in the immediate area realised that we had located the CP and swarmed in at speed. With haste we gingerly climbed onto our bikes and set off toward the last CP at a dam wall. This was going really well as the road was either flat or sloping downhill. However, I knew that there was only one more hill… It didn't look too big and I'm quite sure on fresh legs it would have been easy. At this stage of the race it was anything but easy. Yet again we employed the push your bike then lie on your handle bars action until the summit and the promise of a fast downhill to the dam.
The dam was located at a turn in the road and at this point we headed off towards the dam on a vague jeep track. A few minutes later we spotted the red flashing light of the CP. We raced towards the dam wall, clipped the CP and headed uphill through a farm yard. A slight bit of confusion was experienced at this point but it was rectified and shortly we were crossing the main tar road.
On perusal of the map, it was evident that we had to go west past the forest and latch onto the Thaba Metsi access road. This we did and hit a fence and then we stupidly followed the fence downhill. Rectifying the incorrect route choice had us crossing a number of fences as we carried our bikes back uphill to a waiting Team Wasp. They would not accept our story and headed off in the direction from whence we came! We on the other hand found a route around the fence and within 5 minutes were crossing the finish line at just after 5 am in 6th place. Not bad from 17th I think.
We slipped back to camp and woke our seconds with jubilation. Now it was time for a shower and snooze. Alas, the camp had no water! A few of us took a bath in the dam while some of us convinced our seconds to boil up some water for a sponge bath.
Prizing giving was at 10 am and 1st, 2nd and 3rd went to Powerade Cyanosis, Mccain and USN respectively. The Hot Pigs won some gloves for their efforts and a lucky draw resulted in a free buffet lunch at the Magoebeskloof Hotel.
Many thanks must go to Team Red Ants for putting on a fantastic race. Thank you to the race sponsor and all the volunteers who gave up their time so we could suffer up mountains and through forests. And a big thank you to the Hot Pigs and the seconding crew for a great race!