Caro, Michelle (Assitport Jets) and I had decided to get to Swaziland early on Friday morning and spend the day relaxing around the pool at Hawane where we were staying and the start / finish venue of the Swazi Adventure. Unfortunately the weather was cold and gloomy which led us to huddle inside trying to stay warm.
Leg 1: 17km mountain bike.
The 1st cycle was actually just over 20km and mostly on sand roads and jeep tracks with a short single track section. This early morning cycle in the cold and misty morning was a fairly uneventful cycle for us. The day had started off rather cold but once we were moving we warmed up fairly quickly. The 1st leg ended with a steep downhill which unfortunately claimed a few competitors. It was also a hill we would be cycling up the next time we were on the bikes. Leg 1 had taken about 1.5 hours.
Leg 2: 16km Trek & kloofing.
This was the leg I had been looking forward to the most and in particular the potholes. But 1st we had the matter of a 6km trek to them. We started the trek down into the gauge at a fairly brisk pace and once in the gauge we could get up to a running pace until the potholes began.
The 1st pothole was the highest and as we arrived at it, I pointed out to Caro where the rope was for her to climb down only to see her launch herself off the ledge to the pool below. The potholes, pools and bum slides were great fun with a few teams moving together through the area.
The hike out the gauge was more than just that. When we got to the top mountain we could see teams summiting the next, higher mountain. Then again we dropped down and went up. At the top of the next mountain we again dropped into a gauge that again we would summit. Leg 2 had taken us almost 4 hours.
Leg 3: 3km Trek & canopy tour.
We put on our harnesses and trekked 1.5km down to the gauge where we started the with the zip-lines. We did 5 zip-lines starting with the shortest 55m line and ending with the longest 120m line. From the last line we crossed back over the gauge on thin (but safe) bridge. Then we climbed about 100m almost straight up out of the gauge and made our way back to transition to start the next bike leg. Leg 3 took us a little under 1 hour.
Leg 4: 24km Mountain bike.
At this stage we were in 5th position and Caro was the leading lady but both our legs were already mostly gone and as mentioned before, this leg started up the same hill we had come down. A 4.5km hill with almost 250 of ascent but we were told at transition that once we were up this hill it was mostly downhill to the next transition. This turned out to be totally false and yet again, at the top of every hill we could see the next hill we would be climbing. In fact, there were 5 big climbs and a couple smaller climbs on this leg which lead Caro to have one of those “This is my last race” moments and I my reeked state, all I could come back with was “let just keep moving slowly”.
With about 5km to go in the stage we were together with 4 other teams, unfortunately we were the last of the 5 teams, now in 9th position.
In the last kilometre of the stage we had to pass through a cattle gate and although that doesn’t sound very interesting, getting though the gate with 29ers proved to be very interesting and took us about 5 minutes. The end of this stage couldn’t have come soon enough as the 24km had taken us 2.5 hours.
Leg 5: 4km Kayak.
I’ve never been so keen to get onto a kayak in a race in my life. The kayak leg gave us 40 minutes to rest our legs as we battled currents while collecting the 2 points on this stage.
Leg 6: 3km Mountain bike.
The last 3km from Hawane dam to finish line at Hawane village took us only 9 minutes. We pushed hard on this stage as we had passed the “Dundee Crocs” team on the dam and wanted to consolidate our position even if they were racing in a different category to us.
Conclusion.
The Swazi Adventure has potential to be an incredible race with the key being your personal fitness. Caro and I had looked at it and thought that 70km would be fairly easy and we were both under trained for the race. Admittedly I had expect us to take between 10 and 12 hours so our finish time of 10h 01min was expected but I had though our pace would be dictated by thick bush and not by the gradients of the climbs. In the end my Polar had registered almost 4000m of ascent. That more than the base camp of Everest to the summit or any of the days on the Cape Epic. That over just 70km. I think the only flat on the race was the 4km kayak.
Well done the Kinetic team with the support from Assitport AR. I’ll be back next year but I’ll definitely do a lot more training before I head back.
Check out our video of the race at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PJzhqWCTyo
Author: Andrew Wiggett | Team Senseless Linebreak | Swazi Adventure, 28-29 November 2011, Swaziland