Lizelle's racing experiences

We've all had quite a lot of racing recently with Kinetic Full Moon and Ystervark - both overnight races - and Diamond Dash all happening over the past four weeks.

Lizelle (Smit) has written the following about her recent experiences and lessons learned about adventure racing from these races.

During my recent adventure racing endeavours, I learned that one can never use the saying, 'this is going to be easy'. Doing predominantly on-road triathlons for the past four years, I am used to thinking of 80-120km races as being short and relatively fast. Hence, mainly a 4-5 hour race. What adventure racing has taught me is that distance cannot be measured in time. It can take up to 12-19 hours to complete 'short' distances.

I realised that advenutre racing is filled with elements of surprise, such as a freezing night-time paddling legs, steep kloofing sections and amazing abseils, which we experienced in both the Full Moon and Ystervark races. It is a sport in which you constantly wonder where you are heading and whether you are in the right place; especially if you are hanging off a cliff at 2am. Yes, this sport has no marked routes that you can practice before hand or get used to. Routes depend mainly on your navigators.

This sport is very much a team sport; without the help of your team, there is no way you will complete the race. There is no such thing as ME or I, only US and WE.

At both Full Moon and Ystervark we were faced with the task of taking on the winter cold head-on. Usually in triathlons one is scared of swimming in water that is 20C without a wetsuit. In adventure racing we were in water that was 8C and we had to carry on racing, with soaking wet clothes, in outside temperatures that were below -1C! 

At Full Moon I thought,"this is the last winter event I will EVER do". Yet two weeks later I found myself at yet another cold and wet event (Ystervark). Luckily, I had my very supportive boyfriend Charl, who was more than willing to join me for each event, and one of my favourite racing partners, Nathan.

In triathlons you are always aiming to better your time but I found that with adventure racing it is a matter of ensuring that you manage to cross the finishline (no matter what your time is), with all your team members.

Perhaps it is the thrill of finishing and the feeling of accomplishment you get after you have had some of Mother Nature's bum-kick sessions, that gets you addicted to the sport and makes you look forward to the next challenge.