Category: Featured Section
Life on the road…
Life on the road. By Conrad Stoltz
France, 1996.
Triathlon heaven, those years. I was the youngest of a handful of South Africans racing for a village called Cahors in the Sud Ouest of France. Every weekend we’d travel to races, chasing money, glory and adventure.
Getting to races was tricky, and usually we’d hitch rides with French fellow club members. If races were far away we had to take the train, and depended on race organizers to meet us at the station.
I was on a hot streak and decided to travel the 6 hours by train to Narbonne for “le Triathlon Internationale de Narbonne”. I traveled solo, and as it was a relatively big race, the organizer agreed to meet me at the train station and provide accommodation for a night. Once at Narbonne station, the story took a twist:
Broken arm. Caveman solution to cast. 2005
Custom made #CavemanCast. Patent pending.
My 2005 off season reading was Lee McCormack & Brian Lopes’ book on mountain biking skills. As a fairly competent mountain biker, I was amazed at how much there is still to learn about the art of making an off road bicycle go fast.
The story of Rory
Elephant Tales- by Rory Mackie
This is one the most hectic stories I have ever heard. Ror has told it many times- the details changing depending on how many beers he’s had and who the audience is. But here is the original version. Before the beers and before the legendary story grew tails.
Rory is from Zimbabwe: “where they breed us tough” he would always say. Rory and I lived and trained together for 2 years at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, USA and my home in Stellenbosch, South Africa.
Rory, young and eager, always tackles the bull by its horns (he still lives in Harare despite the utter chaos thanks to despot Robert Mugabe) He used to be the most reckless on this bike down mountain passes, he would hit the track workouts 110%, we built the biggest potato gun in Colorado, and oh yes, Ror won the under 23 ITU Duathlon Worlds Champs in 2003.
We are both adventurers, but this time Ror took it 1 step too far…
He wrote this piece in 2003- shortly after his release from hospital- instead of getting ready for the Athens Olympics- where he should have been representing Zim in triathlon.
We have many interesting, read “hair raising” stories- and great memories – surely to be included in my autobiography one day, but this one takes the cake. Sensitive readers, go get some hankies…
“As I am finally sitting down and writing my story I am still sweating from my first training session. It has been 8 weeks since I have been able to exercise. I call it training but it was only a 15 minute ride on a spinning bike, but man it felt good, there were times when I thought that this day would never arrive.
