Winter 2010 - What’s Happening Now

In the 2007-2008 season I did triathlons, however my swimming was not the best so I decided to focus on cycling in the next season. I focused on mountain biking and my big race of the season was Karapoti, which I finished in a time of 5:20. Slow, but I finished. Last season I concentrated my efforts on track cycling, my big event being Nationals, in Invercargill. At nationals I accomplished what I went there to achieve, but I was definitely a tail ender.

This season, I was asked to be a member of an adventure racing team. This is an event run by OPC in National Park. Only 12 teams in the country get into the final event in May 2011, so they have a qualifying event (a mini 2 day version of the 5 day one) in February. The team has to have 8 people, 4 boys and 4 girls. We will complete activities including rock-climbing, kayaking, tramping, camping, mountain biking, rogaining and more. We will also have to lots of team building exercises, including raft building.

So this means I’ll be getting back to the mountain bike, with maybe a bit of road racing for fun. I’m looking forward to this season as it will be something new to keep me going, and I think it will be great fun. I might even be ready to have a go at the Crazyman.

I’ve started my season with a lot of cross country running and orienteering, mostly on foot but also getting to Michael Wood’s great MTB-O series where it doesn’t clash with other events; next will be the PNP Capital Spin Winter Criterium Series organised by Gary Gibson and Dierdre Johnson; then the Balfour Pennington and the Spring MTB Series.

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