CLEARWATER Half Ironman World Championship 11 November 2007
What a day!!!
Well, I arrived here in Clearwater, Florida on Monday evening. Surprisingly it was no where near as hot as it was last year. They where having a cold front which made it almost unbearable to be outside if you weren’t sheltered from the wind and in the sun… okay maybe not unbearable compared to most other places around the world at this time of year but it wasn’t what I was expecting. All those weeks of training with lots of layers of clothes on was going to prove to be unnecessary. My time included: checking out the course, fine tuning my bike, ice baths every night and massages from my two private therapists – mum and dad and by the end of the week my legs had mostly recovered from my race in Mexico. I had a few other commitments, but my most favorite was the Question and Answer night that Specialized held at one of the local bike shops to help the launch of their new Time Trial Bike, what a machine. I got to hang out with Peter Reid, one of Ironman greats which was awesome and everyone who came to the shop were great to talk to.
Race day quickly approached and before I knew it I was ready on the start line waiting for the gun. I had a great run into the water and was out in front for about 200m that was some unknown territory for me, I am never that far up in the swim. Then Andy Potts, one of the top swimmers in triathlon came past and I tried to stay on his feet… hard work especially with the current we had, we soon found ourselves 50m off course swimming in the totally wrong direction. Once we fixed up I sat in the group and Andy put a bit of a gap on us. By the end of the swim, expecting Mr. Potts to come out 1 minute ahead I found him right in font of me, the guy had gone off course again, poor guy.
Onto the bike, the pace was fast for the first few kilometers then we started settling in, that was until Bjorn Anderson and David Thomson, absolute machines on the bike, came rolling past. I thought this would be my time to put a gap on the rest of the field. So I rode up with them and put the hammer down to get away. It worked and soon we were cruising at about 50km/hr on the flat and I felt great, this was going to be my day. With the half ironman races there is no drafting on the bike so everyone has to keep a 10meter gap between the person in front and nobody wants to risk a 4 minute penalty so we end up leaving almost 20m just to be safe. Everything was going well, until about mile 40 (65km) into the bike, I started feeling my hips slowly cramp up, my quads blow. I had pushed the envelope a bit hard a bit early and I was going to pay. I made the stupidest mistake ever, I didn’t race my race, I knew my limits, but I still pushed them to ride with the leaders aiming for that extra edge. The last 20km of the bike I really tried to up my Carbohydrate intake, I slowed my pace right down and hoped my legs would come back.
I finished the bike with an average speed of about 44km/hr but only a 90sec lead over the main group which consisted of Craig Alexander, Andy Potts, Andrew Johns and a handful of others All I had to do was have a strong run and I may be able to hang on. So I set out the fastest pace I could hold but my legs were fried. I tried to keep focused but I was so tired, I must have been inches away from lying on the side of the road and passing out. Every stride was a struggle and by the end of the first lap the group was starting to pass me. I wish I could say that I only lost 90seconds on the 2nd lap as well but I dropped even further than before. I knew it was bad when girls on the first lap of their run where passing me and I could do nothing to hold on. I wasn’t going to pull out so I just chugged to the finish. Finishing in 9th place. A position that is still respectful, 9th in the World, but I was far from happy, I am still far from happy. I did the run in the same time I ran last year, but last year I had only run a couple times in the months leading up to the race due to an injury.
I messed this race up, I was ready and having a great day but I made a little mistake that I paid for big time. I have definitely learnt my lesson, it doesn’t matter how you feel you still have to race within yourself to a certain extent. At least for now while I am still young and not as strong as my older competitors.
Overall I have learnt and monitored some interesting information that will help me tremendously in the future to be a consistent champion.
This is the end of the season for me, so a few weeks off to recharge then back into it to get ready for Mooloolaba, our final selection race for the Olympics.
Thanks for all your support over the year, it has helped hugely. Good luck for the rest of 2007
Kind regards
MEXICO CANCUN ITU WORLD CUP November 2007
Firstly sorry for all the emails about the wrong race time. If anyone managed to catch any of the race I hope the coverage was okay.
I came to Cancun to get an in depth idea of how and what exactly I would need to do to race at the top of the game. I was aiming to nail the swim and get out with the front bunch, something that is proving to be of utmost importance to those who want to be in contention for the placings. Then I wanted to cruise the bike and have a good run.
Well this is roughly how it went: wearing number 10 I managed to get a good start position which was going to be pretty important as it was a beach start and the positions to the far right were optimal as you could wade about 20m further than those to the left. The start went well, I settled in behind the likes of Whitfield, Docherty, Gemmell and co. and felt I was off to a good swim, but slowly I got pushed back and by the time we cut around the first buoy a group from the left must have slipped past because before I knew it I was in the shit fight with leg grabbers and body slammers, everyone wanting to take the pole position around the turns. The swim was a lot different than any of use are used to, we had to run and duck dive about 100m at the start and a 100m at the finish and another 100m or so between the laps. Who thought duck diving could take that much breath out of you!!! To make matters worse there was a howling onshore wind which chopped up the water and made it impossible to find any rhythm.
The swim finished and I was out the water in about 20th position I ran hard and fast into transition, passed a couple people, had to pick up my helmet that had been blown off my bike and was soon off on my bike. I don’t know why but I managed to be the first person NOT to make the front bunch, great! There was a small group of us that worked pretty hard to bridge the gap but the front guys had the hammer down and soon we were swallowed up by the group behind us. I don’t know what they were thinking because as they caught up they stopped working, why? There were still 20 odd guys up the road. There were a small few who tried to push the pace but nothing lasted longer than 1km, I could see the front bunch coming out of every U-Turn with more and more time and by the end of the bike they had over 3 minutes on us.
Off onto the run and tried to find a fast rhythm, it lasted a couple kilometers then I started to suffer, pushing the pedals too hard on the bike was paying its dividend. I ran as best I could given the circumstances and how I felt and managed to maintain my position to the finish. 24th!
I am definitely not happy with the outcome, all I needed was to be 5 seconds quicker onto the bike and the race would have had an entirely different outcome. But no use talking about it know, its all about the then and there when I need to put it on the line.
Next weekend, the last race of my season, 70.3 (Half Ironman) World Championships, although it is a half ironman not an Olympic distance race I will be going out there to learn as much as I can that will help me when Mooloolaba, which is just around the corner, rolls around.
I will let you know how and when you can follow the race closer to the time.
