The Last Leg Of A Triathlon Is Always The Run

The last leg of a triathlon is always the run. That is true for the mini tri’s, to the Olympic distance and right up to the Ironman distance – the competitors always finish with a run. I have entered the DUE SOUTH XTERRA that takes place this Saturday in Grabouw and which is the SA Champs of the XTERRA circuit. There are places available to qualify for the World Champs in Hawaii later this year too and anyone aspiring to one of those best make sure they have some stick left to dish out over the run course.

Now, in my training, I was way too shy with the cycling and also under cooked the swimming a little so I am relying on the run to make sure I can finish as high as possible in my own little challenge to see how well I can do for the current shape I am in. Thankfully I have got a good 7 weeks or so of running under the belt and a lot of that training was done in conditions that relate well to the Grabouw Xterra run course. For those that have not done the event before, they will be in for a nasty shock about 3km into the 10km run leg when the landscape rises up in front of you with tremendous gradient to overcome. I suspect that when I make it to this point I will be a little further back in the pack after the 1.5km swim and tricky 25km Mountain Bike leg. I also suspect I shall see a lot of even the quicker athletes taking a walk up that hill … if all goes according to plan, this is when I bust out some trail running acumen to pull back some time and to pass and catch up to a few targets out there in front of me.

The climb really is a killer and is followed by some technical sections that take the runner along a single track with a drop-off that does not warrant looking down and to the left if heights and balance are an issue. Once out of the forested area it is fast jeep track with some tricky surprises and lastly a loose sandy section that looks like some kind of surreal moonscape. I am ready for all of it and hope to report back on how enjoyable it was…although that is not a sure thing when I look at my Mountain Bike standing here propped up by my Nike shoe box (I’ll be running in the Nike Zoom Waffle Racer vii) as the back wheel is still in for repairs at the shop. That shoe box propping up the MTB – perhaps a good metaphor of how my ride is going to need a good run to help it out on Saturday.