TEVA Wairoa Extreme 2007

My last race for the summer is the Teva Wairoa Extreme in New Zealand. Me, Andrew, Macca and Tim fly out this Sunday morning for 10-12 days boating on the West Coast of the South Island, then we'll make our way up to the North Island for the Wairoa race on Feb 10-11, after which we'll have a week of boating on the North Island before coming home. At this stage, Dan looks like joining us for the race and week after as well.

I'll try and update the site while in NZ wherever possible, otherwise check the event website:

http://www.paddle-power.com/extremerace/

Wildwater Nationals 2006/07

Here's some pictures from the Wildwater Nationals, all from the "Shark's Tooth" rapid on the Mitta Mitta River. After some races at Eildon on the Goulbourn River at really low levels, it was great to arrive at Dartmouth and find some great flow on the Mitta. Ironically, the flow was courtesy of the drought, as Dartmouth Dam is currently being almost drained and the water being sold to South Australia, who need it desperately. What will Victoria do if it doesn't rain this winter - who knows - we just knew that the river was pumping!!

The Mitta was boily and fast flowing, and Shark's Tooth was the crux move with the three different lines being trialled in practice presenting paddlers with a number of options. Above in the lower pic we have Matt Shaw (TAS) just before being almost back-looped and having a bit of a swim in the classic race courtesy of the nasty hole he is paddling into. Matt recovered well from this experience, coming back to post a couple of gutsy runs the next day to take out the U18 rapid sprint down the same rapid! Good on you Matt! Middle pic above is Dan getting a bit of air in the sprint race, and top pic is myself having a bit of a tussle with the same hole that claimed Matt, also in the sprint race.

For full results, go to:
http://www.derwent.canoe.org.au/default.asp?Page=12070

Murray Marathon 2006

Here's a picture from the Murray Marathon - from left-to-right we have Georgie, Steve, Heidi, Me, Ross, John, and Ben in the back row; then Luke, Kirralee and Megan in the front row. Geelong Canoe Club had two teams in the Murray this year - Me, Steve, Luke, Ben were in one and Ross, John, Megan were in the other. We finished 1st and 3rd, respsctively, look how big the winning trophy is! We had to be satisfied with just the smaller ones to take home as the Red Cross keep the main one, probably a good idea as the event finishes on New Year's Eve and the larger cup might get filled up with all manner of things otherwise!

Highlights during the Murray were:

Day One, where our team was close to the record (we blame tiredness and low water for the 4 days after day 1!!),
The heat,
The flies,
The atmosphere,
The wake-up calls at 5.30-6.oo am in the official Red Cross free campsites,
Our support crews (big thank-you to you girls for getting us guys organised),
The mad-house circus of the checkpoints and the logistics of three cars and two teams,
The day where I had to paddle twice and paddled one hour, then had an hour break, then paddled only 50 mins, and managed to completely hit the wall in that 50 mins and get outsprinted by the junior K1's (they were fast juniors this year though, um......),
Peachy for keeping the dream alive and in fact realising the dream with a podium finish,
Ross' escapades - every day = a new adventure,
Johns drinking efforts on New Years Eve (beer), and Luke and Steve's (milk),
Megan's pink and black striped boat - highly visible about 1 km out from checkpoints, maybe also from space,
The comments from the peanut gallery whenever anybody did something around the camp,
Cutting out an old footbar and fibreglassing in a new one to my new WW boat the day before the race,
The serenity,
The daily battles, tactics and split time worries as a result of the eventual 2nd placed team "Crazy Cup Kids" - good on you kids!!

On behalf of our team I would like to thank the Geelong City Council and their athlete support arm Bis-Sport for their support!

As for next year.............I think I will give it a miss - it's a very hard event and the phase of training I will be in 07/08 probably won't allow it. However, I have decided I will be back again to the Murray, hopefully in a high-water year, to have a crack at the individual full-distance title. I would encourage anyone to do it, the Red Cross do a fantastic job, everything runs like clockwork, and it's a big fundraiser for them. So if you don't like giving blood (like me), why not paddle the Murray in '07?

Geelong City Council - http://www.geelongaustralia.com.au/
Red Cross Murray Marathon - http://www.redcross.org.au/vic/murraymarathon.htm

3 hot weeks of racing

Hi all,

It's been a while between posts as I've been on the road training and racing. I'll do some detailed posts soon, I am waiting for some pictures to come in from a few friends. For now, here's how my summer has been so far:

Pre-Christmas:
Great training day at Brady's Lake on the way up to Devonport for Christmas. Slalom, extreme and wildwater training all in the one day with bright sunshine and pumping water, can't beat that.

Christmas:
Huge day of eating and a little drinking, great day with my family before flying out to Victoria for evening with Heidi's family.

Murray Marathon K1 cup relay 27th-31st Dec:
Great times! Hot days of 1-2 hrs paddling per day for each team member, teamed up with Ben Poole, Luke Haines and Steve Parker to win the event!! Re-united with my wildwater boat from Europe.......aaaahhhh.

Training at Eildon 1st-2nd Jan:
Quite tired from the Murray and the water very low, but got through my sessions to cap off my preparation for wildwater nationals. Took delivery of my new Dagger Nomad 8.5 - swwwwweeeeeeeetttttt!! There's a picture of a sunset over the the slalom course at Eildon above.

Wildwater Nationals 7th-11th Jan:
Had some top times with my travelling companions on the road - Stew Bennett and Chris Blackaby. Had a personal best nationals with results of 4th (sprint 1), 2nd (classic 1), 1st (teams with Dan Hall and Stewart Bennett), 2nd (classic 2) and 2nd (sprint 2). My percentages off the winner Dan (who won all the races) in classic were the smallest they have ever been, so I feel I'm heading in the right direction.

Fitness testing at Tas. Institute of Sport 12th Jan:
Improvement in my wattage in maximal 4min effort by over 12%!!

TEVA Cataract Extreme racing 13th-14th Jan:
Good competition this year with 2 x New Zealand paddlers coming over (including slalom ex-Olympian Donald Johnstone - DJ - who raced Cataract in 1992 at a World Cup slalom event held there) and a contingent of mainland paddlers including 2 x current Australian slalom team members Lachie Milne and Rob Parker, also Ben Patrick who is no slouch at slalom either! I teamed up with Tanya Faux to come third in the longer Saturday race, was great to paddle with you Tanya! Had a great run through the head-to-head heats on Sunday to arrive at the final unbeaten, but a mistake half-way down the course as I tried to play catch-up saw me finish 2nd to Dan again! Hats off to him.

My brother Andrew did really well too, 2nd place Saturday teamed with Stew, and 4th place Sunday! 3rd place on Sunday was New Zealand's Donald Johnstone - see you in New Zealand soon DJ!

Now back at work for a few weeks until I fly over to New Zealand for the TEVA Wairoa Extreme Race on Feb 10th-11th. Dagger have very kindly offered me some much-needed cash to contribute to my airfare for this trip, so thanks a heap Dagger and I will paddle my arms off for you at the race!

The 2nd picture above is from the TEVA Cataract Extreme head-to-head day on Sunday. Look at that beautiful boat!!

More soon,

Ben.