Have a great week
Kind regards
AUCKLAND: 1 November
Hi all,
I am just about to leave New Zealand for my last two races of the season. First stop is this weekend in Cancun for an ITU World Cup, it seems the field is pretty stacked with a lot of the guys ranked in the top 20 competing to finish the year with maximum points. This is the same distance race that I will be competing in for our last Olympic spot so it is a good opportunity for me to figure out places I need to work on and how I can race at the front with the likes of Gomez and company for that number one position at the games. My coach Jon Ackland and I have come up with some great ideas and testing to see how they have worked will really be interesting.
The race is this Sunday at 10am Cancun time (Eastern Time) which is Monday morning, 4am in New Zealand. Anyone interested in following the race can do so on www.triathlon.org not too sure what if they will have live video but there will be some information up.
From Cancun I head up to Florida for the Half Ironnman World Champs, a race where I finished 6th Last year with no run training so will hopefully be a different outcome this time round.
Training has been going really well the last few weeks so not much trouble there, but coming from our Spring where the temperature is still below 20’C to Cancun and Florida where they are hitting 28-30’C with 90+% humidity will be a real deciding factor
I will let you know how things unfold after this weekend
Kind regards and thanks for the support
Beijing World Cup: 16 September 2007
Well well well…
Yesterday I had the Beijing World Cup on what is the Olympic course, a race that I have been planning for all year. For the New Zealand Team this race had a lot of importance placed on it as it was our first Selection race. After having a great day in Hamburg at the World Championships 2 weeks ago I really believed that I was going to be in for a good day. Leading into the race I felt like I felt the week before Hamburg, I was ready. Our selection criteria was first 3 kiwis in the top 5.
The race started in smoggy Changping, a small city on the outskirts of Beijing. I had the premium position, next to Andy Potts, the fastest guy in the water. For the first couple hundred meters I knew this was my day, Andy was swimming great towing my along and then the guy on my other side decided to roughen it up a bit and swam over top of me. It didn’t matter too much as I thought I was swimming alright until I got out the water and I was a little down, about 35th. I smashed it through transition and was right on Kris Gemmel’s wheel. We were mowing down the leaders. Just as we were about to close the gap a fellow competitor from my birth country South Africa stood up and changed gear, his chain slipped and he swept across the road catching my front wheel and pushing me over. By the time I got out of my pedals and started going again I was well behind the pace, I put my head down thinking that the leaders would slow down in a couple laps, yeah right, they just got faster. Paul Tichelar and myself road the whole 40km on our own, not giving up for 1 second, but by the time we got onto the run I was over 90seconds back. Oh well, I wasn’t going to pull out now so I cruised the run, caught a couple straggles from the lead bunch and that was my day.
It just really sucks how you put months of preparation into performing on 1 day and when something totally out of your control happens there is nothing you can do. Bevan and Kris ran into 3rd and 4th respectively, so I would have had to have had a great race to squeeze into the team. Now it comes down to Mooloolaba world cup in March where the rest of us will fight for that remaining spot.
From here I head down to Melbourne for 4 days holiday with Kelly and then it is back to the drawing board to get ready for the 70.3 World Champs in November in Florida.
Look forward to catching up with everyone over the next few weeks.
Regards
GERMANY: 2 September 2007
Wow what a day, a well overdue result,
The day started with everyone crossing their fingers hoping that the rain would hold off. It seemed to have worked, because the course seemed to stay dry until after the race when the heavens opened…
Well that’s all that I wrote traveling from Hamburg to Japan, I thought I would be able to finish writing it on my blackberry on our 5hr bus ride but as my luck would have it, no phone reception and my outlook has died on my computer (due to changes made by XTRA my ISP). So here I am doing it the hard way (writing while connected to the internet) well, not really the hardest way, but not the easiest way either.
To finish off on race day, the gun went off at 3pm, there where 81 starters and I knew I was going to have to have a great start to avoid the kicking and punching. The big decision before the race was where to start. You had Gomez and Whitfield to the far right and Potts to the left. The first turn buoy was dead in the middle. I decided to go slightly to the left to have the outside line around the buoys to hopefully avoid a few fists. It seemed to have worked well, it was still pretty rough but I knew I was near the front and still in contention.
Out of the swim I was about 20th, 20seconds behind the leaders, I nailed the transition and pushed the start of the bike to get on the wheels in front of me, probably a bit of a waste of time because the whole field ended up coming together at the end of the first lap. The course was 8 laps and there were about 9 corners per lap making for a tactical race. I tried to position myself well in the bunch to avoid heavy accelerations out of the corners but it seemed everyone had that idea, you literally had to push your way through to keep your position. The bike rolled around pretty quick and soon we were onto the run.
I left at a comfortable pace and a small bunch formed just in front of me, my legs were feeling good so I decided to run with them. This was the first time I was running with the leaders and feeling comfortable. All that training in Victoria had seemed to pay off. The first lap went by and we were half way onto the 2nd lap when there was a sudden change in pace that I couldn’t react to fast enough and found myself running in no mans land with no one to pace off. At that stage I went through a real slump and thought my race was over. I really focused on my technique and trying to stay on top of it and it seemed to work, by the end of that lap I had found my legs and was making my way back up. With the last kilometer of the race I picked up the pace and managed to make up a few more places, crossing the line in 7th place, the first New Zealander home.
Now I am settled in at our base in Japan, the nearest main city is Nagano, about an hour drive from here. But our house is situated 800m above sea level near all the ski resorts. The food is… how do I put it, well it is food but I am really struggling. I may be a bit lighter by the time next weekend comes. Everything is revolved around recovering for the big race next weekend in Beijing. It is our first Selection race for the Olympics and the whole team is keying that event as it will be a huge relief to have selection out of the way this early on. I leave the base on Monday and over night in Tokyo then fly out the following morning to get my lungs acclimatized to the pollution, hehe.
Hopefully this is a start of good things to come. Thanks to everyone for having patience and supporting me through the rough patch.
