At the beginning of December I decided that I shouldn’t go home to Plett for December holidays. There were various reasons. I planned to stay in Stellenbosch until just before Christmas and then go to my aunt’s house for the week between Christmas and New Year and then head back to Stellies. One of the reasons I wanted to stay close to home was to keep training as much as I could. However, all that changed on the 19th of December when in a spur of a moment decision Anet invited me to drive up to Namibia with her. I found myself suddenly changing course and a day and a half later we were packing the car on an early Saturday morning and driving out of Stellenbosch.
Driving out of town I think we were both still surprised by the amount of stuff we had gotten into the car. We each had a big bag and overnight bag, then we had loaded my trike, my shower chair and lastly my old wheelchair – all packed into a VW Golf! Anet and I had driven from Namibia before, when a few years ago I had flown up and then driven down with her but we had never driven up and down before. The trip had happened so fast that we had not even booked our overnight accommodation by the time we had left on the Saturday morning. By Sunday late afternoon we were finally rolling into Walvis Bay! I had never had a true December family holiday as my parents own a restaurant and were always working. I knew Anet’s family from previous holidays and was excited to see what lay in front of me in the next two weeks. Anet had given me one warning – the holiday would be a busy one.
Even before anyone knew that I would be visiting in December Anet, her mom, and her dad had seen a wheelchair at Swakopmund’s cash converters that they thought would better suit me than the old, heavy, and big one that I had. So on the first morning of my visit, that was their mission – to get me a better set of wheels! We took my old wheelchair and off we set on the mission. After some initial struggles with the foot rests I took leave of my old chair and wheeled out of the shop in my upgrade. Almost immediately my posture in the new chair was better and I was ready for my Namibian adventure.
We had taken my other set of wheels, my trike, with for a reason, we wanted to spend a lot of time training and getting me ready for my first two competitions in January and February. One of Anet’s brothers, Leslie, and his family have bikes so we quickly roped them into our training plan J. Our first training session was just in the town in the late afternoon. We found a circular route of around 400m where there was very little traffic. It was such a fun session. Leslie, his daughters and myself were on our bikes and Anet got some rollerblades and joined us for a while. Because the area was so flat we thought it would be a great way to build my strength if I pulled Anet along. Well, that only lasted about two rounds! After Anet and the girls returned to the house Leslie and I did some good interval training.
The next two days saw no training as we took some time to enjoy Christmas with the family. On Christmas eve we gathered at Anet’s grandmother’s house and had a finger supper. On Christmas day we had a family braai at Anet’s other brother’s house. On the 26th I joined the family in their tradition of going to the beach (not the beach as I know it.) Rather we took a few bakkies and drove out to an area at the seaside. But what is such a trip in Namibia without getting stuck in the sand, and having to digging bakkies out. It was a very different Christmas than what I’m used to but I enjoyed it. It did however feel a bit weird that I didn’t go to church over Christmas as I usually do.
The 27th saw us drive out to a newly built road behind Dune 7. For me, who can’t train safely on roads where there is traffic, finding a long, newly tarred road which is not yet open to traffic is a dream. We had the whole road to ourselves and could spread out and just focus on training hard. I think we had a total of three days (training every second day) of good training. Each day the core group of myself, Anet, Leslie, his wife, their two daughters and their two sheep dogs returned to our training ground but on our second and third visits we had company. Some days only Leslie rode with me and Anet followed in our support vehicle, the other day the whole gang kept me company by swopping bikes every now and again and doing a relay. Our second visit included a friend who had a drone and we asked him to come and take some footage of me for our next cycling video. (I have yet to make the time to start editing the footage so stay tuned.) Our last trip to that specific training spot saw Anet’s parents join us and Anet’s father cycled with.
Every ride we did, had a different feel or goal to it even though we were training at the same place. The first day had a nice exploration and family feel as we weren’t sure how far the road was tarred and neither of us had cycled the route before. Leslie’s two young daughters also had their bikes there and cycled part of the way with us. The next time we went we had the guy with the drone with us and a bit of wind also came up and I had to contend with that. Our last long ride was with Leslie and Anet’s dad with Anet again in the car. The gentlemen got on their bikes before I did and unbeknown to me, had formulated a plan. They decided to stay a few hundred meters in front of me the majority of the time. I obviously wasn’t aware of their plan and tried my best to catch them the whole time because all I wanted was not to ride alone as I so often do. I think in about 23km I caught them twice or three times only to lose them again. Sneaky guys! But chasing them for so long on the flat road did cause me to have my fastest average speed ever.
Somewhere just in the middle of our trip, sadly one of my splints snapped! Initially this was really bad news for me and we were thinking of ways to fix them or to make a new pair. However, a friend of Leslie’s is a bio kineticist and we asked him to come and look at me on my trike and my cycling and give us some tips. After about an hour of seeing me off and on the bike, we had a good few ideas and we decided that using splints on my trike was a thing of the past. He recommended that I have a few sessions with a bio kineticist in Stellenbosch to strength certain muscles that would not only help my cycling but also my everyday activities and which would help my back pain. Immediately I
started to think how I would be able to afford these sessions.
All in all I got some good training in during my time in Namibia and we had a busy, fun time. Seeing the whole family pile into the vehicles with children, dogs and bikes was hilarious, and it was wonderful to have them support me in my dream and join me out on the road. So often I train alone and it was really special for me to feel part of a team and have fun while training. Thank you to the Bosmans for the lovely holiday and all the support and thank you to Johan for his inputs into my cycling and health.
