As I write this I am sitting in Geneva airport waiting for
my baggage to arrive. That’s right, after driving 8 hours from PE to Cape Town,
flying 2 hours to Jo Burg, Flying 10 hours to Frankfurt and finally flying for
an hour to Geneva, the airline lost my bag! Great start to the day right? No
worries though, I only have a 9 hour drive to Andorra to go! J
Anyway this is about the weekends happenings at the SA
national championships held just outside PE. My mother and I left on the
Thursday morning to arrive in the evening before practice on Friday. We got to
Addo which was where we were staying and the closest town to the track. I don’t
know if you can call 5 houses and a petrol station a town?! But anyway we
settled in and the next morning headed down to see what was potting at the
track. Some riders were already on track which meant I didn’t have time for a
course walk, but I had heard that it was not really necessary so I headed up
for run one. I got a big surprise as the track was so tight up top with trees
on the insides of every corner and then at the bottom there was a nice steep
uphill followed by a flat pedal! I knew it was going to be tough as making a
mistake here would be very easy. I got in five runs on the Friday followed by a
good track walk to check out some new lines and after watching loads of helmet
cam runs I knew where I was going come Saturday morning.
I smashed out six runs on Saturday including a few timed
runs which helped and by the end of the day I felt fast and comfy on track. It
was just quite tricky because the track was so different, you could not just
attack like most tracks, you needed to almost go slower to go faster. You had
to be smooth and flow through all the corners which would give you a faster
time than if you just go balls out! We headed back and got ready for action on
Sunday.
Sunday rolled in and I was focused and ready for action, I
got in just one practice run before seeding which was cool. In seeding the goal
was to hit the technical fast but not give everything in the pedal which was
exactly what I did. I seeded 3rd with a 3:25, less than 2 seconds
off the leader, Jonty Neethling. I was pleased with that and knew I had quite a
bit left in the tank. Soon enough it was race time and I was ready to go!
After a solid warm up I
headed to the gate. 5….4….3…2…1….GO! I was off pedalling like a beast and
hitting all my lines, I hit the top section really well with almost no mistakes
and then pedalled hard at the bottom. I came across the line with a 3:19:82
which put me into 2nd spot behind Tiaan Odendaal. I am pleased with
the result and my shoulder is feeling better and better, keeping in mind that
its only 10 weeks after my surgery. I am always a little disappointed not to win
but the consistency is there and the win is coming soon J
Results:
1.
Tiaan Odendaal – 3:15:83
2.
Stefan Garlicki – 3:19:82
3.
Adi Van Der Merwe – 3:21:67
4.
Jonty Neethling – 3:21:99
Thanks so much to all the people who support me and all my
amazing sponsors who keep me on track! INVESTEC, morewood, Seattle Coffee co,
Red Bull SA, Science 2 Sport, John Wakefield, Virgin Active, Cycles Africa ( Manitou,
Hayes, Sun Ringle, Odi ), Spank, Csixx, Bell helmets, Leatt protectives, Adidas
eyewear and Faithwear!
Next up, my first world cup of the season in Andorra!
Until next time…..
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