The Fish River Marathon has to be my best race of the year. With over 1700 paddlers taking part and great sponsors on board this race becomes the highlight of ever paddlers year.
Cradock Weir (5km from the finish of day 2)This year i took part in my 7th Fish River marathon and chose to race with a good friend of mine Zaren Courtney. He only recently came back from a 2year break from paddling and is slowly getting back into the swing of things. With Zaren only 4months back into paddling and myself having recently returned from World Sprint champs it was going to make an exciting race. We were confident with our speed but lacked the distance, none the less we new we could pull through. Our aim was to finish in the top 10 but that ment we had to have a near perfict race with no swims, esspecially down the famous rapid 'keiths flyover'. I had never made it before and with me in front i had a lot of pressure to get it right this time. Day one couldnt have gone any better finishing in 8th overall. Day 2 we started in elapsed time as we finished the day before. We had one crew who finished with us but another only 30seconds behind. This was going to be a show down as it was the international marathon paddlers from France. We worked had to keep them off but half way into the race they caught us and still looked rather fresh. It wasnt long till they dropped us off there wave and left us paddling home alone. End result put us in 9th place and ment we had achieved what we came for.
