Rogaine - A treasure hunt for adults

A Rogaine is almost like a treasure hunt: You get a map with lots of points marked on it. Some points score more than others, depending on how difficult it is to get to them. You and a team mate collect as many points as you can within an allocated time.

It's not necessarily the fastest team that wins - you need some mapreading skills, there's some strategic planning as to which controls to visit and which to skip, and you have to know your and your teammate's abilities - there's huge penalties for being even a second late.

The Capestorm Rogaine is an annual highlight n the Orienteering Calendar, always around end October. It returned to Kaapsehoop this year after 2 years in Lakenvlei. And what an awesome area for this!

The Foot Rogaine on Saturday offered a 4 and 8 hour event, while racers could choose between a 2- or a 5-hour event for the MTB on Sunday.

Barrets' Coaches (2 sleeper train coaches that serves as hiking huts about 1 km from the start) was very much the place to be during the last rogaine that was in that area. I remembered the war stories from the day's hike around the campfire on the Saturday night, so I booked a spot there.

Dawn & I left Gauteng early-ish on Friday afternoon, registered, had some food in the only open pub in Kaapsehoop, and arrived at a very lonely campsite around 8 on Friday night. Soon afterwards 2 other rogainers arrived (they camped next to us before and after the Mankele adventure race earlier the year) and a few hours later all 6 memberes of team Lickety Split arrived. Suddenly the train trucks were noisy and full and comfortable.

8 hour foot-rogaine Saturday 30/10
7:52
around 34 kays
just less than 1000m vertical ascent

It was a mass-start: everybody received their maps at the same time. We discussed some route options, and when we looked up, it was Dawn & myself, and 2 organisers left at the start: everybody else had left. We had ambitious plans about getting the furthest controls - we would pick up the lower-scoring controls on the way back. There were a few good navigational calls, we searched a while for a control in a ditch, and one valley wasn't exactly where we searched for it - but generally we were satisfied with how the run went. Downhills and level we jogged (if it was in the shade); uphills and level-ground that was not in the shade, we walked as fast as we could. Saw lots of familiar faces out there :D

We carried lots of food for a panned picnic about halfway, but we totally overestimated our ability - by the time we reached the furthest control, we knew we were sot-of in trouble. We had about 10 kays to go (straight home) with less than 2 hours. It may sound like plenty of time, but our feet felt the effects of 6 hours of running/hiking on terrain that was very seldom anything but granny-gear-up or brake-slamming down. The body was willing, but the feet not that much. On the way back we still saw some teams coming out to collect controls! Adri/Con and Sue/Landie certainly looked like they'd still be able to run a 10k in 1 hour back.

The last 7 kays was very hard; it was mostly downhill, but the feet were complaining loudly and the clock was ticking. I fantasized about just sitting for 10 minutes at the finish, not having to worry about a clock and not having any weight on my feet. About 200m from the finish we ran a bit of as detour while looking for shortcuts back, but we made it with 8 minutes to spare. It would have been enough to collect control 17! ("no, we couldn't", my feet chirped in.). 'Twas still enough points to get us overall second ladies' team in, but only because Sue/Landie had to pay a hefty penalty for being an hour late (after collecting almost all the controls out there)

I would like to report a very noisy outrageous party around the campfire that night - but alas, by 8:30 not a mouse was squeaking in the train compartments - and if they were, no-one would have heard them.

5-hour MTB rogaine Sunday 31/10
4:42 (of which only 3:48 actual cycling)
46 kays
just over 1000m vertical ascent

I don't think mountain biking gets better than doing a rogaine :D You decide how long you want to be out, what you want to ride, and how fast.

Having seen the terrain down south during the foot-rogaine the previous day, we decided to rather go check out what the terrain north looks like. It was a mass start again - this time we weren't the last team to leave, but when everyone continued straight, we turned off to the right, found ourselves on totally the wrong road, and climbed a monster-hill to get back to the original track. We should have, like the previous day, went for the furthest controls first ... could have, would have, should have.

