The Cape Town Cycle Tour may have hogged many sporting headlines on Sunday, 8 March but behind the scenes, another true calling was taking place.
From well before dawn a total of 180 men and women( either individually or in teams) were tackling an extreme triathlon called Calling Cape Town, of which the cycle tour was but one leg. Now in its fifth year, it markets the Robben Island crossing or an ocean swim of roughly 8km, the 109km cycle tour, and then tackling three peaks of Table Mountain – Devil’ s Peak, Maclear’ s Beacon and Lion’ s Head – in succession from Gardens in the city bowl. All for the noble cause of raising funds for the Calling Academy system which aims to provide quality education at no more than R800 a month per pupil.
From there it was time to wolf down a peanut butter sandwich before a quick 4km ride to the start of the CT Cycle Tour. He finds the swim leg the most relaxing part of the event and credits Olympic artistic swimmer Laura Strugnell with playing an important part in improving his swimming.
“ I like getting onto and off the bike as quickly as possible, it’ s really not my favourite discipline but it’ s an opportunity to make up good time.“ From the bottom of Wynberg Hill there were three of us taking turns into the wind along the M3 and from Simon’ s Town, there were four of us taking turns and pulling on the front. It wasn’ t the worst wind I’ ve experienced on the tour, but it was still bad.
“ I ended up with a time of 3hr 25min for the cycle and have to say I was a bit worried that I’ d pushed too hard on the bike.”
On to the three peaks and en route to Devil’ s Peak, Cilliers had concerns that a rival was catching him.“ Being quite competitive from sailing, I thought it would be nice to beat him to the beacon, which I eventually did, only to realise that it was a friend of mine who was trying to catch up to me and run together for moral support!”
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This year’ s winner of Calling Cape Town was 34-year-old IT ace Danie Cilliers, originally from a small village on the KZN south coast but a Cape Town resident for the past 11 years. For Pennington’ s Cilliers the calling was a personal one.“ The whole reason I chose to join in the first place was that when I was in high school we couldn’ t afford schooling, my mom had to jump through many hoops to get education. I enjoyed school personally but it was a real struggle to get through high school finance-wise …
“ That’ s why I want to trade some sweat for donations and ensure that other kids can afford to go to school … It’ s nothing about the podium, just a personal challenge.”
A former top-level sailor, this extreme event was anything but plain sailing – from a 5am swim start, to a windy cycle tour, to a baking mountain trail run – and saw him spend a total of 16 hours and 44 minutes in action.
Cilliers took some time to share insights into his day outdoors.
“ In terms of the swim, logistically it’ s impossible to let 180 people do a Robben Island crossing so there’ s a choice between that and a bay swim, which I opted to do this year as I’ ve done multiple crossings before and would rather let someone else have the chance to do it.”
He took 2hr 25min to do the bay swim, stopping only to enjoy the privilege of being up close and personal with a pod of dolphins.
Only when he got back to the second running check-in at the Sun Square Hotel in Gardens did Cilliers find out that he was in first place overall.“ But I was now getting tired and there were no‘ podium thoughts’… only about trying to get home before 11pm because there are so many support crew that had been helping the whole day.”
The last peak was Lion’ s Head which was overcome through a combination of powerhiking and running.
“ I took a break on a bench on the way up and just took time to look down upon our amazing city. Then when I got back down to the base of Lion’ s Head there were some students from the school, both supporting and running along in support.
“ Getting to the finish eventually, one’ s so tired that it’ s just a case of‘ Oh gosh, I’ ve finished’,” says Cilliers.
Looking ahead he says he can’ t wait to help organisers grow the event even more, especially after his personal struggle to afford schooling.“ That’ s my main motivation for wanting to trade some sweat for donations and ensure that other kids can afford to go to school – in the end it’ s all about the children.”
Hats off to these 180 heroes( whether it be individually or as team members).
“ This year we managed to raise R3.4 million for the school with some donations still coming in.” Calling Cape Town – a true calling in the quest for affordable knowledge!
www. modernathlete. co. za 25