Cape Epic Day 7: Botrivier Goes Bos

On Day 7, I decided to crawl back into bed once the boys had left at 6:30am. We were in our B&B in the thriving metropolis of Botrivier – in a delightful guest house in one of the four residential roads that comprise the town. I was on my way back to wonderland when someone down the road decided to throw a party. Seriously. Blaring bl**dy music at the crack of bl**dy dawn. Who does that? Someone in Botrivier, that’s who.

Eventually, both my fellow soigneuse and I gave up trying to have a lie-in and got up and put on our running kit. We’d been training all week for our very own little epic – at 12.5km trail run starting and ending at the Cape Epic’s finish line. Still yawning but with our ears throbbing from the music, we set off down the road and ended up running to the beat of Botriver’s Saturday morning jam.

About half-way through our run, we thought we heard a loudspeaker. This got us thinking – perhaps there was some kind of event going on? Yes – that must be it.

Then, about 500m from home, we saw a bunch of cyclists flying by. Could the “event” be the Epic? And could the music be coming from a spectator point? It slowly dawned on us: there was a spectator point literally on our doorstep and we didn’t even know. We debated jogging down to the point to wait for the guys to come past, but we decided breakfast was a bit of a priority. We’d go and have a squizz after a warm shower and a croissant.

About two hours later we drove the 0.3km to the water point (the return journey consisted of a LARGE up-hill). It seemed a little quiet so we asked someone what level of rider was coming past just then. “No level,” we were told. “Everyone’s come through this point.”

Oops.

And to think we could have upped our spectator stats to 2 water points out of a possible total of 16, instead of just 1. Oh well. 1 would have to do. We had a ladies lunch to get to at Peregrine Farmstall in Grabouw. Smell you at the finish, boys.