Anyway - so this time we DID get those darn furthest controls. on the way back had to give up some high-scoring controls to fetch even higher-scoring controls. The nave went very well; there were one or two good calls. It felt especially good to find controls while other teams were milling around the area searching for them or frowning over their maps :)

Saw a lot of familiar faces out there, what a lovely area to ride in. With about half an hour to go it was getting dark (storm clouds, not sun going down) and we decided to skip the last 2 controls and rather go straight home. It was a downhill, and we were home 18 minutes early and with enough points to get us first vets girls team - there was a bit of pressure to do that, since i forgot the trophy of last year at home ...

can't wait till next year!

Footnotes

• ROC (Rand Orienteering Club) organises this every year. It's around end October - keep an eye on their website, and a space in your diary.
• Would have loved to swap the format: an 8-hour cycle and a 5-hour foot. The problem is most likely the time mapping and putting out controls on an area big enough to keep the fast people out there for 8 hours on a bike.
• I should spend more time on my feet if i'm gonna do an 8-hours foot rogaine again. Was possibly a good idea to go for the furthest points first - because we would have finished early on the foot-event if we could.
• The orienteering/adventure/rogaine crowd are a very friendly bunch.Great to spend a weekend with them, and compare notes afterwards - and hear stories about other events.
• I was very impressed with our map-reading abilities this time around - that's, until i compared the time out there with time that the wheels actually were turning. Turned out we cycled for only 3:48 of the 4:42 that we were out there. that's a ratio of 1 minute of reading maps for every 4 minutes of cycling. Some work to do re speed-reading maps!

Flatwater Proficient - finally

There's been some debate on the AR mailinglists about requiring different water proficiencies for adventure races. The next Ystervark AR (early next year) will require at least flatwater proficiency, so a few us went through the process on Saturday. All of us in the picture below :)

We spent a bit of time with Bill (the safety officer) on Saturday afternoon. A short theory lesson where we discussed how to choose a boat, what to take with if you go paddle, and what to do if you fall out. Here's Eric comparing his notes with what Bill told us.

Here's Francois and Oupa Gerrit on one of the 2 laps where we had to prove that we could do some distance (as far as 2 km counts as 'distance')

Here's Oupa Gerrit and Francois again, this time demonstrating that they could do an emergency stop before hitting Tony and Nando's boat. In the background Adri and Keanne is getting ready for the steep turn.

... and this is what the proficiency really is about: falling out of your boat without loosing the paddle ...

... see? Leon still has his paddle :)

Tony and Nando swimming back

... and emptying the boat.

thx hardy for organising this!

Not quite as famous as Natalie du Toit - but getting there :)

TV cameras everywhere, blinding lights and lots of microphones all around me, fans calling my name or holding out pens so that i could sign on their cycling shirts ...

no, it didn't happen quite like that - and being a geek, i would have been very uncomfortable if it did :)

I read about the Cebe 12hr event on the hub, and figured it would be good training for the Rogaine the end of the month. I haven't done much since Transbaviaans - a sprint here, a coffee-ride there - so would have been way too slow to enter in a team. There's much less pressure if you ride solo - you can swim if it's too hot, stop for any excuse like lubing the bike, altering seat height, cleaning the gear cables, putting lights on. Much less pressure and hopefully a lot of fun.

The venue was originally going to be at Teak Place, one of my all-time favourite playgrounds, but it was moved to avianto (muldersdrift). 'Twas a boring-ish route with a few steep turns on loose gravel, a niiiice downhill, a climbie that i took in granny from lap one, a stunning piece of singletrack in a forest on an old railwayline, and some short steep technical-ish climbies before you enter the transition zone again.

There was enough space to pass, but the first few laps we had to share the tracks with the 22k funriders and the 5k juniors. I thought the track was a bit rough for the size of the kiddies on the course, but it didn't seem to phase them - the future of South Africa's mountain biking looks great! I knew i had all day to cycle, so did't mind waiting my turn to get past them - but it must have been scary for the youngsters when they were passed by the racing snakes :(

Race started at 9. About 8.5 kays per lap. I did a few laps (4, i think) before stopping to refill for water. Noticed the leaderboard but didn't stop to figure out how it works - i wanted to complete two more laps before a lunchbreak. So 3 hours into the race i got to see what was going on - liked it, and didn't like it at the same time. I was first female - but i was also second overall. My strategy changed: i know i'm not fast, so if i wanted to hang onto that 2nd position, i simply had to continue cycling.

