'24 South Africa - Day 8 and 9

 

Sunday was our last full day in Gordon's Bay. We didn't make any plans for Sunday as we wanted to see how we felt after the race on Saturday. I felt pretty good although my right foot was sore from all the uneven footing from the race. Karel didn't sleep well so he was really tired in the morning. The night was incredibly windy. We sleep with our door open and it sounded like waves were crashing as we were sleeping. The wind was super gusty in Gordon's Bay in the morning as well. 

I really wanted to swim since it was my last opportunity for a swim for a week. The closest option was the Strand Indoor Swimming pool but the happiest option was the Coetzenburg outdoor pool. We decided to make the 35-minute drive to the outdoor pool for one last long course swim in the sun. It wasn't windy and the sky was completely blue. It was a wonderful 3200 meter swim. 

After the swim we were getting hungry as it was nearing 1pm. We drove a few miles down the road to the beautiful main area of Stellenbosch that was filled with white buildings containing cute restaurants and shops.

As we were driving, I came across a Lebanese restaurant online that looked delicious so we walked to Man'oushe after we parked. They even had a vegetarian menu with so many delicious options. This is an authentic Lebanese restaurant based in the heart of Stellenbosch’s pedestrian area.

We got the Summer in Beirut salad which was incredible. Greens, avocado, kiwi, mint and pine nuts. We also got the Mezze Platter, which had sauteed string beans, hummus, baba ganoush, homemade cream cheese, falafal, and Lebanese bread. It was all so good with so much flavor. The exchange rate from US to Rand makes traveling to South Africa very affordable (19 Rand = 1 USD) unlike other places in the world (ex. 1 Euro = 1 USD). 

After our meal, we drove toward Gordon's Bay and stopped at the Cheetah Outreach near Strand. We booked a tour to meet the Cheetahs and learned all about them. They had very strict rules for approaching the Cheetah. We got to pet this beautiful 7-year old Cheetah who is living the good life (along with a handful of others) with an open field, shade for napping, silver plated dining and lots of love and attention. The primary goal at Cheetah Outreach is to promote the survival of the free ranging, South African, cheetah.

We learned a lot about cheetahs, like how they only live for 8-12 years in the wild and that they have over 2500 spots! Cheetahs are not part cat as they have non-retractable claws (like dogs). And their physiology allows them to reach speeds of over 60mph in less than three seconds!

We returned to our Airbnb around 4pm and spent the next 2 hours packing our bikes and suitcases for the next part of our race-cation. 

At 6:30pm we walked upstairs to enjoy an incredible dinner with our Airbnb hosts - which are now like family to us. If you are looking for an affordable and perfect location Airbnb during a visit to Gordon's Bay (~35 miles from Cape Town) I highly recommend booking this Airbnb. There are three bedrooms (each with a private bathroom), a kitchen, sauna and hot tub (which we didn't use) and a 10-minute walk to the beach and to the grocery. 

Karel enjoyed the meat selection that was cooked on the grill (braai) by Thys and Hester prepared several vegetarian dishes. It was all so good. 

On Monday morning we each went for a 40-minute run around the area before leaving for Cape Town around 9am. During our drive to Cape Town we had a reminder of the rough living conditions for so many people in this area. 

After getting caught in a lot of traffic in downtown Cape Town, we dropped off our bike cases at the Giant bicycle store to be picked up by a company who would be driving them to our upcoming race. I booked this service in advance so that we didn't have to deal with traveling with our bikes to Port Elizabeth. 

We then dropped off one of our suitcases at our upcoming hotel (where we will be staying next Saturday until Tuesday). 

At noon we dropped off our "SUV" at the airport, checked in for our flight and spent the next 3.5 hours in the lounge (thanks to our priority pass) enjoying delicious food (so many vegetarian options!) and working on the computer. We got a lot of work done. 

At 4pm we made our way to our gate with SAFair. Our flight left 30-minutes late but we only arrived 10-minute past our planned arrival. There was a lot of turbulance before landing in Port Elizabeth as it was very windy. 

We picked up our one suitcase and we were met by a driver that took us to our hotel in Port Elizabeth. I arranged for a pick up with our hotel as it is a lot easier (and safer) than finding a taxi or Uber. 

After checking into our hotel around 7pm we walked along the ocean to find some food. We wanted to eat at an Indian restaurant but learned that it moved locations so we settled for Mikes Kitchen. Karel got a prawn curry dish and I got a veggie burger. It was all just ok. 

It was nearing 8:30pm when we walked back to our hotel. We wanted to sleep with the balcony door open but it was a little noisy by the street so we used the AC (first time in over a week) and slept great. 

It is now Tuesday and we will be picked up at the airport at 2:30pm via a shuttle to take us to the start of our 4-stage Mountain Bike Race. 

'24 South Africa - Day 4 and 5

 

On Wednesday, we woke up to cooler temps and a cloudy sky. Despite not having AC in our Airbnb, we are sleeping amazingly well - 9-10 hours a night! I absolutely love sleeping and I am feeling so much more refreshed. My recovery from workouts is a lot better too. It's great to not be woken by cats throughout the night. 

