The 50 Miler canoe race is one of the major pre races for the Dusi Canoe Marathon. It is about two thirds of the Dusi distance which gives you valuable time on the water and gives you an indication on how much work needs to be done in certain areas.
My partner for this years racing season is the young grasshopper from Jhb , Gavin Shuter. We combine almost perfectly and sit super comfortably in the boat which I am super stoked about.
We had a fairly good start going into mission Rapid in about 6th or so, a bit of rough and tumble just before mission but we made it unscathed and in a good position.
The rest of the day was really hard as Gav and I didn't feel super good but we still managed to hold onto some waves and be in the places we needed to be.
We followed Kwanda Mphlope and Zonele Zuza down the confluence section which was extremely helpful as they probably know the river better than anyone I know!
The race finished just below marrian Fowly bridge which means it was a mad dash to the finish after the confluence section.
Gav and I ended up in 9th overall on day 1 .We were quite chuffed but still have a lot of work to do!
Day 2 started at Inanda Dam. We started off in elapsed time with Kwanda and Zonele on our tails. We worked well together across the dam. We put in half way down Tops needle next to Kwanda and Zonele but a kuk line when entering the main flow made us lose a bit of time which meant some catch up was needed to be done.
We had a fairly clean race all the way up to pump house even with dominating the Two Islands rapids! Once we arrived at pump house weir I was a little confused where to shoot it and couldn't see the exact place where to shoot it so we were a little too far right and ended up doing a little H2O dip just below the weir. Luckily it wasn't a bad swim so we only lost a little bit of time. Ben Biggs and Carl Foulsure did pass us when we were jumping back in but we caught them a little further down the river.
We worked well across blue lagoon with Carl and Ben and managed to out sprint them and claim 7th overall.
Big thanks to Kayak Centre for our perfect XTerminator which is the same boat we will be using for Dusi. Super comfy and super fast!
Gara racing paddles for our paddles! And our seconds.
We are looking forward to the upcoming pre-races and the training and tripping in the valley which is still to come!
