Lizelle (the other one) on racing

Lizelle v/d Merwe was also at Kinetic Full Moon and the Diamond Dash Duathlon.

These are her experiences...

Full Moon

Full Moon made me realise that AR is an addiction. During the race, sometimes I ask myself if it is a good addiction, BUT after the race you realise what SATISFACTION there is in completing a race where you went through hard tough times, freezing your bones off, getting lost and fighting the sleep monster. What is AR without these things? That's why we do AR and not just running or cycling events. IT IS AN ADVENTURE, NEVER KNOWING WHAT TO EXPECT!

Full Moon was definitely an adventure for me and good preparation for longer races coming up. I am always amazed with the areas and terrain that we go through. The human body can do so much more than what prepared for. I know there is a saying: never look back in life, BUT I think that during a long adventure race you have to take time to stop and look at the terrain, hills, mountains, miles and areas you have overcome. For me, this makes the road ahead so much more rewarding and any mountain or hill ahead then looks so much easier!

Also a highlight of the event, is socialising, gathering and chatting to people that also went through the same experiences over the past 24 hours. I always learn so much from just listening to what worked and what did not work for other teams and then comparing it with our own experience.

Diamand Dash Duathlon
I woke up the morning with a bit of a flu, but decided to still race just for the exercise of it. We kicked off at 09:00 with a 8km trail run. At +- 5/6 km we realised that there were no arrows and bunting on our road anymore. So it kind of felt more like an adventure race for me, but the duathlon and trail run people were not so pleased. So we backtracked until back on the road.

I got to the transition and off I went on the 21km mountain biking. Slowly but surely I battled my way through the 21km, as it was very technical and lots of sand. You had to fight for every metre. I fell twice (thought I broke something in my knee!), but up I went to complete the last few kilometres of the biking leg. I didn't see any ladies the whole way, so I thought that I am definitely at the back and have to gear up a bit. So pushing a little harder, I eventually saw a girl and passed her just before the end of the biking leg.

Heidi said she would like to get in some exercise for the day, so the two of us went for the last 2km run. Not realising what my position was, we cruised with lots of chats. In the last 1km the girl that I passed on the cycling leg passed us and off she went to finish the last bit. I CAN KICK MYSELF, because what I didn't realise was that the girl that has passed me was now in 1st position. I ended up in 2nd place and that girl was 1st.

So I learned from my mistake: THE RACE IS NEVER OVER UNTIL YOU GET TO THE FINISH LINE!! Another thing I have learned is that you always always always have to give your best up until the end, no matter what you think your position is or even if you think you are last, just keep on going and do your BEST. The Duathlon was good exercise, but still do I love adventure racing so much more.