GERMANY: 1 September 2007
Guten tag from Germany,I hope the weather around the rest of the world is a bit better than what we are experiencing here in Hamburg.I arrived here on Tuesday from Canada and it is now apparent to me that it is pretty hard to find warm weather anywhere in the world. I left home as it was too cold to train there, but I have not put on a pair of shorts since I have been away. I was training in Victoria, Canada for the previous 4 weeks with Simon Whitfield and the Canadian squad who I have spent a lot of time with in the past. The training was some of the hardest that I have ever done but it was great to have a group of people doing the same work day in & day out pushing the pace. I managed to improve the areas that I needed work. From swimming in a 50m pool & lots of open water session my strength really picked up, & run training with Simon, one of the fastest guys on the circuit at the moment couldn't hurt either. So heading into World Champs and 2 weeks down the track Beijing world cup/ our first olympic selection race I am in a good place... I was house sitting for some good friends for a couple weeks and thankfully the house that they just moved into didn't fall or burn down. Kieran Doe, a fellow New Zealander who is into the long distance racing stayed with me for a couple weeks leading into the canadian ironnman in Penticton last weekend which he lead from start to finish to take the win.Well race day is tomorrow, Sunday at 3pm, or 1am back home in NZ, so I won't be too offended if you don't log into the ITU live feed. Hamburg is a beautiful city, I love seeing all the old buildings and being around a different lifestyle is really an eye opener.The only down side of racing here this weekend is that with another big race in 2 weeks time I can't afford to indulge in the local ice-cream. Oh well maybe next time!Will touch base with you all after the race tomorrow and let you know how things unfold.Take care
Vancouver; Des Moines; Edmonton World Cups June 2007
Hi guys,
Firstly I would like to apologize for the missing race updates the last few weeks. I felt like every time I was giving an update there was never any positive news so I wanted to wait until I had some good news before I filled you in on the bad news.
I arrived home in Auckland yesterday after a long trip home from Edmonton, Canada and now a day later my bags are still nowhere to be seen. The joys of traveling. I was away for 3 weeks and did 3 World Cup races. 1st stop was Vancouver. This was a first for the city and a practice run for the World Championships next year. The course suited me well. I was 10seconds behind the leaders out of the swim, and with my bunch doing no work we quickly dropped back to a minute deficit to the lead 7. At the rate things were going I was not going to be racing for a top spot, so I put a bit of an effort in and broke away from the bunch with one other. Due to the nature of the course, with all the sharp corners a small bunch was going to move along much quicker than a bunch of 30. We were bridging the gap by 15 seconds a lap, at this pace we would have caught up to the leaders with 10km to go, I was feeling great and riding hard, maybe too hard because I went around a corner at the bottom of a 400m climb a bit too fast and rolled my tire off the wheel and it blew up. Luckily I managed to stay on my bike, I tried to keep riding on the rim, but because the tire was half off the wheel would not fit through the frame. So I jumped off my bike and started running, I could see the gap to the leaders getting bigger and the chase group catching up, but still I ran as hard as I could, up a 400m steep hill and then along 200m on the flat to the wheel stop, by the time I got back on my bike I was exhausted and had lost a minute to the chase group. What was I meant to do, pull out the race and save it for next weekend, or keep going and see what I could make of it. The adrenaline was pumping and I didn’t want this whole race to go to waste so I put my head down and kept going. I didn’t gain or lose any time top the bunch but when I started running I knew that if I was in the lead bunch the results would have been a bit different. I slowly passed a few guys on the run and finished 31st.with absolutely no ITU points. Samantha Warriner from NZ won the woman’s race.
I then caught the ferry to Victoria to stay with my good friend Rob Hasagawa and his family and do some training with Simon Whitfield and his group before heading to Iowa for my next world cup. A new race to the circuit with the biggest prize purse in the sport, with the winners taking home US$200 000 and a Hummer, which would have been no good back here on our small roads. I knew if I felt as good as last weekend I was going to be in for a good race, but from start to finish I was struggling. I felt like I was going to sink in the swim and the air was hot and humid and I really struggled to breathe the whole race. After a hard day at the office I crossed the line in 24th, earning some much needed points to make it too the start line in Beijing.
Last stop of this trip was the Edmonton World Cup. A course that suited my style of racing. There was a lot of pressure for me to do well at this race, I needed to have a good race to improve my ranking otherwise I was going to have to find some more races later in my season which I would like to avoid doing. I went into the race baking myself all the way. I was not racing for experience anymore, this one was for the win. Race day came and I felt good. I had a good swim and nailed my transition to get on the bike with the front guys. There was a group of about 18 of us working pretty well to hold off the rest of the field. By the time the run came along we had about a 2 minute lead which was good. I headed out and my legs felt great so I pushed the pace. 3 guys including Kris Gemmel from NZ had broken away with 5 km’s to go on the bike and had a 20 second gap which closed slowly. Bevan Doherty took the lead after 4 kilometers and I was running comfortably closing the gap to the front. At the start of the 2nd Lap I started getting the most excruciating stomach cramps which were killing me with every stride I took. I lost about 20 seconds within 2 kilometers, but then came right and started pushing the pace again. With another big jump in pace with 1500meters to go I found myself running past a couple guys and finishing off in 6th spot. One of my better performances on the ITU scene, which was a big relief. And with lucky number 6 comes a drug test!!! Great, especially now that I was dehydrated.
This result gave me a lot of points, not enough to guarantee a start in Beijing in September, but has got me a lot closer as I am now ranked 4th kiwi, so it comes down to how the others race over the next couple months as to weather or not I have to race another points race.
It has been a long road to get back on top of my game and there have been a lot of down times where I have found it really hard to keep going. I appreciate and thank everyone for supporting me through this rough patch in my career, as without your help and encouragement I may not have made it back. Hopefully this is a sign of good things to come in the near future.
I will be sure to write more frequently and not as lengthily.
My next 2 major races are Hamburg world championships on the 2nd September and our first Olympic Selection race on the 16th September in Beijing on the official course.
Thanks again and take care
Regards
Richards Bay World Cup 13 May 2007
Hi from sunny South Africa,
Well what can I say about my trip... Umm, well the weather was good. That's about all that was good for me.
The red eye down from Europe was okay, I managed to get a few hours of light sleep squashed in the back of the plane. Finally after about a day of traveling I arrived in Richards Bay, it was great to be at my final destination and settle into a rhythm. I started a short course of antibiotics as I seemed to pick up a bit of a throat infection on the way and was struggling to get through the day, uncomfortable and tired, with sore legs from last weekend.
I didn't end up doing much during the week, a little bit of easy training and heaps of resting. By the time Sunday race morning came along I was feeling better but still struggling with my breathing, however I was determined to go out there and have a good race. I told myself that in the past when I have had some of my best performances I have felt pretty ordinary before the start. So maybe I was ready for a great day. This was not to be.