I'm getting too old for this. Wrists were very sore after a few hours. Then my feet started complaining. Then my back, and finally my neck. Good grief, it's not like i've never been on a bike before!

Afternoon was very hot - i never stopped to jump in the pool. I did stop to refill with water/ice/usn on every lap - was consuming more than a litre per lap during the midday-laps. The huge ice tub in the transition zone never ran out of USN.

Agteros came to say hi and cheer me on a bit :)

Finally the sun went down. Stopped, fitted lights, lubed the bike, ate everything i had in the car, relaxed a bit at the Graham/GuyP/Wheelsuck/Deon/Albert gazebo, and got on the bike again.

(did i mention that Deon did the morning's trailrun, then the 12hrs, and interrupted it for the evening trailrun?? ouch!!)

Ahhh there's just something about nightriding. The big light didn't work, so I had the princeton tec helmetlight only - but that was good enough. Fairylights on a small bridge where we had to go under, glosticks on all the directional markers. Climbies, downhills, steep off-camber turns that i did 15 times or more in daylight, suddenly came alive. That's why i cycle!

Wheelsuck waited for me so that we could do the final lap together - he was the winner and the guy whom i chased all day. thx that was so sweet! but my gears were not playing along, the headlight was fading fast, and i was tired - so i declined.

So i still haven't finished a race with people cheering and tv cameras capturing the moment.

I'm getting too old for this! I slept the whole of Sunday, getting up only to eat or drink. Sore wrists, feet, ankles, neck, back, good grief!

I see there's a 10-hr coming up in November :D

Small Miracles

2 small and one bigger miracle last week.

Tubeless Tyres

Was playing around on the BMX track when I noticed some stan's leaking from the very flat tyres. While pumping it, i could hear the air escaping. The wet goo even marked the spot for me. Plugged it, pumped a little and off i went. Aaaah the miracle of tubeless !

Teak Place

Those lovely little bridges and other fun-things at Teak place!! Can't ride there and not feel good about life afterwards.

Finding the missing paddles

A bigger miracle: After Swazi X we found someone else's paddles in our boat. Both pablo and my split paddles were missing and after some posts on various mailing lists I gave up on ever getting it back. A few weeks ago there were some desperate pleas from Team Swazi Moto, who lost theirs too. One of them was one of the unfamiliar paddles that ended up in our boat. Mike Richardson collected it from me last week Monday. He didn't have ours, so i thought it was the end of it. BUT Tuesday I got an email from mike - he located the paddles in Pietermaritzburg - they might be able to get a lift to the Fish Marathon, from where we just have to arrange a lift back to Jozi. THANK YOU Mike for phoning around and locating them for us - i knew you were still looking for your other paddle as well, but thx for doing the extra bit to find ours as well :)

oh yes and i managed to stay in the k1 for 2 laps on Emmarentia on Saturday, without tipping over. does that count as another miracle? :D 

Sunday's Sprint

To Quote a face-book friend (Erik) : Heidi and Stephan must be the King and Queen of Gauteng-AR at the moment. The Kinetic events are always fun - and sunday was no exception. We ran a bit, cycled some VERRY pretty and uncongested singeltrack, got lost a little bit, found a lot of controls without stephan's help, zig-zagged accross two dams cos the kayak just wouldn't go straight, almost fell off the obstacles at the finish, and laughed a lot.

Dawn on one of the bike legs (lifted off big baboon's site)
Zu's grin was just as wide - now who won't want to race with girls with smiles this big??   :D

Post-race Depression

I've Googled it; it seems that post-race depression sometimes occurs after a big event - you've trained so long for so hard, juggling work and family commitments with training for race day - then you reach your goal - and suddenly you don't know what to do with your time - mission completed, and your life seems empty.

My personal totally unscientific theory goes more like this:

You have a tube of happy hormones in your brain. You go run or cycle a stunning piece of singletrack, or smell good coffee, and the happy-hormone-tube is being squeezed a little bit and you go on a little high. You go do a nightride on gnarly singletrack with gauteng's coolest crowd, and you drink hot chocolate with friends afterwards, and the tube is squeezed a little more and you glow with endorphins (or serotonin, or dopamine, or whatever causes this high) for days.

