Prestige Ultra 2007 race report
February 6th, 2007 by Robin Frankland
Following on from the efforts of last week, this was to have been an easy training race. It was even suggested to me by Nikola that I consider abandoning in order to save myself for the hard Ironman South Africa training that lay ahead. Unfortunately my competitive spirit simply would not rest and I found myself digging a little deeper than what I had planned but with good result.
After having taken considerable flak from my coach and Nikola over my swim performance at the Duel, I decided to push myself a little harder this week to see what I was capable of. The result was a five minute improvement, although a little of that may have been down to the use of a wetsuit. Either way it put me a lot closer to the front of the race than I normally find myself and I exited T1 in the knowledge that a steady bike would put me in a great position.
Out on the bike course it soon became apparent that it was not going to be an easy day. The wind had picked up considerably and was coming from behind which meant that the return leg would be straight into it. The temperature was also creeping up and it was getting very hot under my TimeTrial helmet. The course actually presented ideal preperations for IMSA with its rolling nature and strong winds and I was glad to get some quality time in the aero position before March 18th.
T2 is becoming a breeze for me and I once again blew through there in about 30 seconds. This helped to me to catch the two athletes in front of me and I immediately set about pacing off them as they appeared to be better runners than me. While this may have been true, the fact that the temperature had now gotten to 37 degrees celsuis meant that they were both forced to stop and walk on the hillier sections. Maintaining as best I could and ensuring that I got plenty of water from the aid stations, I managed to string together my best run effort so far. It was only in the last 3km’s that I began to feel the effects of last weeks race and had to back off to an ‘easy’ 5min/km in order that I did not completely kill myself.
Overall a 4h38 and tenth place. Much more than I expected but more importantly a good indication of my powers of recovery and how my body stands up to the repetitive stress of racing. This bodes well for the rest of the year and will allow me the confidence of entering more races which indirectly has a positive effect on my motivation.
As for the rest, well Raynard Tissink continues to dominate and has no peer in South Africa. Charl Keet did well to stay within touch on the bike leg but that took its toll on his legs for the run and he faded to third behind Carl Storm. Still a great result for such a young athlete and given his swimming ability he could well be the face of the future.
On the ladies side, Kathryn Cronje continued her winning streak beating Claudia Feige for a second week in succession. While the men’s racing has become somewhat predictable the women continue to provide the excitement and one hopes that they keep it up.
So to my fears that the close proximity of two races would result in reduced partipation. If that was the case then I am not sure the organisers noticed. With Prestige attracting 465 entrants and the Duel over 600 there was certainly no need to be worried. I do still feel that if the events had been further apart the fields could have been even bigger but I am no longer concerned about either event falling off the calendar due to numbers.
As for the organisers, Spectrum, they did an outstanding job as usual and with the inclusion of a sprint triathlon, held at the same time, catered for a broad spectrum of athletes. The change of venue also resulted in better organisation although they do need to do something about the transition areas which was probably the only thing I had to complain about.