The men headed off at 2.30pm, and the start of the swim was crazy, we only had 275 meters to spread out 75 men before our first turn, I thought that I had positioned myself well and it seemed like I was near the front, but when it came time to turn the buoy I found everyone on my outside was now on top of me. Inhaling air without getting a mouth full of water was impossible, and sometimes getting your head out of the water was hard enough. I knew at this stage that I was a way back and I had to do a lot of work if I was to bridge the gap. I pushed the pace and slowly made my way up the field, once I was out the water at the end of the second lap of the swim I ran as hard as I could as I knew I was going to be close whether I made the front bunch or not. I had a great transition but was still too far behind, soon a small bunch formed and even smaller few pushed the pace to bridge the 20 second gap. It gets quite frustrating when there are only a couple guys working to bridge the gap, someone should point out to some other individuals that if we don't bridge to the front pack the best position that they will get is 30th. Maybe next time I will just sit up and see what happens. By the end of the 3rd lap we had closed the gap but my legs where a bit fried, add another 5 laps with a 300m uphill sprint ever lap and I had not put my legs in a good position for the run.
The last few laps of the bike went by fast, but there was a break away of about 10 guys that got a minute lead onto the run which didn't help my situation. And when I started out running I felt like I had never run before, I struggled to put one leg in front of the other, I struggled to breath in air and after about 1500 meters I was struggling to move in a forward direction, it got so bad that I had to stop and walk for a second, I was on the verge of pulling out, I had dropped from being in the top 20 to being over 40th in less than 2km's, but I realised I would achieve nothing from quitting, I was still alive and my heart still wanted to kick some butt, I now had nothing to loose so I just put my head down and found my rhythm. Before I knew it my legs where moving well, I was pulling in guys left, right and centre, slowly making my way to the front. Trying to get quicker and quicker each lap, I was digging real deep, but my knee was slowly giving in, and I knew that every place I pulled in, I would get more points towards my Olympic qualifying ranking so I just kept finding more and more, if only I felt like this for the first lap I would be running up with the leaders. Not today though, I was going to have to settle for 21st place, a rather disappointing result but one that was going to have to do. James Elvery, a fellow New Zealander had a huge kick at the end of the run to hold me off and finished 20th.
I hate being made to race when I am not ready, because all you get at the end of the day is disappointment. I know that if I had enough time to have a good build-up and get sufficiently ready I am capable of much better things, but because of the Olympic Selection Criteria it is what needs to be done.
I start my long trip home today with a short over night stopover in Johannesburg to catch up with a few of my old school friends that I have not seen or spoken to since primary school. I get home on Thursday and its back to the hard training for a couple of weeks before I head to North America for 3 more World Cups in June. I know I will be a lot stronger and ready for some better results.
Thanks as always for your support and encouragement.
Lisbon World Cup 6 May 2007
hi everyone,
I hope you are all well and keeping busy. As for me... Well I have sore legs.
Yesterday was my first World Cup of the year, held in Lisbon, Portugal. Well where do I start? I arrived in Lisbon on Thursday after 30 plus hours of travelling, luckily I managed to get upgraded on Thai Air and slept at least half of the trip. Thursday afternoon I tried to go for a little bike which ended up taking the whole afternoon. Not only was I scared out of my pants with the crazy drivers but once the sun started setting and I had no idea where I was and it seemed that I was so far off course that no one could point me back to my hotel I really started worrying. After calling on all my bike handling skills I managed to weave my way through peak hour traffic and get back to my hotel. My next challenge was to try and stay awake until 8pm so I could settle in to the time zone straight away, this was a real struggle but when my head hit the pillow that night my lights were out.
The rest of the week was pretty ordinary and routine, checked out the course, race briefing and drinking coffee at one of the many cafe's. It seems to amaze me that these little cafes are packed all day given there are so many that wherever you are it would take at most 30 seconds to walk to the nearest one.
The course was one that would be great for the spectators and could go either way for the athletes. The transition was inside a big event centre, so we would have to ride through a technical part 8 times and going into and coming out of transition we were on cobblestones. Absolutely scandalous to use my zipp z-tec wheels on such a surface.
Well race time rolled around and at 2pm on Sunday we were off. I was determined to have a good swim to set me up for a good race so I made sure I pushed the start. Apart from all the leg pulling, punching, kicking and pushing the swim went well. I was out of the water in the top 15 and out of Transition 1 in the top 10. The bike started pretty fast and didn't slow for the full 40km. The bunch was pretty much strung out single file the whole ride with a couple crashes costing some of the guys their race.
Soon we were out onto the 10km run, I had a good transition but struggled to find my rhythm and speed early on. I found myself alternating 2km moderate, 2 km faster for the whole run. I am still lacking a bit of strength from only being back training for 4 weeks after my knee operation 9 weeks ago. I finished the race 22nd, So onwards and upwards from here.
I am currently sitting in Frankfurt airport typing with my 2 thumbs on my blackberry, waiting for my connection to Johannesburg where I then head to Richards Bay, a couple hours from Durban for my next World Cup on Sunday. I just need to make sure that my legs recover this week and I should be on track for a better result.
Will keep in touch.
Take care and thanks to everyone for believing in me and supporting me to achieve my dream.
Regards
What a month!!!
At the end of February I had surgery on my Knee. I had been struggling with it since a head on crash on my bike with a car in October last year. After trying everything to make it heal Surgery was my last option. Now coming to the end of the month training is slowly picking up, I am back Swimming and Biking and hope to be back on me feet running in another week or so, but don’t tell the doctor I said that.
Every year on my birthday the 1st of March, my sponsor Plumbing World holds a Plumbing Industry Charity event to raise funds to support youth at risk in New Zealand. The beneficiaries of this event are Rotary International, Parents Inc., FADE, and What's UP a youth line that works towards helping to prevent youth Suicide in New Zealand. My good friend Cameron Calkoen and I have been ambassadors for this charity for a number of years and it is great to see how What's Up has grown over the years with the help from the Plumbing Industry Charity Event. Thanks to everyone who supported this event as they managed to raise over One Hundred Thousand Dollars.
I have also signed up to be part of Charity Mix, which is an online charity that benefits from people purchasing songs and play-lists that I and other Athletes have created. There are half a dozen charities and we each get to choose one, my charity of choice is the National Prostate Cancer Coalition. Check out the link on the right of the page, if you do purchase one of my play-lists which have some great New Zealand Music you will be helping raise money for Prostate Cancer. If for some reason you don’t like my taste of music which I will be really upset about, you can browse to another athlete’s page and check out there tunes.
I hope everyone is well, I know that we down here in the Southern hemisphere have been enjoying Summer while the rest of you are probably training with a dozen layers of clothes on, but it is almost that time of year that things will change and we in the south of the world will be freezing our butts on our long rides.
