The first time I had to defend my title as Warrior race champion and unsuccessful unfortunately… I was fairly excited for the Warrior race as I knew I was on top of my game for the last month or so but I also knew that my competition was gunning for me and also unfortunately the race design was fairly different than usual. For starters the course was shortened with at least a 5km of less running, as I pride myself on my running I make gaps and push the pace, not so easy with less running, we only did about 11.5km. The other change was some really lengthy carries not that I have a problem with carrying some heavy things just not an obstacle I excel at as much.

From the gun I knew I had to push the pace really hard to have some sort of a chance to make the podium, I knew the heavier stronger athletes were going to close really fast as we get to the long carries and that was exactly as it panned out. Claude Eksteen didn’t allow me to make a gap this time instead he pushed the pace even harder up the Meerendal climbs. I tried my best to keep in contact and pulled away from the bunch behind me and kept the gap at about 1minute behind
Claude but struggled to close on him.
There were some new obstacles here and there but nothing really too difficult, Trevor Lagerway and Thomas van Tonder closed on me as the heavy carries were placed the one after the other in between the vineyards. I tried running hard again and managed to enter the venue area in second, I then saw Claude just ahead with about 10meters in the truck and trailer, I then started my pull but the terrain made it really tough, I lost a position here to Trevor Lagerway as he pulled past me with
ease as he is a much bigger athlete than I am.

The battle was now on between the top 5 as Thomas and I finished breaking point almost at the same time. Thomas did pull a small gap on mud monster but I was intent on catching him and chasing him down to at least finish on the podium. Next up was the infamous iron rig and I didn’t hesitate I knew if I could go through this one next to Thomas that I would have every chance to outsprint him at the end. Unfortunately, I missed the ring and my hand slipped from the chained monkey bars, my fight was over as I had to restart the obstacle. Thomas went through and so did Hlelani Radebe which left me strolling to the finish in 5th place.
Next up we had the team event on the short course, I can’t even remember when we last raced as n team with Greg Avierinos and Carla van Huyssteen. I ran the anchor leg for us and we managed a 3 rd place, under the circumstances I guess we did fairly well as all three of us raced in the Black Ops Elite and were rather fatigued and bruised. Thanks for everyone who supported and came out to Meerendal to race, another great warrior race in the bag.
Next up will be the OCR World Championships in Brentwood Essex in the UK. I will be representing South Africa in the 20 – 29 age group category, racing the 3km sprint and the 15km classic, thanks to everyone who made this a possibility for me I am gunning for the gold medal and will not be settle for much less, hope I can bring back a great result.