KZN Schools XC #4 Epworth

Driving on the way up to Epworth, I was expecting a typical cold day up martizburg way, only to arrive in jeans and a jacket to 30 degree weather with a very hot berg wind. The course I arrived to was very short, about 2/2.5km laps and had some supposed bull runs that were very simple and straight forward. The race was going to be extremely fast and high tempo.

After relaxing for around two hours before the Junior's race i did a very short warm up as the heat was unbearable. I felt fairly confident coming into this race and I had a set plan to do well. We all line up on the start line and the weather thankfully began to cool down. The start was a straight sprint to the first sharp right hand corner and i managed to get into third behind Dylan Kirby and Keaton Korevaar.

The first lap was extremely fast and i wasnt sure whether I could hold the pace, but lucky Dylan dropped off the front and the pace slowed allowing me to regroup a bit. From then on it was me and Keaton Korevaar the entire way. My plan was to sit behind him and let him do the work in the wind, and i stuck to my plan for 5 of the 7 laps. We kept a very fast consistent pace pulling a big gap on the field. On the sixth lap i decided to see how strong he was and put a bit of a sprint up one of the "climbs", I could see he was quite shocked by the move and he quickly caught me again, taking his position back in front. On the last lap, on the last climb i decided to make a move, and tired to sprint past on the outside, this ended in a big tussle for the next corner where he made a smart block forcing me to unclip and regain control. By then it was to late and the gap was to big to close in the final 300 meters.

                                                         

                                                                The supposed "bull run".

Was a very good race and enjoyed it tremendously. It gave me some confidence knowing that i had some good form.