It was not even a dream now it is reality.

How it started.

Just more than a year ago, on the 28 February 2017, I embarked on a journey without knowing where it would take me. At the time, although I didn’t know it, I was actually on a journey that started some 9 months earlier when I desperately asked the Lord to heal me from my debilitating disease, chronic rheumatic gout. I remember that night when I got into the bath, that I had a very real sense that I would not see the age of 70 if things didn’t change. I also remember how I had a pang of doubt, a moment after I asked for my healing, thinking that the inside of my knees must be totally destroyed from the grinding paste of the crystals that I had in my joints for some 30 years. My next request to the Lord was that he must please give me back the years that the locust had stolen and then I forgot about it.

Months later in February of the next year, during a visit with my brother, I told him how I thought some exercise would benefit me, but my body was in so much pain that I just couldn’t do any kind of exercise without excruciating pain. I could however lift my knees with some weights and thought it might be an idea to start doing some exercises that involved weights. My brother said, I should rather do some cycling as it is light on the joints and that I should endeavour to lose at least 25 kilograms, as it would assist in alleviating the pain. We continued our discussion and I decided that I am going to set myself a target of 40 kilograms. My brother made some suggestions about diet and that became the recipe for the program that would follow.

While I did have a bicycle, it was broken and in my overweight state, I didn’t have the energy or inclination to fix it. My brother then offered me an old but very good bicycle and with this gift, gave me enough motivation to start off on the journey which I successfully concluded on the 13 October 2017. I lost 40 kilograms in 40 weeks and continued until I lost a total of 46 kilograms.

What happened as a result of my weight-loss and exercise program.

I had a number of significant things that happened to me as a result of this program. These include:

• Improved health with no pain in normal circumstances
• Less medication and of course an implied reduction in medical costs
• Improved insurance premiums and by implication some more savings
• Greatly enhanced fitness
• Improved mobility
• Improved self-esteem
• New friends that shared some cycling with me
• My faith in God has been deepened and my relationship with Him has become even more real

Then I entered a Mountain Bike Race.

This was never a dream or even a desire. I just wanted to enjoy my cycling with friends and of course as I got fitter, it was natural to start realising that I was quite strong for my age and could even beat far younger riders in friendly encounters. My technical skills were fairly mediocre, but I wasn’t scared to try new things and attempt obstacles. As time progressed I learnt some valuable lessons that apply equally in life. Perhaps one of the most important lessons  learnt was to keep my eye on the target and not on the obstacle. If you look at the obstacle it is almost a guarantee that you will hit it and fall. By looking at the target your body follows where you are looking and it makes your odds of succeeding so much better. Looking at the obstacle is a manifestation of fear, while looking at the target is a manifestation of faith.

Some of my friends whom I gathered around me and motivated to start cycling then started entering races and asked me to join them, but I refused for a long time, until one day when one of them came to me and told me that he has a voucher for me to enter one of the prime races of the country – The Hollard Juma 54 kilometer, and that he wanted me to go and ride it with him. At first I still refused but in the end I agreed to go and ride it with him and that is how it happened.

Before the race.

I guess, that it is natural to be a bit worried or scared when you made the decision and then think about what you had just committed to. I’ve never raced in any bike race in my entire life, and here at 61, almost 62, I entered one of the big ones, with thousands of riders and from what I’ve heard some really daunting obstacles. It became the stuff of my nightmares and the more I tried to find out what I would encounter on the trail, the less I really knew. I’ve heard from my friends how you had to pass slower cyclists in front of you in places where there is absolutely no space to pass and how they got pushed of their bicycles and fell during passing manoeuvres and then there were these high scaffolding bridges with steep ramps up and down, some of them going over highways, probably about three storeys high with cars and trucks passing below and some rapids, where you’re going down stairs and then some. Also there were the tunnels that runs underground, one of them 800 meters long.

All of this had me lying awake. I’ve never done it and I didn’t know what to expect. I looked at the route map and route elevation to see if I could work out how hard the race was going to be and where I had to push and where I should rest, but the information was just not good enough to make any of these calls.

To compound matters, I was seeded in the last group, which meant we were going to be held up by slower riders from the groups that started before us. Eventually I decided, I am just going to go and ride and take it as it comes and hopefully enjoy it.

The day before the race I did a final check-up, wash and lube on my bike and found that I had a stripped centre gear on my front gear-set. I tried different chains but nothing helped. The moment I put power on the pedals, the gears slipped and sometimes the chain would jump completely off the gears. I had a choice to make. Do I withdraw, or do I go and ride but ride only in the big and small gears? I decided that I could do it although it would make me a lot slower in places, so I made the call to continue with the race.

Despite these decisions, I woke up at 3 o clock the morning before the race and just couldn’t continue sleeping. I saw those obstacles and had to force myself to relax and get some more sleep.

The day of the race.

My friend came to pick me up at 6 in the morning. By now I was thankful that we raced in the last group because it was a freezing cold 4 degrees Celsius that would rise to about 9 degrees by the time we had to start at 8:35. On the way there he said to me, I must be careful in the tunnels as it is very slippery there and we could fall. I took it in and said to myself mentally that I will be careful.