Good luck for any of the upcoming races.
What a day!!!
Well, I arrived here in Clearwater, Florida on Monday evening. Surprisingly it was no where near as hot as it was last year. They where having a cold front which made it almost unbearable to be outside if you weren’t sheltered from the wind and in the sun… okay maybe not unbearable compared to most other places around the world at this time of year but it wasn’t what I was expecting. All those weeks of training with lots of layers of clothes on was going to prove to be unnecessary. My time included: checking out the course, fine tuning my bike, ice baths every night and massages from my two private therapists – mum and dad and by the end of the week my legs had mostly recovered from my race in Mexico. I had a few other commitments, but my most favorite was the Question and Answer night that Specialized held at one of the local bike shops to help the launch of their new Time Trial Bike, what a machine. I got to hang out with Peter Reid, one of Ironman greats which was awesome and everyone who came to the shop were great to talk to.
Race day quickly approached and before I knew it I was ready on the start line waiting for the gun. I had a great run into the water and was out in front for about 200m that was some unknown territory for me, I am never that far up in the swim. Then Andy Potts, one of the top swimmers in triathlon came past and I tried to stay on his feet… hard work especially with the current we had, we soon found ourselves 50m off course swimming in the totally wrong direction. Once we fixed up I sat in the group and Andy put a bit of a gap on us. By the end of the swim, expecting Mr. Potts to come out 1 minute ahead I found him right in font of me, the guy had gone off course again, poor guy.
Onto the bike, the pace was fast for the first few kilometers then we started settling in, that was until Bjorn Anderson and David Thomson, absolute machines on the bike, came rolling past. I thought this would be my time to put a gap on the rest of the field. So I rode up with them and put the hammer down to get away. It worked and soon we were cruising at about 50km/hr on the flat and I felt great, this was going to be my day. With the half ironman races there is no drafting on the bike so everyone has to keep a 10meter gap between the person in front and nobody wants to risk a 4 minute penalty so we end up leaving almost 20m just to be safe. Everything was going well, until about mile 40 (65km) into the bike, I started feeling my hips slowly cramp up, my quads blow. I had pushed the envelope a bit hard a bit early and I was going to pay. I made the stupidest mistake ever, I didn’t race my race, I knew my limits, but I still pushed them to ride with the leaders aiming for that extra edge. The last 20km of the bike I really tried to up my Carbohydrate intake, I slowed my pace right down and hoped my legs would come back.
I finished the bike with an average speed of about 44km/hr but only a 90sec lead over the main group which consisted of Craig Alexander, Andy Potts, Andrew Johns and a handful of others All I had to do was have a strong run and I may be able to hang on. So I set out the fastest pace I could hold but my legs were fried. I tried to keep focused but I was so tired, I must have been inches away from lying on the side of the road and passing out. Every stride was a struggle and by the end of the first lap the group was starting to pass me. I wish I could say that I only lost 90seconds on the 2nd lap as well but I dropped even further than before. I knew it was bad when girls on the first lap of their run where passing me and I could do nothing to hold on. I wasn’t going to pull out so I just chugged to the finish. Finishing in 9th place. A position that is still respectful, 9th in the World, but I was far from happy, I am still far from happy. I did the run in the same time I ran last year, but last year I had only run a couple times in the months leading up to the race due to an injury.
I messed this race up, I was ready and having a great day but I made a little mistake that I paid for big time. I have definitely learnt my lesson, it doesn’t matter how you feel you still have to race within yourself to a certain extent. At least for now while I am still young and not as strong as my older competitors.
Overall I have learnt and monitored some interesting information that will help me tremendously in the future to be a consistent champion.
This is the end of the season for me, so a few weeks off to recharge then back into it to get ready for Mooloolaba, our final selection race for the Olympics.
Thanks for all your support over the year, it has helped hugely. Good luck for the rest of 2007
Kind regards
MEXICO CANCUN ITU WORLD CUP November 2007
Firstly sorry for all the emails about the wrong race time. If anyone managed to catch any of the race I hope the coverage was okay.
I came to Cancun to get an in depth idea of how and what exactly I would need to do to race at the top of the game. I was aiming to nail the swim and get out with the front bunch, something that is proving to be of utmost importance to those who want to be in contention for the placings. Then I wanted to cruise the bike and have a good run.
Well this is roughly how it went: wearing number 10 I managed to get a good start position which was going to be pretty important as it was a beach start and the positions to the far right were optimal as you could wade about 20m further than those to the left. The start went well, I settled in behind the likes of Whitfield, Docherty, Gemmell and co. and felt I was off to a good swim, but slowly I got pushed back and by the time we cut around the first buoy a group from the left must have slipped past because before I knew it I was in the shit fight with leg grabbers and body slammers, everyone wanting to take the pole position around the turns. The swim was a lot different than any of use are used to, we had to run and duck dive about 100m at the start and a 100m at the finish and another 100m or so between the laps. Who thought duck diving could take that much breath out of you!!! To make matters worse there was a howling onshore wind which chopped up the water and made it impossible to find any rhythm.
The swim finished and I was out the water in about 20th position I ran hard and fast into transition, passed a couple people, had to pick up my helmet that had been blown off my bike and was soon off on my bike. I don’t know why but I managed to be the first person NOT to make the front bunch, great! There was a small group of us that worked pretty hard to bridge the gap but the front guys had the hammer down and soon we were swallowed up by the group behind us. I don’t know what they were thinking because as they caught up they stopped working, why? There were still 20 odd guys up the road. There were a small few who tried to push the pace but nothing lasted longer than 1km, I could see the front bunch coming out of every U-Turn with more and more time and by the end of the bike they had over 3 minutes on us.
Off onto the run and tried to find a fast rhythm, it lasted a couple kilometers then I started to suffer, pushing the pedals too hard on the bike was paying its dividend. I ran as best I could given the circumstances and how I felt and managed to maintain my position to the finish. 24th!
I am definitely not happy with the outcome, all I needed was to be 5 seconds quicker onto the bike and the race would have had an entirely different outcome. But no use talking about it know, its all about the then and there when I need to put it on the line.
Next weekend, the last race of my season, 70.3 (Half Ironman) World Championships, although it is a half ironman not an Olympic distance race I will be going out there to learn as much as I can that will help me when Mooloolaba, which is just around the corner, rolls around.
I will let you know how and when you can follow the race closer to the time.
