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IT Consultancy and Adventure Racing |
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IT Consultancy and Adventure Racing |
I love sports, always have, probably always will, and use them to vent my, apparently rather strong, competitive streak.
What can I say about this frankly idiotic pursuit other than how addictive it is? You're either the kind of person that hears about 24 hour racing and thinks that it just sounds utterly insane, or you're the kind that hears about it and thinks that it is something you'd love to have a go at. Unfortunately I'm the latter, so I've been partaking in 24 hour races since 2003, and in 2007 I stepped up to expedition races.
The latest addition to my serious sporting repertoire, I used to play a bit of Ultimate in Hyde Park when I lived in London, more recently had a game between departments at my work place, and in mid 2006 got introduced to the game properly in Wellington by a work mate. After a couple of indoor leagues (only a couple of months each), I've now graduated to throwing the disk around outdoors, and have got a couple of tournaments coming up for Wellington, one in Auckland and one down in Christchurch.
For those that don't know, Ultimate is a game played by 2 teams on a field with end zones using a frisbee. The teams line up on opposing end zones, the defenders throw the disk to the offense, who then have to pass the disk (like netball there is no running with the disk) to one of their own players in the end zone to score a point. If the disk is intercepted or hits the floor then posession is turned over, and the offense become the defense.
It's fast paced, dangerous (the number of horror stories about ankles and knees is immense) very different to any ball based team sport I've ever played, and somehow manages to be a fun, fair game despite the fact that it is self governing, being played with no umpires!
As if the combination of throwing frisbees around and spending days wandering around the bush with nothing for company other than 3 bleary eyed team mates and a compass didn't take up enough time, I also try and play a little Volleyball and netball with work colleagues at lunch time, the odd game of squash, and do a bit of climbing.
The climbing is the most rewarding, giving the possibility of introducing others to this life affirming sport, full of long term challenges and the opportunities to meet people and travel.
This is where my immediate sporting future hopefully lies.
I've been trying to do the Coast 2 Coast solo for 3 years, and have been stymied each time - timing on return from the UK in 2005, an annoying heel injury stopping me running in 2006, and now a depressed immune system kyboshing training for 2007 - so that's back on the goals list for 2008.
Prior to that is a busy 2007, racing GORAR and XPD in Australia, and heading over to the UK for May and June, racing for inov-8/ intellident at the Wilderness ARC.
Once 2007 is out of the way, hopefully I will have proved myself as an Expedition racer, and be on the look out for teams for a number of the longer races in 2008.
The World Ultimate Club Championships have just been held in Perth, and the next big comps are Vancouver (WUGC) in 2008 and probably somewhere in Europe (WUCC) in 2010, so if I'm still actively playing, I would hope to have improved enough by then to have a crack at representing New Zealand.
Motorbikes are great, they're more fun than you can shake a hyuuuuge stick at, and I can see them maintaining a place in my future. Unfortunately NZ only has 4 tarmac race circuits, and they're pretty well spread out all over the country, so I can't really see myself getting back into Road Racing, especially not when there's all that dirt out there, literally everywhere you look ;-)
Motocross is terrific, but is a game that seems to be dominated by the young and fearless, who have been block passing and jumping over other riders from the day they could walk, so unfortunately that rules me out on every front. Which leaves Enduro ... better access to the real outdoors, the same simple, cheap (everything's relative) bikes, and the same opportunities to fall off and roost people, but hopefully a little less chance of having a 12 year old land on my head and ride off as if nothing had happened.