Well

I hope everyone had enough time to appreciate my Halloween costume. It was quite stellar in my opinion.

Anyways, I recently returned from a training camp in New Zealand. It was unreal, like everything was great. Usually when I go away to these camps there is always one thing that "wasn't good." For example, Tucson and Clermont had pretty bad running (in my opinion), especially when you were without a car. France was pretty good all-around, except when you wanted a bit of flat riding, you would have to leave the country for that.

New Zealand, Wanaka specifically, was different. The lakes were warm...enough. The roads were varied in topography and surface (the first week was a bit "tough"). And the trails were soft and plentiful (no innuendo, just good running).

It was an interesting dynamic as I travelled down with Simon Whitfield and Andrew Russell, two people who I haven't trained much with, at least in the last couple of years. Where we met up with a large contingent of Kiwi and Dutch athletes who I had never met. It took a couple of days to settle in but after about the fourth day it was just butter. We lived at "Snow Farm," a wintersport lodge at 1600m but spent most of our time in the town of Wanaka. Andrew described it well as a "mix between Penticton and Whistler," as it was also Summer there were a lot of happy vacationers hanging about, needless to say the town had a great vibe.

The first couple of weeks went by with minimal interruptions, and I was able to get in a good chunk of volume which was my only goal of the camp. Fortunately we were also able to race! Wanaka hosted a stop of the national Triathlon series and we were able to take a break from our routine and throw down some speed with some lingering fatigue.

The race was highly publicised as there was a 10000$ winner-takes-all first prize, put forth by the local ITU athlete and Olympic hopeful, Tony Dodds.

I didn't win. In fact, I got pumped.

But it was one of the most enjoyable racing experiences I've ever done. The race started at 8PM as the sun set over the mountains and the bar crowds were settling in to they're third or forth round. This is crucial as the bike and run courses went past said crowds creating a surreal atmosphere, Triathlon's "Friday Night Lights."

I had a massive smile on my face as rider after rider blew past me, but I didn't have much time to think on the 8x2.5 km loop bike course, other than to hang on for dear life. I came off onto the run and just tried to move my legs as fast as I could for 5k. It was the best 14th place finish as I high-fived a crowd five deep through the finish chute.

But all that fun couldn't last forever. I'm back home now, a little more tanned and hopefully a little wiser. I tried to be a sponge around the athletes I trained with and gleam as much wisdom as possible.  I'm grateful for the opportunity meet and train with everyone involved.

Looking foreword I'm not 100% sure what my future plans will entail. I need to do some time trials, hopefully including the 5k at the Bazan Bay World Championships. A race that has eluded me for 4 years, mostly due to injury. I'll update when developments unfold.

My attempt at facial hair