After eating and working on the computer, we drove 30 minutes and returned to the race course in Elgin Valley for redemption after a low energy ride and run on Monday. It’s amazing how poorly the body performs when it’s sleep deprived, low in energy and off a normal routine.

I’m happy to report that we both felt 100% better. And the cooler temps in the 70s and cloud cover helped a lot! We each rode the course on our own. Karel did the rock garden twice and waited for me after the big loop before we went to the smaller loop. I made the technical sections fine but I had a few rough patches llike getting stuck in sand, blocked by cow puppies and attacked by bushes, I rode almost 30 min faster than Monday. On Monday I averaged 7.7 mph and my legs were throbbing and my heart was beating crazy fast. But on Wednesday, I averaged 8.8 mph. I felt so much better. 

I went through most of the sport nutrition in my USWE hydration pack (3 scoops INFINIT Fructose in 1.5 L water - we are buying our water from bottles just to be on the safe side) for the 2 hour, 17 mile ride. 

Karel finished with 21 miles and averaged 10 mph. He said that after participating in Breck Epic, the rocks here are like pebbles. It's nothing compared to the "boulders" that he had to ride up and down on in Breck Epic. He said that Breck Epic was the most technical and difficult event that he has ever done but it has given him a lot more confidence for mountain biking. 

After the ride, we each set out for a run. We put the bikes in the car, which we felt was safe as there are cameras around the area, outside the country club. We met a guy from Italy who is here for the race and he followed us for the run. Karel went his own way to backtrack some of the course and I followed the course. I took a short cut to avoid the waist-high creek at the bottom of a hill and ended up meeting Karel.

We made a wrong turn on this road here and later realized that there is a new section of the course that takes us through two more water crossings. Below is us backtracking the course for the last water crossing. 

I finished with 40 minutes of running and 4.3 miles and Karel had 5 miles in 42 minutes. After our successful workout, we stopped at the Orchard to get some bread. Karel also got an apple turnover which he said was perfectly flaky. 

We worked for a few hours in the afternoon and then walked down to the ocean/beach in the evening as the sun was setting. 

Thursday was a "lighter" day of training for us. Our plan was to swim at the indoor 50-meter Strand Pool which was a few miles away. It was raining on and off all day and much cooler outside so we thought swimming locally would be better than driving the 35 minutes to Stellenbosch. When we arrived to the pool the lady at the counter said the heater was broken and we could feel the water to see if we wanted to pay and swim. We felt the water and it was on the cooler side. It would have been doable but not enjoyable. Plus the pool was inside and it was dark and since we are on vacation, we decided that we should swim outside. 

Because the Stellenbosch pool opens at 12pm and it was around 10:30am, we made a few stops at bike stores so that Karel could fix one of his pedals, which he lost the bolt during a previous ride. We first went to Pedal Works, which was a small store and they weren't able to find a bolt that would work. We then went to RA Cycles. They also didn't have the bolt (it's a very specific bolt for the pedal) so he ended up buying a new set of pedals that he has wanted to try out. He got the HT M2 pedals. 

When we arrived to the pool it was raining but it stopped shortly after we got in. The pool got pretty busy but we were able to keep our shared lane to ourselves. The pool was filled with mostly triathletes which was great motivation. I swam 4000 meters and Karel swam 3000 meters. My main set was 4 x 400s - steady strong. I was able to do the last 400 on 5:59. My body position felt a bit off today but it still felt great to be in the water. I didn't want to get out. 

After we swam, Karel got us smoothies from the gym cafe/coffee shop and then we drove back to our Airbnb. 

We worked for a few hours in the afternoon. My Training Peaks account was acting up and I couldn't put up workouts for my athletes so I decided it was a good time to stop working and head outside for a run. I went out for a few miles of easy jogging and finished up with 6 x 25 sec hill strides to activate the posterior chain. The weather was great - it was in the low 70s. I ran for 51 minutes and 5.9 miles. 

When I returned back to the Airbnb, I made a recovery drink and then we rode our mountain bikes a few blocks down the road to order pizza from Mia Bella. The restaurant was super cute with a small brick oven and friendly staff. During our 20 minute wait, we walked over to the SPAR grocery store and Karel went inside to get some fresh strawberries (the produce is sooooo tasty!) and milk. We then picked up our pizzas and rode home (Karel carried the pizzas because his pizza-carrying bike handling skills are much better than mine :) Karel got the Tizka (I can't remember the name) and I got the Margherita (which is a cheese pizza). The pizza was great, especially the thin crust!

I had a hard time falling asleep on Thursday evening but I slept for 10 hours and woke up feeling rested on Friday morning. One more sleep before Xterra South Africa! 

'24 South Africa - Day 3

 

I was really looking forward to today (Feb 13th/Tuesday). I love swimming and I love swimming outside and during my online hunt for an outdoor swimming pool around the area, I came across a 50-meter outdoor pool in Stellenbosch at Coetzenburg University. I asked the open water swim group on whatsapp about allowing vistors and the group said that visitors were allowed. 