The total stock of happy-hormones in your brain is now less, but you operate off the released happiness while you sleep or work or drink good coffee or clean your bike, and over time it replenishes itself, so there's always stock when something squeezes the tube next time.

All working like nature intended.

The problem come in if you squeeze the endorphin-tube too hard without giving it time to replenish.

e.g. you go do Swazi Xtreme. You sleep very little, but you spend time with some of the best navigators you'll ever meet - you cycle in the dark, you trot on a dirt-road while talking to buddies in other teams as they pass you,  you catch up with other team's seconds at transitions, you paddle on pretty rivers, hike in a kloof, carry your bike over gnarly downhills,  find controls in unexpected and pretty places - and you use up a lot of happy-hormones. Then, while you're still on the high, you have 3 days to sort out the bike-issues and light-issues that broke on Swazi, get your adventure gear clean, get in the car - and start squeezing the tube again as you cycle down into the Baviaanskloof, as you catch up with friends along the way, as you plan where the controls for an adventure race might be, as you manage to get up the mother of all climbs without putting a foot down, or fight the sleepmonster, or almost get blown off your bike by a very temperamental sea-wind, or reach a checkpoint and can sleep for 4 minutes, or get to cycle some awesome dual-track at night by the dim light of your headlamp, or hear the sea, or cycle into Jeffereys bay 230 kms later - you're on a high, and the happy-hormone-stock in your brain totally depleted.

Like an empty toothpaste tube, it won't matter how hard you squeeze the tube. Empty is empty.

You'll just have to wait it out.

Eat some chocolate, email some friends, go buy pink flowers at the nursery for the friend's newborn-girl, drink some good coffee, go watch Evita at montecasino - even dine at Melrose Arch with some Ausie-friends that you haven't seen in years - but don't expect it to release feel-good feelings.

Lie awake for hours at night, search for company on the hub at 3 in the morning, sleep late every morning - till 12 on weekends, and 10 on weekdays (luckily your work allow that) - get a cold, play mindless computer games. Go find a paddle shop so that you can replace the paddle that went missing at SwaziX. Have a haircut, eat some chocolates. Bleh.

I went for a ride to Albert's farm on Sunday afternoon - first time i've done anything since Transbaviaans - all on my own - and the singletrack was pretty and dry, a little dusty - but lots of happy people at the botanical gardens, the downhill into delta park fun as ever - and i think the happy-hormones finally replenished. Managed a run as well on monday afternoon ... the sky is blue, the Spruit smells of jasmine, and I'm doing a sprint with Dawn & Zoo Cookie on Sunday - life is good again!

Transbaviaans

Been getting some grumpy questions about whether i'm EVER gonna update my blog again - so here it is :)

Yes, i did Transbaviaans - 3 weeks ago already.
How was it? long!
230 km on mostly gravel - but must be some of South Africa's prettiest gravel roads - with those huge rocks both sides of you as you drop down into the kloof. Then it opens up, some river crossings, some forests all around you, some farmhouses in the distance, a climb, another climb, some in daytime, lots at night!

Still haven't caught up with missing SwaziX sleep, so I struggled to keep awake during the small hours of the morning - the most technical part of the ride was trying to cycle a straight line with closed eyes.

It was also an emotional experience - the last time i was in that kloof was when i did the race with Hans Wolfaard (he of the Libia plane crash 4 months ago) - so I kept remembering where we stopped last, or what we did when we were at a specific transition.

I had some of the best team mates one could wish for (thx Adri, Leon, Ducttape and supersecond Nicolien)

Was great to see Elsie & x-D&D-er Sybrand, Breedtsnek-nightriders Denise & Zoo Cookie, and some hubbers (spud and buddies) out there - also my adventure sprint (and ride-2-rhodes) buddies Dave & Dawn

Was great to see Etricia, a cycling buddy of the time when i was still a George-girl, at one of the control points - and she looks exactly like 15 years ago!

Very well organised, checkpoints very well stocked with potbrood, hot chocolate, coffee, jaffels, sosaties and jungle bars. It's a long drive down, and even longer back  -THANK you nicolien for getting us safely home - even though you slept as little as we did the previous night

anyway - it's a long drive there - but very much worth it - maybe just not the weekend after SwaziX :)