Henri Schoeman | Monthly Archives: January 2012

This past weekend was KZN Champs down in Richards Bay. Driving up the day before helped a lot as it was an early 7 am start. I think it was good to get it over with early because on Sunday it got scorchingly hot during the day! I was really excited to race because SA Champ, Claude Eksteen was racing and I felt up to a challenge. We were off in slightly windy conditions and I immediately broke away from everyone. I exited about 1minute ahead of Jeff Norton and Claude and head out onto an 8 lap bike course and immediately hitting a very steep hill that we had to cover 8 times! I thought it was nice to have a change from just flat racing. I came off the bike and headed onto the flat 4 lap run course, 1 minute up on Claude. With the pace I was running I thought I would have this race in the bag, but I was wrong as Claude was flying and caught me at 5km. I tried to stick with him but I begun developing a cramp on my inner quads and really felt like it was going to pull so I didn’t push myself to where I could have but very happy with my result at the end of the day. Congrats goes to Claude Eksteen and everyone who competed and thanks to KZN Triathlon for a well organised event on a really cool course! It was probably one of my most enjoyable races.

Every race has its challenges and for me it was the shark infested waters, Richards Bay is known for many sittings of sharks, as I kept worrying about it before and during the race and didn’t even have a proper warm up in the water, haha! Next was the very steep hill we climbed 8 times in a non drafting cycle leg. And the last was on the pier that we ran on there was about 250m of beach sand in total for EACH lap and was kinda hard and irritating to run over. I have only competed in two Olympic distance races now and I’m definitely moving in the right direction with my performance.

Next race will the ITU Sprint Champs in Blouberg on the 19^th Feb. Will be looking forward to that as there are 40+ international athletes competing!

Till then cheers for now

Great way to kick off 2012 with a win in my first race and first standard distance finish (ever), triathlon this year. I couldn’t be happier as race conditions were insanely hot and a bit windy too. I’m not really the one who enjoys the heat but I would much rather prefer a rainy day, just saying ……

We started late as usual at about 8.20am and had a very tiring swim in the big surf. I came out in 17minutes and something and headed out on the 40km non-drafting cycle with a kakamarag bike! Only thing that helped me gain more time on my chasers with their “time machine” TT bikes was my Profile Design wheels. Think I put an extra minute or two on the chasers and came into T2 with a 1 hour 3 bike split. Off I went for the 10km run, maybe started too hard because I’m so use to sprinting out of T2 for the 5km run in the BSG series. Luckily my dad saw and shouted I should slow down more before I do any more damage. I got into a good rhythm between 2 – 5km then things started going down hill. The water being handed out at the water stations weren’t enough and because I sweat more than normal those fluids are vital for me, and could feel my body shutting down as I started with cold shivers, then dizziness and then total numbness and loss of strength in my upper body. The heat was that bad, for me it was. BUT I kept it going and made sure I finished and won my first Suncoast Series Triathlon! My run was just over 40minutes… can be much better but this race is very soon as I am only about 4 weeks into the season and raced after a very intense week of training. Purely for training and to see where I’m at for now .

When I woke up this morning it felt like I was hit by a bus or something…?? But I would be worried if I wasn’t sore and stiff because then I know I could’ve gone harder!

I hope everyone had a great festive season and look forward to a new year.

Cheers

Henri

Monthly Archives: January 2012

KZN Champs, Richards Bay

In The Media

Won the Suncoast Series Triathlon Title