My Triathlon History
My first team triathlon was with two colleagues from work at Milnerton in October 1991; I did the cycling leg and can't remember a thing about it, so I don't really consider it my formal triathlon beginning.
In early December 1992 my sister and her husband, Andrea and Brad, asked me to swim for their team in a triathlon. She was the runner and Brad the cyclist. The event was held at Long Beach, Simonstown, on a blustery Saturday morning, with a stiff south-easter and very choppy seas. Little did I know what I was in for! This was a standard triathlon with a 1.5km swim and I soon got hopelessly lost: couldn't see the buoys or rescue craft or even any other swimmers! I was terrified, but somehow kept my cool and made it back in a respectable 33 minutes.
Although it had been a baptism by fire I decided that since I could do the swim I might as well do the whole thing (I had already done three Cape Town Cycle Tours). So I started running and within a year I did my first solo half-triathlon at Clanwilliam in October 1993 (and continued doing it for the next four years). Two months later I did my first solo standard triathlon at good old Simonstown (with an almost identical swim time as the previous year).
I was now gung-ho for triathlons and started taking part in every event. A popular venue in those days was Gordon's Bay, possibly because of the ideal swimming conditions (although at low tide you could walk most of the swim course!). The events were always held at 7am leaving plenty of time for the prize-giving and beer drinking, held in the hotel just across from the beach.
Hermanus was another popular venue (well, once a year during the Whale Festival) and the organisers weren't too concerned for swimming safety, as can be seen below. Other popular venues included Club Mykonos (for WP Champs), Milnerton Lagoon, Elsenburg, and Hout Bay.
By early 1993 triathlon was booming and the bigger events would attract 200-300 entrants. Jingles Ferreira and Coennie van Yssen were excellent on the admin side, and I remember some of the guys that we looked up to like the Neill brothers, Nic van den Berg, Nick Erasmus, and so forth, although I am unsure why we did so!
By the time I started triathlons the Constantia Health & Raquet Club (CH&RC) had a bustling triathlon group who called themselves the CH&R Triathlon Club, founded and run by Jeanine Horsfield (in the red shirt below). Since I was a member of the gym, I joined the club. In late 1994 this became the Constantia Triathlon Club and I joined the committee. Then in June 1995 we decided to change the name to Warriors Triathlon Club and completely rebrand ourselves with all new kit partially sponsored by Nike.
Warriors was the biggest of some 12 triathlon clubs with over 50 members in 1996. I sent out a newsletter every month and participation in events was very good, perhaps because most events included a robust social component.
I took part in several Western Province and SA Champs, as shown in the table below. My times were pretty consistent, although I tended to come last in my age group. It seems that I lost interest in competition after 1996, and became more involved in administration of both Warriors and Western Province Triathlon.
| Date | Event | Time |
|---|---|---|
| 27/11/1993 | Simonstown | 3:05:48 |
| 8/1/1994 | WP Champs, Mykonos | 2:40:51 |
| 19/2/1994 | SA Champs, Gordon's Bay | 2:33:51 |
| 14/1/1995 | WP Champs, Mykonos | 2:31:09 |
| 11/2/1995 | SA Champs, Mossel Bay | 2:35:03 |
| 25/11/1995 | WP Trials, Mykonos | 2:30:48 |
| 3/2/1996 | WP Champs, Mykonos | 2:28:07 |
| 25/11/1996 | UWC Standard | 2:37:05 |
My role as chairman of the largest club in WP, Warriors, inevitably led me to getting involved with Western Province, specifically as manger of the provincial team. I took the WP team to the SA Champs in both 1996 and 1997, first to Sun City and then to Port Elizabeth.
When I turned 50 in 1998 I decided I had had enough of all the training. At our "peak" we were training twice a day on alternate days, a swim in the morning and a run or cycle in the evening, not to mention long ones on weekends. I stopped everything for nearly six months, but the bug had bitten and I continued to cycle and swim (but not run) right up until today. But, alas, no more triathlons!