Skip to main content

MidMar - Saturday, 12 February

I was awake pretty early, and tried not to disturb the others my getting changed camping style (in the sleeping bag). I tried to figure out what kind of weather was outside, but it wasn’t long until Jenny unzipped the door to the tent and let bright sunshine come streaming into the tent. A little while later Jason was cooking the breakfast before a few of us headed into the dam for a quick cool down. 

Jess and I were in charge of keeping everyone’s stuff, and I ensured Jenny had everything she needed for her swim, and for afterwards. We waited with Jenny and Jason for a while at the start, and this was the point where I started to get really nervous – I guess just seeing all those people made me realize how big this event actually was, and I started to feel a little out of my league. A short while later Jess and I had driven up to near the finish (near in this case meaning a nice walk, and an easy place to get out of), and went in search of a blue tent by a ridge, to drop off a wetsuit for a woman, whose race was a bit later. Looking around, just about everyone had blue tents, and the task was made more difficult as we had no idea what the people we were looking for actually looked like (our only clue was a blue tent, and a baby). Eventually we found them, gave them the wetsuit and made our way to get something to drink and eat. We stood at shed 25 waiting for Jenny and Jason to come through the finish, while eating potato chips on a stick, and mini donuts. On my way back from getting water I ran into Jenny, with Jason close behind, and showed them where their stuff and Jess was – By the look of them, the swim was tough. We all took a walk to the Mid Mar shop, where Jenny and Jason got some memento shirts (I had a look, but I found the designs too busy for me). We left Jenny to go find some more water; Jason had found a new love of apple flavoured still water; and agreed to meet Jenny by the blue tent afterwards. About 5 minutes later we were sitting under the tent, Jason finishing his 2 bottles of apple water, and me in my bikini top trying to tan, while we waited for Jenny. An announcement came on, demanding for everyone’s attention – “A 45 year old man had started the race, however, his chip had not registered at the finish, and could everyone look around for someone lying under a tree with a chip on, and a yellow cap, or inform the organisers if they saw anything occur in the water”. Everyone became silent…. Yellow cap?... That was me, and now this guy has gone missing? What had I gotten myself into? Well, I didn’t have long to dwell on it, Jess wanted to look at the stalls, and Jason tagged along with the promise of stopping for apple water. While waiting in line I saw I had a missed call from Jenny, and it turned out she was unable to find the tent (and we were meant to how exactly?), so I went to go get her from outside the shop so that we can say bye to everyone at the tent and head back. 

 Driving back I stared at the open water, with all the swimmers, and wondered what the next day would bring, and if I should have done the Saturday swim instead. Back at camp, more people had joined us, and our little area had greatly populated. We had a quick bite to eat, before going for a swim (my fist official swim in the dam) – Jason and I decided to see how far it was from our camp to the start, and truth is, it was pretty far, so we decided to walk along the side of the dam, and walk across the more shallow end of the dam between the reeds, spying out canoes we could ‘borrow’. The rest of the afternoon was spent relaxing, giving Jason back massages and waiting for our braai to finish. Jess and myself were pretty tired and were planning on an early night, however, somewhere along the way plans turned out differently, and by 12 I was still laying in Jason’s arms on the grass, watching lights pass by in the distance, and listening to the water and walrus snoring, that drowned out the beating of our hearts. By the morning all that had happened will no longer exist, or so I thought….

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Grain free Date Bread

A few weeks ago one of my dad's clients baked what we think was a date bread. Although I am mostly low carb and didnt know the ingredients of this bread, there was so much of it and I didnt want it to go to waste. Toasted, it was amazing, almost like a caramel taste. In all honesty, I found my running for the few days I ate the bread actually improved - I felt more energetic and had more endurance. I searched for a low carb or gluten free version that I can make myself. Carb wise you looking at about 15g on average per date, making it basically your enemy if you are low carb. Rather opt for cranberries - 13g per cup. As an athlete though, dates are so good for you - in moderation of course as 90% of the carbs in a date is sugar. Medjool Dates are high in Potassium (higher than oranges, bananas and spinach), which is great for heart health and to build muscle and proteins in the body. They are also high in fibre, meaning you stay fuller for longer. You also get an energy
Post a Comment
Read more

HIIT #1

HIIT otherwise known as High Intensity Interval Training is a great way to get your heartrate up and get a full body workout in a short amount of time.  As the name suggests, the exercises used are often intense and the short recovery adds to it.  Most HIIT sessions are 20 seconds of workout, 10 seconds of recovery. I like to do 2 exercises per set, for 4 reps with 1 minute recovery and 4 sets in total to make up 20 minutes. If you are feeling up to it, you can increase a rep a week, but remember it is about intensity and not about overall time or seeing how much you can do.  Below are the exercises that I did yesterday: The workout I did: Set 1: Hurdles & Cones / Shuttle Runs (4 sets - 20 seconds hurdles, 10 seconds recovery, 20 seconds Shuttle Run, 10 seconds recovery) Set 2: Speed band high knees / Shuttle Runs (4 sets - 20 seconds High Knees, 10 seconds recovery, 20 seconds Shuttle Run, 10 seconds recovery) Set 3: Banded lateral shuffle / Shuttle Runs (4 sets - 20 se
Post a Comment
Read more

SA Lockdown - Days 1-4

So we have made it 4 days into lockdown... yippeee :) I thought I would recap my first 4 days into lockdown. To start off, I am still working, from home of course, so I still need to be available from about 7am to about 4pm. As such, I try get my workouts in before and after this time except on the weekend and the pre-lunch workouts (which are nice and quick). Day 1 Friday, 27 March My dads birthday - we were planning on going to craft beer library in Linden but of course with the lockdown we were not able to (something to do once we are out of lockdown). I decided to make one of my favorite cakes, an almond cake, but I made it gluten free as I am trying to be 80-90% gluten free following doctors orders. I started nice and early, so that it would be ready for my dads teatime break. The recipe can be found here , but I doubled up because it looked on the thin side: 230g Butter 4 Eggs 2 cup gluten free flour 2 cups castor sugar 4 tsp almond extract Sliced almond
Post a Comment
Read more