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Tuesday, May 25, 2010

What a Great Week for the Team

This week has been great for the Pennypinchers AR Team for various reasons. Firstly we have renewed our sponsorship relationship with Helly Hansen for this year. What this means is that we have been supplied with racing and training tops by the world leader in technical clothing for hot or cold weather. We now have only the best in this department. One cannot underestimate the importance of staying warm when it is cold,cool when it is hot and dry when it is wet. This balance can be the difference between winning a race and losing,finishing or retiring or even life and death in an emergency.

The second big plus came along with the sponsorship of race nutrition from GU. GU is what Hoover is to vac um cleaners in the energy gel market. GU now also has a full range of race nutrition options and we now have access top another brand leader in these products. We have the GU gels , the Electrolyte Replacement drinks and also the Energy Chomps to make sure we stay fully fueled during races and training.











With the news of these great deals putting wind in our sails Jeannette and myself headed down to Theewaterskloof Dam for the Quantum Adventures Tri Challenge. The race would start with a 10 km paddle on the huge dam ,then a 24km mountain bike leg through the apple orchards and on to the mountain behind Villiersdorp and finish with an 8km trail run again through the orchards and along the dam.



About 180 competitors took part in the race which had different categories allowing pairs and relay options as well as the solo entrants. We lined up for the start of the paddle looking around for the competition and also for strong paddlers who we could work with on the paddle leg. paddling would be our strongest leg so we knew we needed to have a good lead going into the next two legs. The paddle went well and we were the second boat off the water and with a quick transition were on to our bikes and heading along the edge of the dam. My legs were dead for the first twenty minutes of the bike due to a lack of brick session training . With some fun river crossings and sandy and muddy sections we finished the bike leg in 1hr 05. Another super quick transition saw us onto the final trail run. Jelly once again over took the legs for a bit as we wound our way through the apple trees and then along the waters edge back to the finish. With that leg taking about 36 minutes we were first in the Mixed Pairs category and second in the overall standings as well only 10 minutes behind solo winner Rory Cole from Cape Town.Our total time was 2hrs 34 min.


Well done to Jeannette who showed her huge racing experience and put her head down and went like the clappers for two and half hours in a race that was most probably 200km to short and three times to fast for the training we have been doing.

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