The best 10 days of winter!
The Knysna Big 5 Sport Challenge: 5 events, 10 days, 1 race!
First event was the 80km MTB race through the Knysna forest which puts any seasoned MTB cyclist through their paces. I surprised myself a bit on the MTB this year, having to ride most of the race solo, I finished the 80km MTB ride in a time of 3:26 putting me about 1 minute ahead after the first day. But knowing there is still a long week of racing to come.
The second event was the 1.85km Lagoon swim, with some tough conditions thrown at us making for a tricky swim. I managed to come 2nd overall by 4 seconds but 1st Big5 Athlete. The third event was a 16km trail run from Buffels Bay to Knysna along the beach and through the Featherbed trail. A few silly mistakes costing me a few seconds early on in the run, but managed to get back into rhythm and come away with the overall win and defend my Featherbed title from last year and extend my Big5 lead going into the 4th event.
The fourth event being an MTB X, more of a challenge technically. The plan was to not lose too much time. Was stoked that I stayed upright throughout and I took 5th place overall and 2nd Big5 athlete by a few seconds, which I was pretty happy with, considering my MTB skills are pretty average.
The final event was the Knysna Half Marathon, which I finished in 7th place overall in a time of 1.12 and 1st Big 5 athlete. Going into the last event I had a nice cushion but still wanted to try have a solid run to finish of a big week of racing.
All in all, I finished 1st overall in a time of 7h:25min after the 5 events.
It was a really tough week of racing, but I can really recommend it to any multisport athletes wanting to do something different.
The Ultimate Multisport Challenge!
