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.