Have a great week
Kind regards
AUCKLAND: 1 November
Hi all,
I am just about to leave New Zealand for my last two races of the season. First stop is this weekend in Cancun for an ITU World Cup, it seems the field is pretty stacked with a lot of the guys ranked in the top 20 competing to finish the year with maximum points. This is the same distance race that I will be competing in for our last Olympic spot so it is a good opportunity for me to figure out places I need to work on and how I can race at the front with the likes of Gomez and company for that number one position at the games. My coach Jon Ackland and I have come up with some great ideas and testing to see how they have worked will really be interesting.
The race is this Sunday at 10am Cancun time (Eastern Time) which is Monday morning, 4am in New Zealand. Anyone interested in following the race can do so on www.triathlon.org not too sure what if they will have live video but there will be some information up.
From Cancun I head up to Florida for the Half Ironnman World Champs, a race where I finished 6th Last year with no run training so will hopefully be a different outcome this time round.
Training has been going really well the last few weeks so not much trouble there, but coming from our Spring where the temperature is still below 20’C to Cancun and Florida where they are hitting 28-30’C with 90+% humidity will be a real deciding factor
I will let you know how things unfold after this weekend
Kind regards and thanks for the support
Beijing World Cup: 16 September 2007
Well well well…
Yesterday I had the Beijing World Cup on what is the Olympic course, a race that I have been planning for all year. For the New Zealand Team this race had a lot of importance placed on it as it was our first Selection race. After having a great day in Hamburg at the World Championships 2 weeks ago I really believed that I was going to be in for a good day. Leading into the race I felt like I felt the week before Hamburg, I was ready. Our selection criteria was first 3 kiwis in the top 5.
The race started in smoggy Changping, a small city on the outskirts of Beijing. I had the premium position, next to Andy Potts, the fastest guy in the water. For the first couple hundred meters I knew this was my day, Andy was swimming great towing my along and then the guy on my other side decided to roughen it up a bit and swam over top of me. It didn’t matter too much as I thought I was swimming alright until I got out the water and I was a little down, about 35th. I smashed it through transition and was right on Kris Gemmel’s wheel. We were mowing down the leaders. Just as we were about to close the gap a fellow competitor from my birth country South Africa stood up and changed gear, his chain slipped and he swept across the road catching my front wheel and pushing me over. By the time I got out of my pedals and started going again I was well behind the pace, I put my head down thinking that the leaders would slow down in a couple laps, yeah right, they just got faster. Paul Tichelar and myself road the whole 40km on our own, not giving up for 1 second, but by the time we got onto the run I was over 90seconds back. Oh well, I wasn’t going to pull out now so I cruised the run, caught a couple straggles from the lead bunch and that was my day.
It just really sucks how you put months of preparation into performing on 1 day and when something totally out of your control happens there is nothing you can do. Bevan and Kris ran into 3rd and 4th respectively, so I would have had to have had a great race to squeeze into the team. Now it comes down to Mooloolaba world cup in March where the rest of us will fight for that remaining spot.
From here I head down to Melbourne for 4 days holiday with Kelly and then it is back to the drawing board to get ready for the 70.3 World Champs in November in Florida.
Look forward to catching up with everyone over the next few weeks.
Regards
GERMANY: 2 September 2007
Wow what a day, a well overdue result,
The day started with everyone crossing their fingers hoping that the rain would hold off. It seemed to have worked, because the course seemed to stay dry until after the race when the heavens opened…
Well that’s all that I wrote traveling from Hamburg to Japan, I thought I would be able to finish writing it on my blackberry on our 5hr bus ride but as my luck would have it, no phone reception and my outlook has died on my computer (due to changes made by XTRA my ISP). So here I am doing it the hard way (writing while connected to the internet) well, not really the hardest way, but not the easiest way either.
To finish off on race day, the gun went off at 3pm, there where 81 starters and I knew I was going to have to have a great start to avoid the kicking and punching. The big decision before the race was where to start. You had Gomez and Whitfield to the far right and Potts to the left. The first turn buoy was dead in the middle. I decided to go slightly to the left to have the outside line around the buoys to hopefully avoid a few fists. It seemed to have worked well, it was still pretty rough but I knew I was near the front and still in contention.
Out of the swim I was about 20th, 20seconds behind the leaders, I nailed the transition and pushed the start of the bike to get on the wheels in front of me, probably a bit of a waste of time because the whole field ended up coming together at the end of the first lap. The course was 8 laps and there were about 9 corners per lap making for a tactical race. I tried to position myself well in the bunch to avoid heavy accelerations out of the corners but it seemed everyone had that idea, you literally had to push your way through to keep your position. The bike rolled around pretty quick and soon we were onto the run.
I left at a comfortable pace and a small bunch formed just in front of me, my legs were feeling good so I decided to run with them. This was the first time I was running with the leaders and feeling comfortable. All that training in Victoria had seemed to pay off. The first lap went by and we were half way onto the 2nd lap when there was a sudden change in pace that I couldn’t react to fast enough and found myself running in no mans land with no one to pace off. At that stage I went through a real slump and thought my race was over. I really focused on my technique and trying to stay on top of it and it seemed to work, by the end of that lap I had found my legs and was making my way back up. With the last kilometer of the race I picked up the pace and managed to make up a few more places, crossing the line in 7th place, the first New Zealander home.
Now I am settled in at our base in Japan, the nearest main city is Nagano, about an hour drive from here. But our house is situated 800m above sea level near all the ski resorts. The food is… how do I put it, well it is food but I am really struggling. I may be a bit lighter by the time next weekend comes. Everything is revolved around recovering for the big race next weekend in Beijing. It is our first Selection race for the Olympics and the whole team is keying that event as it will be a huge relief to have selection out of the way this early on. I leave the base on Monday and over night in Tokyo then fly out the following morning to get my lungs acclimatized to the pollution, hehe.
Hopefully this is a start of good things to come. Thanks to everyone for having patience and supporting me through the rough patch.
