Ironman training in Stellenbosch, South Africa
April 5th, 2008 by nikola
Last weekend I visited Stellenbosch and stayed over at Dan Hugo’s (dghugo.com) place. We did a brick together on Saturday during which I super dehydrated, but the next day I had an awesome 4 hour bike on the rolling roads just outside Stellenbosch.
Stellenbosch is one of the world’s endurance training hotspots: Tim Don (timdon.com) has a permament residence here, I had a chance to meet Lothar Leder this season, Fraser Cartmell (frasercartmell.com) (7th Ironman 70.3 World Champs 2007) spent quite some time training in Stellebosch with Dan, Conrad Stoltz makes it his regular training location etc… These are just few of many runners, cyclists and triathletes that choose Stellenbosch as a base training location.
Stellenbosch has only two pools at the university: indoor and outdoor. Outdoor one is 33.33m and is a bit crowded in the afternoons. My first impression is that this is not great but I guess if it works for Tim Don who am I to complain. Aparently work day mornings are super professional while weekend afternoons are more relaxed at the pool. However our recovery swims on Saturday and Sunday afternoon were undisturbed and we had pleanty of space and water was great.
The Saturday brick was awesome: I had 1 hour medium bike with a 1h 45min run. I wanted to run on a famous local trail which I tried before. Forgot the name of the trail but it offers excellent views and training - it is definitely a must. Unfortunatelly the day was super hot - almost 40 C - and the heat took its toll. It is common for Stellenbosch to be a bit hotter which makes it perfect for training for hot races like Hawaii or Beijing Olympic triathlon.
The ride on Sunday was awesome - rolling hills and just enough wind to make me work harder but not to break me - it was one of the better rides I had in South Africa. Stellenbosch also offers awesome mountain riding (most famous is the “four passes” ride) and many cyclists like Cristoph Sauser (sauserwind.com) and the rest of Specialized team organize their training camp here.
Stellenbosch is a small quiet place which offers the type of isolation necessary for higher level of training. So far I have base myself in Cape Town but it can not offer conditions I require anymore. This year I cycle much faster and I need faster company for my training. If I do come back to South Africa next winter it will surely be in Stellenbosch, not Cape Town (Stellenbosch is only 30min away from Cape Town).
Check out more photos from the weekend here.
