Summer antics
Christmas in New Zealand!
In mid-December I headed over to Mount Maunganui for about a month with 2 bikes and some other toys. While I was there, I did the Suffer and Surfbreaker triathlons, hung out with all my triathlon, cycling and Omanu SLC buddies where I rejoined/did by bronze refresher and took part in a local surf carnival. After New Year some camping at Lake Taupo and riding all the favourite trails around the Kinloch area. It was one of best holidays!
January
Triathlon
I headed back to Perth in time for Interclubs. This is a sprint triathlon in Mandurah where the local clubs compete as a team against each other. Racing is fast and furious and it’s a heap of fun. This year my club took out the main trophy by one point, everyone’s race counted. It was an amazing moment and we were the biggest, loudest and brightest club there in our cool event tees.
I also did the Australia Day triathlon later in Jan and put in my special application to Tri NZ to be selected for world champs in Wollongong later in the year (which as successful!)
Shore-2-Shore - an ocean odessea
The rest of Jan involved lots of swimming to gear up for the the 2nd annual Shore-2-Shore swim. This is a 3-day 18km stage swim up the coast of Perth from Port Beach in the South to Trigg Beach in the North.
Last year I did 2 stages and this year wanted to knock off all three. It’s a sublime meditative experience swim around 6km a day non wetsuit in 24 degree crystal clear degree water looking at the sand, sea and sky and haning out with a great bunch of people. Conditions were great again and below is a drone photo from day 1.
In Feb I did the IRB Crew course at the weekends - I’d already done it in NZ a few years ago but we couldn’t transfer it and I’m keen to finish off my drivers later in the year here.
So I re-did the course and it was a great experience. The boats are a little different from the NZ boats with a spray deck and there’s some different positions to learn for turning so it was definitely worthwhile.
March - Transcape and Xterra
Transcape
My friend Jo from Swim Smooth suggested we did the Trans Cape. This is a swim-run event across Geographe Bay. I’ve done a few swim run trips before with friends in NZ but never an actual event. We did a few low key training sessions, and our kit innovation was to make bubble wrap shin pads instead of using a pull buoy for leg buoyancy. It worked a treat.
We had an absolute blast and the scenery was beautiful. Would definitely love to do that again.
Xterra - Asia Pacific Champs, Dunsborough
Xterra is one of my favourite rates (see previous post) and Dunsborough is a great spot for it.
This year I was featured in the Xterra age group previews!
I headed down a few days early to soak up the atmosphere before the race and check out the trails again.
The competition was up a level from last year and I just missed out on the podium this year but I’d given the race my all and was happy with how I executed it.
April - Tiger Tracks
To round out the Summer the week after Xterra I headed back down to Nannup to do the Tiger Tracks gravel weekend.
This is a friendly gravel event in beautiful bush organised by 4fiveplus. Day 1 has a skills session and time trial, a group pub dinner in the Nannup tavern in the evening and day 2 is the ‘Big Tiger’ 80km event.
There’s a great writeup on the South Perth Roulers blog.
It's pretty much two years since arriving in Perth and setting up life in Australia. You're know you're now a proper local when your picture ends up on this week's blog of your cycling club, that you're actually now a ride leader at too!