GERMANY: 1 September 2007
Guten tag from Germany,I hope the weather around the rest of the world is a bit better than what we are experiencing here in Hamburg.I arrived here on Tuesday from Canada and it is now apparent to me that it is pretty hard to find warm weather anywhere in the world. I left home as it was too cold to train there, but I have not put on a pair of shorts since I have been away. I was training in Victoria, Canada for the previous 4 weeks with Simon Whitfield and the Canadian squad who I have spent a lot of time with in the past. The training was some of the hardest that I have ever done but it was great to have a group of people doing the same work day in & day out pushing the pace. I managed to improve the areas that I needed work. From swimming in a 50m pool & lots of open water session my strength really picked up, & run training with Simon, one of the fastest guys on the circuit at the moment couldn't hurt either. So heading into World Champs and 2 weeks down the track Beijing world cup/ our first olympic selection race I am in a good place... I was house sitting for some good friends for a couple weeks and thankfully the house that they just moved into didn't fall or burn down. Kieran Doe, a fellow New Zealander who is into the long distance racing stayed with me for a couple weeks leading into the canadian ironnman in Penticton last weekend which he lead from start to finish to take the win.Well race day is tomorrow, Sunday at 3pm, or 1am back home in NZ, so I won't be too offended if you don't log into the ITU live feed. Hamburg is a beautiful city, I love seeing all the old buildings and being around a different lifestyle is really an eye opener.The only down side of racing here this weekend is that with another big race in 2 weeks time I can't afford to indulge in the local ice-cream. Oh well maybe next time!Will touch base with you all after the race tomorrow and let you know how things unfold.Take care
Vancouver; Des Moines; Edmonton World Cups June 2007
Hi guys,
Firstly I would like to apologize for the missing race updates the last few weeks. I felt like every time I was giving an update there was never any positive news so I wanted to wait until I had some good news before I filled you in on the bad news.
I arrived home in Auckland yesterday after a long trip home from Edmonton, Canada and now a day later my bags are still nowhere to be seen. The joys of traveling. I was away for 3 weeks and did 3 World Cup races. 1st stop was Vancouver. This was a first for the city and a practice run for the World Championships next year. The course suited me well. I was 10seconds behind the leaders out of the swim, and with my bunch doing no work we quickly dropped back to a minute deficit to the lead 7. At the rate things were going I was not going to be racing for a top spot, so I put a bit of an effort in and broke away from the bunch with one other. Due to the nature of the course, with all the sharp corners a small bunch was going to move along much quicker than a bunch of 30. We were bridging the gap by 15 seconds a lap, at this pace we would have caught up to the leaders with 10km to go, I was feeling great and riding hard, maybe too hard because I went around a corner at the bottom of a 400m climb a bit too fast and rolled my tire off the wheel and it blew up. Luckily I managed to stay on my bike, I tried to keep riding on the rim, but because the tire was half off the wheel would not fit through the frame. So I jumped off my bike and started running, I could see the gap to the leaders getting bigger and the chase group catching up, but still I ran as hard as I could, up a 400m steep hill and then along 200m on the flat to the wheel stop, by the time I got back on my bike I was exhausted and had lost a minute to the chase group. What was I meant to do, pull out the race and save it for next weekend, or keep going and see what I could make of it. The adrenaline was pumping and I didn’t want this whole race to go to waste so I put my head down and kept going. I didn’t gain or lose any time top the bunch but when I started running I knew that if I was in the lead bunch the results would have been a bit different. I slowly passed a few guys on the run and finished 31st.with absolutely no ITU points. Samantha Warriner from NZ won the woman’s race.
I then caught the ferry to Victoria to stay with my good friend Rob Hasagawa and his family and do some training with Simon Whitfield and his group before heading to Iowa for my next world cup. A new race to the circuit with the biggest prize purse in the sport, with the winners taking home US$200 000 and a Hummer, which would have been no good back here on our small roads. I knew if I felt as good as last weekend I was going to be in for a good race, but from start to finish I was struggling. I felt like I was going to sink in the swim and the air was hot and humid and I really struggled to breathe the whole race. After a hard day at the office I crossed the line in 24th, earning some much needed points to make it too the start line in Beijing.
Last stop of this trip was the Edmonton World Cup. A course that suited my style of racing. There was a lot of pressure for me to do well at this race, I needed to have a good race to improve my ranking otherwise I was going to have to find some more races later in my season which I would like to avoid doing. I went into the race baking myself all the way. I was not racing for experience anymore, this one was for the win. Race day came and I felt good. I had a good swim and nailed my transition to get on the bike with the front guys. There was a group of about 18 of us working pretty well to hold off the rest of the field. By the time the run came along we had about a 2 minute lead which was good. I headed out and my legs felt great so I pushed the pace. 3 guys including Kris Gemmel from NZ had broken away with 5 km’s to go on the bike and had a 20 second gap which closed slowly. Bevan Doherty took the lead after 4 kilometers and I was running comfortably closing the gap to the front. At the start of the 2nd Lap I started getting the most excruciating stomach cramps which were killing me with every stride I took. I lost about 20 seconds within 2 kilometers, but then came right and started pushing the pace again. With another big jump in pace with 1500meters to go I found myself running past a couple guys and finishing off in 6th spot. One of my better performances on the ITU scene, which was a big relief. And with lucky number 6 comes a drug test!!! Great, especially now that I was dehydrated.
This result gave me a lot of points, not enough to guarantee a start in Beijing in September, but has got me a lot closer as I am now ranked 4th kiwi, so it comes down to how the others race over the next couple months as to weather or not I have to race another points race.
It has been a long road to get back on top of my game and there have been a lot of down times where I have found it really hard to keep going. I appreciate and thank everyone for supporting me through this rough patch in my career, as without your help and encouragement I may not have made it back. Hopefully this is a sign of good things to come in the near future.
I will be sure to write more frequently and not as lengthily.
My next 2 major races are Hamburg world championships on the 2nd September and our first Olympic Selection race on the 16th September in Beijing on the official course.
Thanks again and take care
Regards
Richards Bay World Cup 13 May 2007
Hi from sunny South Africa,
Well what can I say about my trip... Umm, well the weather was good. That's about all that was good for me.
The red eye down from Europe was okay, I managed to get a few hours of light sleep squashed in the back of the plane. Finally after about a day of traveling I arrived in Richards Bay, it was great to be at my final destination and settle into a rhythm. I started a short course of antibiotics as I seemed to pick up a bit of a throat infection on the way and was struggling to get through the day, uncomfortable and tired, with sore legs from last weekend.
I didn't end up doing much during the week, a little bit of easy training and heaps of resting. By the time Sunday race morning came along I was feeling better but still struggling with my breathing, however I was determined to go out there and have a good race. I told myself that in the past when I have had some of my best performances I have felt pretty ordinary before the start. So maybe I was ready for a great day. This was not to be.
