This was my first Warrior for 2018 after missing Warrior 1 due to illness and man was it awesome
to be back! Building up to the race we had a cool road trip with Michael, Carla and Tumi in my CH-R and arriving in Bloem late Friday evening it was straight to bed in prep for tomorrows day of racing. Unlike all the other Warrior races we’ve had previously, this was the first one where we had to do laps. Due to heavy rainfall the week leading up to the race, the river dividing the property was flooded and so for safety purposes, they didn’t want us crossing it.

Although this was a bit of a disappointment at first it was actually a cool change to the race and allowed for even more obstacles with us doing all of the at least twice. 14km and 53 obstacles, that sounded like fun!
Standing on the starting line I was excited to be back and ready for some fun in the mud! The race started out fast as usual with everyone trying to get in the front and avoid any possible bottlenecks on the first few obstacles, likely there weren’t any and after about 1 or 2km we were all rather nicely spread out. The first lap was just a half a lap with us coming through the race village fairly early and going through the sprint course gave a bit more of a spectator hype and excitement to the race so early on!
The pace was fast and tough to keep up! After the first lap and a half, I was lying in 4th place just behind Armin, having caught up with him on the tire drag and farmers carry towards the end of the last lap. But I could feel the high pace was starting to take its toll and with the start of the last lap Armin was off at a pace I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep so had to back it off a bit. But with teammate Michael Joubert just behind me, I couldn’t back off much!

The last lap had some tough moments, coming out off the sandbag carry I struggled to get back into my running stride, felt a bit slow going on the swim and the obstacles thereafter, taking a bit longer due to fatigue and lack of focus. I took my last High5 gel and coming into the final section I heard that Armin had made up 1:30 minutes on me and Michael was now close on my heels, it was go time!

Taking a tire it was now time to try make up some of the ground Armin took on the run, made up about 30sec on the drag and the remaining 1min on the farmer carry I was now just behind Armin again. Fighting off cramping legs with only about 1km to go and 4 obstacles, I managed to overtake him on the next obstacle and going through (probably one of the toughest) mud monster neck and neck I knew I was going to have to give this last section everything I had! Coming out probably 10m ahead (guessing as I didn’t want to look back) I pushed hard up the last stretch to the super tube, getting a chance to see him while running up the steps I didn’t have much ground to work with, getting out at the bottom it was only the 3m of water in the pool that separated us! It was now a max out sprint down the hill to cross the finish line. I managed to hold him off just a few meters behind me to finish in 3rd!

Definitely, the hardest I’ve had to work for a 3rd place and a sign that racing is really picking up this year!
Feeling rather broken I opted out of the individual sprints and set my qualifying time for the team sprint, giving myself some extra time to recover. After an exciting team sprint (https://www.facebook.com/SAObstacleCourseRacing/videos/2053045834972892/) we managed to secure the 2nd place with some speedy work up the last wall, all in all, a great day out at Warrior and an awesome new venue out in Bloemfontein!