Thanks guys for being out there and having fun! The effort behind organising the event was great, and hearing that your team enjoyed and appreciate it, makes it worthwhile.
Tshwane Adventure Racing Club
The Greatest Sport on Earth
Thanks guys for being out there and having fun! The effort behind organising the event was great, and hearing that your team enjoyed and appreciate it, makes it worthwhile.
To Hardy and the Tshwane AR club organising team,
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU! What a great race, thanks to everyone for all the effort that you guys out into the race, and bring the “lekker” back into the sport! To everyone who finished, well done, the course was a certainly a tough one. We had a lot of fun out there, climbing over countless fences and doing some real “old-school” bund bashing…
One of my highlight AR moments of all time happened on this race. The early morning swim across the dam from CP15 to CP 16. Crisp moring, just before dawn, with perfectly flat water scattered with ducks, mist rising and a golden sliver of the moon on the eastern horizon… This is what brings us back time after time! Good memories!
Team Red Ants race report and photos should be up on our website by the end of the week.
Keep it extreme!
Brian
Team Red Ants AR
http://www.teamredants.co.za
Thanks again for an awesome race,
PS: That bike park is cool!! It was my first time there.
Jacques – Team Platpoot
A great big thank you to Clinton, family and friends, marshals and all the Tshwane AR club guys who gave us yet another unforgettable adventure! Although it was tough going out there we had great fun and an absolute wonderful experience.
Thank you to all the marshals at all the points who were so friendly and helpful. I also enjoyed seeing all the friendly faces of the all the racers, you guys are truly a wonderful bunch of crazy people!
This was the first time me and my wife, Lizelle, saw the sun come up during a race, and what better place to experience the crack of dawn walking through the mist on our way to the big (first) Wilge Tree! This was truly a great experience!! Being our DSTV (Designated Special Task ‘Volunteer’) I dreaded every time I had to get wet, however this was the most fun! I think the special tasks were great and good prep for the big races.
We look forward to seeing some more races come from you guys!
Wiehan
P.S. Thank you Oupa for the breakfast offer! If we didn’t have other commitments we would have definitely taken you up on that (however I think you can take a sigh of relief that I wasn’t there – I eat like a beast after an adrenalin raising race like that).
”
Great race thanks a lot to the organizers, marshals and land owners without you this would not have been possible.”
Alec – Team Hawkstone
Tshwane AR club now part of an elite group of people who can pull
off adventure races in the hostile environment of Gauteng.
The Ystervark adventure race at Nkwe resort outside Pretoria (hey.. in those
parts it is definitely still Pretoria!) took us through the Tierpoort and
Bashewa smallholdings, over the Bronberg ridge, around a mountain bike track
through some dams and rivers. We even had a cliff jump at night.
“Back to old school” Clint mentions at race briefing, and it sure was just
that – I’m left with a busted knee, imprint of a fence post on my stomach,
some sunburn, scrapes and bruises throughout, and a healthy smile to make up
for all that.
The race started at 10pm, with the winners pulling off the 55km of mtb and
30-odd km of hiking in about 9 hours. With experience in hard-core AR
navigation hard to come by these days (races are few and far between), many
teams struggled to find checkpoints in the dark, and got diverted onto
short-course options to make it possible for them to finish in some form
during the course of the next morning.
Congratulations to all teams who stuck it out to find checkpoint 8 though.
That was a toughie in the dark. The vegetation was thick, the location on
the plateau non-specific, and the bearing from the previous (missing) CP
misleading. Eventually we found it by taking a back-bearing from the next
CP.
Maybe this is what defines AR – I simply cannot make people at work
understand what I did on Friday night. Or, for that matter, why. I simply
love adventure racing, because it builds you up even though it breaks you
down.
(I can say that now, after good sleep and some antiseptic ointment…)
THANKS CLINTON AND EVERYONE WHO HELPED
Gerard
Platpoot
“Well Done on putting on an excellent race ” – Nicky (Red Ants)
“I really enjoyed the course!” Alex (ANTS)
“I have to agree. As my first proper AR, I felt a bit overawed at first, but the experience of my team mates soon had me feeling more at ease. Of course, being a race right in the middle of my MTB stomping grounds also helped a bit
That said, ALL of the hiking/(attempted)running was on new territory for me….
Hardy, thanks for all the effort you put in. I gladly faced the ire of the minister-of-all-affairs, and I will again.”
Leon (Platpoot)
“To Hardy and his team – thank you so much for ALL your hard work, time and effort. Hard to express just how much we appreciate what you have put in to pull this race together.
You are the BEST.
Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!”
-Elsie Team Ferropig
“Thanks Hardy and Team for the affording us with your time and providing us with such a memorable AR experience…oooh and what an experience it was!!!!!!!!”
Fernando – Lickety Split
“If I can trash a pair of socks after a race, then it means the (frigging) organiser did something right… In fact, I had to tie the damn things in a bag to stop them from attracting flies…”
Gerrard -Platpoot