Gert Fouche has told of the mental and physical pain he endured when he broke the South African hour record at Hector Norris Park in Johannesburg last week.
Fouche, 38, covered 47.02km in an hour, breaking the previous SA record of 45.49km set by James Louter at the same venue in 1999.
He said the hour “felt much longer than it was” and that it took plenty of mental focus to get through the ordeal.
“The hour was really long and there was no respite. There was never a moment where I was able to ease off the pedals; it was a constant effort.
“I also had one gear so there were no chances to stop pedalling. I decided to break it up into portions, so I broke it [the hour] into five-minute segments,” he said.
Gert Fouche, pictured being consoled afterwards, has told of the mental and physical pain he endured when he broke the South African hour record at Hector Norris Park in Johannesburg last week. Photo: Facebook/Performance Through Science Coaching
An assistant notified him as each five-minute period passed, Fouche said.
“I tried to go out easy, but I knew what would be easy in the beginning wouldn’t be so at the end.
“I went out a little bit above the pace I wanted and every five minutes I just turned my focus to the next five minutes, and so on.”
Fouche said his solo ride “started hurting” at about the half-hour mark and that the track was also somewhat bumpy.
“The last 10 minutes was very challenging,” he said. “My wife only managed to get there in that period, which is the point where I really started to struggle.
“I heard her scream [in support] so I just went for it. That was really nice.”
The Pretoria local rode with a 56/15 gear ratio, which was 101 inches.
“I think it was the perfect gear [choice],” Fouche said. “It felt really good and everything worked out really well.”
Regarding his approach to the record attempt, he said he tried to focus more on speed than wattage.
“The goal in any time-trial for me is that the fewer watts I can push for the highest speed, the better.
“I was focusing on speed and my aim was to pace at 46km/h. I knew that was sustainable. But when I went out I went slightly faster – at around 47.5km/h.
“I then tried to hold that for as long as possible. It got a bit slower at the end.”
Having done the ride on an outdoor track, weather was always a factor.
Fortunately, though, Fouche said he was able to choose the day on which to do the attempt.
“I tried to get the weather prediction as good as possible,” he said. “I decided to do it in the late afternoon when it had calmed down, but unfortunately there was a little more wind than expected.
“Luckily it didn’t affect me that much. It was also a bit cooler than what was ideal.
“However, if you can keep your core temperature cooler then you can generally produce more power. The weather was good at the end.”
Fouche, who represented South Africa on the track at the Commonwealth Games this year, said he turned his focus to the discipline three years ago and that the attempt was “always in the back of my mind”.
“Riding in the shorter events and bunch events such as at the master’s world champs in 2016 and 2017, you can’t really focus on this type of effort in training,” he said.
“It is a very specialised effort, so I decided after the Commonwealth Games this year that it would be a good goal to have, seeing that I gave the master’s world champs a skip this season.”
He took part in the Trans Baviaans endurance mountain-bike race in August, before he decided to spend “as much time on the track as possible” leading up to his attempt.
“When I finished I thought that was the fastest I could’ve gone,” Fouche said.
“But the next day I looked back and thought I could’ve maybe gone a bit faster.
“You always want to improve, but I think I did as much as I could on the day.
“I’m happy with how I paced it and I learnt a lot from the experience,” he said.
His record was documented and would be ratified by Cycling South Africa, Fouche confirmed.
