South Africa Race-Cation Day 6 (Xterra Pre race)

                                     

In the morning, I laid out my gear for the race. As usual, I prepare my race gear way early and Karel typically waits until later in the day. With this only being my third Xterra race, I wanted to see a visual of all my items to make sure I wasn’t forgetting anything for the race. We went for a ~30 min shake out run in the direction of Strand. As we started the run, there were several markets getting set up for the weekend. On the way back, we ran/walked through some of the markets. It was interesting to see the diversity in items at the market tables. On one table was clothing and on another table, were scrapes from electronics and cars. We also passed by a fruit vendor with lots of different seasonal fruits.

After eating a meal, I finished packing up my gear and worked on the computer for a bit.

At 12:40pm, I walked down to the beach to meet up with the masters swim team for their Saturday morning open water swim. I couldn’t resist the opportunity to swim in the ocean one last time. I met up with my new friend Gordon who let me keep my stuff in his car. The beach was packed unlike the previous days when we swam. I opted to swim in my swimskin since it was hot outside but the water was still a little on the cool side. There were around 15 athletes for the swim. Everyone swam at their own pace and we regrouped at the wall. I felt a little cold in the water since I wasn’t swimming too hard. The water was very choppy which was also different from our previous swims when the water was really calm. There were also a lot more boats and kayakers in the water as well. While I was swimming, Karel prepared our bikes for the race. Our Airbnb had a hose which was great for cleaning the bikes each day. Karel brought some cleaning supplies as well as a variety of tools.

After the swim I walked back to the Airbnb, had a quick snack and then around 3:15pm we drove ~25 minutes to the Elgin Valley Railroad market. I heard great things about this market although by the time we arrived, the vendors were shutting down. However, I purchased two wire-art animals from a local maker and he told me how he makes them. We walked around and enjoyed the décor in the inside of the building. We also stopped across the street at another store to check it out.

When we got back to Gordon’s Bay, we parked by the beach and had a pizza dinner at Tally’s Tavern. The pizza was delicious  - thin crust. The beach was rather busy so it was nice to watch the locals play in the ocean. We arrived back to our Airbnb around 6:30pm, prepared our hydration packs and bottles for the race and got into bed around 8pm. Just in time for load shedding. Neither of us felt nervous for the race but really excited to race for the first time in South Africa.