The men headed off at 2.30pm, and the start of the swim was crazy, we only had 275 meters to spread out 75 men before our first turn, I thought that I had positioned myself well and it seemed like I was near the front, but when it came time to turn the buoy I found everyone on my outside was now on top of me. Inhaling air without getting a mouth full of water was impossible, and sometimes getting your head out of the water was hard enough. I knew at this stage that I was a way back and I had to do a lot of work if I was to bridge the gap. I pushed the pace and slowly made my way up the field, once I was out the water at the end of the second lap of the swim I ran as hard as I could as I knew I was going to be close whether I made the front bunch or not. I had a great transition but was still too far behind, soon a small bunch formed and even smaller few pushed the pace to bridge the 20 second gap. It gets quite frustrating when there are only a couple guys working to bridge the gap, someone should point out to some other individuals that if we don't bridge to the front pack the best position that they will get is 30th. Maybe next time I will just sit up and see what happens. By the end of the 3rd lap we had closed the gap but my legs where a bit fried, add another 5 laps with a 300m uphill sprint ever lap and I had not put my legs in a good position for the run.
The last few laps of the bike went by fast, but there was a break away of about 10 guys that got a minute lead onto the run which didn't help my situation. And when I started out running I felt like I had never run before, I struggled to put one leg in front of the other, I struggled to breath in air and after about 1500 meters I was struggling to move in a forward direction, it got so bad that I had to stop and walk for a second, I was on the verge of pulling out, I had dropped from being in the top 20 to being over 40th in less than 2km's, but I realised I would achieve nothing from quitting, I was still alive and my heart still wanted to kick some butt, I now had nothing to loose so I just put my head down and found my rhythm. Before I knew it my legs where moving well, I was pulling in guys left, right and centre, slowly making my way to the front. Trying to get quicker and quicker each lap, I was digging real deep, but my knee was slowly giving in, and I knew that every place I pulled in, I would get more points towards my Olympic qualifying ranking so I just kept finding more and more, if only I felt like this for the first lap I would be running up with the leaders. Not today though, I was going to have to settle for 21st place, a rather disappointing result but one that was going to have to do. James Elvery, a fellow New Zealander had a huge kick at the end of the run to hold me off and finished 20th.
I hate being made to race when I am not ready, because all you get at the end of the day is disappointment. I know that if I had enough time to have a good build-up and get sufficiently ready I am capable of much better things, but because of the Olympic Selection Criteria it is what needs to be done.
I start my long trip home today with a short over night stopover in Johannesburg to catch up with a few of my old school friends that I have not seen or spoken to since primary school. I get home on Thursday and its back to the hard training for a couple of weeks before I head to North America for 3 more World Cups in June. I know I will be a lot stronger and ready for some better results.
Thanks as always for your support and encouragement.
Lisbon World Cup 6 May 2007
hi everyone,
I hope you are all well and keeping busy. As for me... Well I have sore legs.
Yesterday was my first World Cup of the year, held in Lisbon, Portugal. Well where do I start? I arrived in Lisbon on Thursday after 30 plus hours of travelling, luckily I managed to get upgraded on Thai Air and slept at least half of the trip. Thursday afternoon I tried to go for a little bike which ended up taking the whole afternoon. Not only was I scared out of my pants with the crazy drivers but once the sun started setting and I had no idea where I was and it seemed that I was so far off course that no one could point me back to my hotel I really started worrying. After calling on all my bike handling skills I managed to weave my way through peak hour traffic and get back to my hotel. My next challenge was to try and stay awake until 8pm so I could settle in to the time zone straight away, this was a real struggle but when my head hit the pillow that night my lights were out.
The rest of the week was pretty ordinary and routine, checked out the course, race briefing and drinking coffee at one of the many cafe's. It seems to amaze me that these little cafes are packed all day given there are so many that wherever you are it would take at most 30 seconds to walk to the nearest one.
The course was one that would be great for the spectators and could go either way for the athletes. The transition was inside a big event centre, so we would have to ride through a technical part 8 times and going into and coming out of transition we were on cobblestones. Absolutely scandalous to use my zipp z-tec wheels on such a surface.
Well race time rolled around and at 2pm on Sunday we were off. I was determined to have a good swim to set me up for a good race so I made sure I pushed the start. Apart from all the leg pulling, punching, kicking and pushing the swim went well. I was out of the water in the top 15 and out of Transition 1 in the top 10. The bike started pretty fast and didn't slow for the full 40km. The bunch was pretty much strung out single file the whole ride with a couple crashes costing some of the guys their race.
Soon we were out onto the 10km run, I had a good transition but struggled to find my rhythm and speed early on. I found myself alternating 2km moderate, 2 km faster for the whole run. I am still lacking a bit of strength from only being back training for 4 weeks after my knee operation 9 weeks ago. I finished the race 22nd, So onwards and upwards from here.
I am currently sitting in Frankfurt airport typing with my 2 thumbs on my blackberry, waiting for my connection to Johannesburg where I then head to Richards Bay, a couple hours from Durban for my next World Cup on Sunday. I just need to make sure that my legs recover this week and I should be on track for a better result.
Will keep in touch.
Take care and thanks to everyone for believing in me and supporting me to achieve my dream.
Regards
What a month!!!
At the end of February I had surgery on my Knee. I had been struggling with it since a head on crash on my bike with a car in October last year. After trying everything to make it heal Surgery was my last option. Now coming to the end of the month training is slowly picking up, I am back Swimming and Biking and hope to be back on me feet running in another week or so, but don’t tell the doctor I said that.
Every year on my birthday the 1st of March, my sponsor Plumbing World holds a Plumbing Industry Charity event to raise funds to support youth at risk in New Zealand. The beneficiaries of this event are Rotary International, Parents Inc., FADE, and What's UP a youth line that works towards helping to prevent youth Suicide in New Zealand. My good friend Cameron Calkoen and I have been ambassadors for this charity for a number of years and it is great to see how What's Up has grown over the years with the help from the Plumbing Industry Charity Event. Thanks to everyone who supported this event as they managed to raise over One Hundred Thousand Dollars.
I have also signed up to be part of Charity Mix, which is an online charity that benefits from people purchasing songs and play-lists that I and other Athletes have created. There are half a dozen charities and we each get to choose one, my charity of choice is the National Prostate Cancer Coalition. Check out the link on the right of the page, if you do purchase one of my play-lists which have some great New Zealand Music you will be helping raise money for Prostate Cancer. If for some reason you don’t like my taste of music which I will be really upset about, you can browse to another athlete’s page and check out there tunes.
I hope everyone is well, I know that we down here in the Southern hemisphere have been enjoying Summer while the rest of you are probably training with a dozen layers of clothes on, but it is almost that time of year that things will change and we in the south of the world will be freezing our butts on our long rides.
Good luck for any of the upcoming races.