I looked online at the lane availability schedule and noticed that after 8am was a good time to swim. We left our Airbnb around 7am for the 15 mile drive to Stellenbosch but there was a lot of traffic so it took us over an hour. Our route took us through Strand, which goes by the beach, so I made a mental note of this route for my run later in the day. 

The Stellenbosch area has a different vibe to Gordon's Bay as the campus as there are several schools and students and the area is very pretty with lots of fields, trees, and paths for biking. As we got closer to the area, we saw a lot of people on mountain bikes as the area is known for the mountain biking (we biked there last year). 

When we arrived around 8:15am we needed to fill out a lot of personal information on tablets, inside the gym. This took about 15 minutes. When we finally paid (80 rand each or $4.20) the girl behind the counter told us that the outdoor pool was only open until 9am. This crushed me. We drove all that way to only swim for 30 minutes. She said we could use the indoor pool at 9am. 

After swimming for 30 minutes straight to make good use of our time in the outdoor pool we noticed that a small group of triathletes moved over into other lanes to free up the reserved lanes for the swim teams. We asked the coaches on deck if we were allowed to keep swimming and they said the first few lanes were open for gym users. I think the "open" swim times for vistors were until 9am but the pool was still open so we continued to swim. Thankfully we didn't get in trouble and we were able to get in a great workout in the outdoor 50 meter pool. 

The water felt great and it got warm swimming. There were hoses emptying cool water into the pool to help cool off. 

I felt pretty blah to start and it took me an entire 2000 meters to finally start to feel better in the water. I felt heavy in my arms (perhaps from the open water swim the night before) and just low in energy but as I continued to swim, my energy came back and my arms loosened out. 

For my main set I did: 

10 x 100s steady on 1:45 (coming in around 1:23-1:25 long course meters which is around 1:13-1:15 short course yards)
500 w/ buoy smooth (we only brought FINIS Agility paddles and buoy for pool toys)
5 x 100 w/ paddles steady w/ 10 sec rest 

Karel finished with ~4400 meters and I finished with ~4800 meters. 
After our swim, we changed in the outdoor changing area and had some food and drinks in the attached coffee shop. The price of food is very reasonable here. We each got a smoothie and I got a bran raisin muffin and Karel got a flat white all for ~$6 USD (or 114 Rand). My banana whey smoothie was so good. It tasted like a cupcake! Karel got a strawberry smoothie (and he brought a croissant that we got from a store yesterday).

Karel needed to get some CO2s for our bikes (which go by the name bombs here ;) so we went to the local Specialized bike store. This was one of the nicest bike shops that we have ever seen. There was a track outside for kids to ride on (and a few specialized kids bikes laying around). There was also a coffee shop with indoor and outdoor seating. The shop was huge and it had everything you could ever need for biking. 

When we returned back to our place around 1pm, we were pretty tired. We worked on the computer for a few hours and then around 3pm, Karel did some mobility and then went for a run. 

I had a very stressful afternoon as I received an email from the organizers for our upcoming MTB stage race (which starts next Wed) that I had booked a flight to the wrong airport. I accidentally booked us flying CemAir from Cape Town to Plettenburg instead of booking Cape Town to Port Elizabeth. The website said PE and because our event was PE Plett I thought we would be flying into Plettenburg. Well Plettenburg is 2 hours away from Port Elizabeth and we were being picked up by a shuttle service in PE (which I now know is Port Elizabeth). I learned a major lesson about checking airport codes. 

Thankfully I was able to cancel our flight and get most of our money back (CemAir was responsive as soon as I emailed which I appreciated) and I also cancelled our hotel room from before and after the race (received 50% money back but thankfully the room wasn't expensive). The good thing was that the new flight from Cape Town on Safair was much cheaper and we only needed a hotel room for one night (Mon) so we ended up saving some money in the big picture. But oh the stress to have to make all of these changes so last minute when I had booked everything back in October. 

When this was all settled, I needed to get outside and exerise to release some stress. I did ECFIT mobility for ~20 minutes to loosen out and then around 4pm I went out for my run. I ran 3 miles on side streets to Strand and I was so happy to be running by the ocean. It was a bit windy. When I got to the beach I did 6 x 1/2 mile pushes with 75 sec EZ between (plus some extra stops for pictures in my recovery). I ran 3 intervals out and 3 intervals back (a bit more wind coming back). It was a very scenic run. The weather was much more tolerable than on Monday as it was in the mid 70s and I was feeling so much better (and heart was more controlled/normal). I was surprised with my paces as well. 

I really enjoyed my run and felt so much better when I returned home. I ran 9.46 miles in 1:14 and Karel ran 8.3 miles in 58 minutes. 

I had a recovery drink (INFINIT custom protein mix) w/ milk after I returned home and then had leftovers (tofu potato stir fry) for dinner. I worked a little on the computer before going to bed around 10:15pm.