It was very cold when we arrived at Marks Park and I needed a toilet seriously. There were a bunch of temporary toilets and I hate those, but there was no option but to avail myself of it. Luckily it was still early in the morning and they were clean and fully operational with all the necessary consumables well stocked up. After that we went to the starting point where massive groups of people were still waiting to move into the starting line-ups. Music was playing and there was a guy with a loud speaker loudly commenting and interviewing some of the people in the starting line-ups. My friend and I moved as close to the front as we could in our group and waited just behind a bunch of fast looking fit and young riders that we knew were going to ride at a serious pace. I wanted to go for a pee again but all the toilets were occupied with long queues and I didn’t want to lose my position. My buddy laughed at me and just a few minutes later he had to go. I decided to ride as is because I knew it wouldn’t be a problem once I started riding. We thought that the groups were far enough spaced from each other that we would not encounter any riders from the previous groups on the trail. My bike was an antique in the presence of glittering new yuppie specials. If their bikes were an indication of their skills we were in trouble.

Then the countdown started and we were off. Down a steep wet grass hill and into the first hurdles. Suddenly I was calm and just focussed on the trail. A couple of riders passed me and I let them go. It’s a long race and I wasn’t going to let a quick start wear me out in the beginning just to run out of power at the end. Before we knew it we started catching up with slower riders from previous groups and at the simplest of hurdles we had to wait for the slower guys to get through. This became a common occurrence and when the space opened up I passed as many riders as I could, just to be caught again and again at obstacles where the riders bottled up. There were places where we could really ride at amazing speeds and we were lucky to get through some of the obstacles where there were amazingly no road-blocks. We rode tunnels, bridges, channels, mud, rocks, streams and some very steep almost un-rideable hills and one that was definitely not rideable. We even had to carry our bikes up some stairs in a couple of places. In many places there was awesome fast-flowing single track with narrow gaps and you had to keep your wheels inside a trench of six inches at speeds of around 35 kilometers per hour.

It was while riding through the longest tunnel on the trail, just after the exit and still in the channel that I hit a very slippery piece of slime and went down hard. My head and right shoulder hit the concrete wall and my right thigh hit the concrete floor. Two riders passed me asking if I was okay. I told them I don’t know, it will take a while before I can tell them the answer to that question. They thought if I am talking I must be okay and raced on. I would have done the same. I got up from that fall, my race only half run at the time and continued as fast as I could. After that I had a foot strike coming out of a river and rode myself out of one of my shoes. It took a while to get back on the bike and had to pass around 15 riders that passed me while I was refitting my shoe.

I usually ride only with water but for the race I decided to take some Game (and isotonic drink) with and I had my trusted water bag on my back. I thanked myself for that bag because although it was heavy, I didn’t have to stop at the water stops and flew past them with riders competing for drinks and generally just standing around and blocking the road.

In the last 15 kilometers I saw that most of the other riders were getting very tired with many walking next to their bikes up the steep hills and I started passing many of the guys from previous groups. In the last 5 kilometers I passed them at an even great pace and then I got to the last bridge and came storming through the end-point.

I wasn’t tired and I couldn’t believe that the people thought it was an achievement to finish the race. I got my finisher’s medal and waited for my buddy to come home. It took more than an hour and he didn’t even see me cheering him through the end-point. I had to walk quite a distance to find him where he looked like he was praying as he stood over his bike holding his hand over his bent-down head and his eyes closed. As I came closer I saw his torn cycling pants and had to learn that he came down twice and the second time tore his pants almost completely off his body. He also started experiencing extremely bad stomach pains from around halfway and just finishing was a challenge. When he started feeling dizzy I offered to take him to a doctor or hospital or look for a medical tent but he just wanted to go home, so I took over, put the bikes on the rack and drove him home.

As we couldn’t stay for the results I had to wait for the results to be published on the web-site later that afternoon and then leant that I was fourth in the Grand Masters category. A result that I am very proud of as I started in the very last group and all the guys except the third guy were in the second group and he was only two groups down from them. If I was in the first group I stood a very good chance to win my category and that is a lesson that I learnt from this race.

Looking back I can truly say that the adrenalin of taking part in the race overcame all fear while riding and I was perhaps even a bit reckless in places, but I always felt totally in control. My eyes were on the goal all the time and not on the obstacles. When I fell I got up because I still had to reach the goal and there was a prize to be won. I will do it again and next time I will enter earlier and I will ask for a better seeding and then I will aim for the win. I believe I have a chance and I am going to prove it even if it is only for myself.

 

What is coming for me?

To be honest, I don’t quite know. As this race illustrated, I have done something that was not even a dream or a desire. I do have some dreams, like riding the alps and riding as many trails as I can in as many places possible while I still have the power and when the power fails I will keep on doing it on an eBike. I am sure that there will also be many other new things happening that I never even thought or dreamt of and I am looking forward to pushing the boundaries into those unchartered territories.