STOKE

What a weekend I have had.

As you may be aware – I have been doing a few Ocean swims over the last few months and the big goal for the summer was to compete in the Sovereign New Zealand Ocean Swim Series (the local event here in Christchurch) as Corsair Bay. As this is my first foray into ocean swimming and as you can see from the picture – I ended up with a Gold Medal – Talk about STOKE!!!!!!!

I finished 4th overall in the 750m swim, out of 148 finishers and the gold medal is for first in my age group (40-49yrs) – the guy that won the race was in the 20-29 age group and the 2nd and 3rd place finishers were both under the age of 15. I am very excited and pleased with my race, my preparation and the day in general. If you’re interested, my time for the 750m swim was 10min 18sec – not a bad result for an “old dog”


I was all set to go for a surf on Sunday morning but the beaches were closed due the threat of a Tsunami as a result of the earthquake in Chile – the local Civil Defence did a great job with the warnings as did the media – in the end the threat was averted BUT you could certainly see the “surges” etc. Not 24 hours earlier, we were taking part in the ocean swim – what do they say about timing huh?

Today is the first day of autumn so goodbye summer, thanks for making a small appearance. Only one more triathlon event for me next weekend and I have to honestly say that I have had a ball doing these and the results I have had thus far just gives me huge motivation to work hard over the winter.

Roll on summer of 2010/2011

Stoke

Stoke

Firstly I have to say that I have been neglecting this blog for a few weeks and I apologise for that – no excuses, just busy and slack at the same time. Also, this is supposed to be a surf blog but life always seems to get in the way of surf and that pains me to say that!!!


A good friend of mine once said to me (when I first moved to Christchurch a number of years ago) – to be a surfer in Christchurch sucks, especially in Summer. I have to agree with that statement from my mate “old dog”

Stoke comes in many forms and differs for everyone and over the last few weeks I have been getting stoke from lots of different places. My surf stoke has come from reading SurfSis, Whiff, Christian @ BCB and of course Tall Man Surfing – these are fantastic blogs and I love reading them – They are who started me doing this blog and I thank them all.

Sis has been talking about and building a skate ramp and it’s been awesome following along with her progress. Tall Man has been training for the Disney marathon, and completed it, well done mate, big “ups” for that. I read a couple of days ago about his new girlfriend and her first time surfing and the pure “stoke” that she received and I think that she has “caught the bug” – we have all been there and know the feeling well.
This had lead me to stop and think about my first surfing experience many years ago. We were on a school day trip and I was a 3rd former (first year high school) and the older kids had surfboards (the PE teacher surfed so threw a bunch of boards in the bus and had a say where this day trip was going) After the older kids were tired out and resting, I asked one of them if I could try and they said yes – I paddled out and therein started a lifelong passion that will stay with me until the day I depart this earth. That memory gave me “STOKE”

I mentioned above that I’ve been busy over the last few weeks – I’ll give you a super quick rundown that can be elaborated on at a later date.

- Went to Sydney for the ICCA (International Cruise Council of Australasia) awards dinner – our office didn’t win any awards but it was awesome to be involved (small stoke)

- Went to a friend’s wedding in Central Otago (wine country), she looked so happy which made my wife and I remember our wedding – it was an awesome few days and we will keep fond memories (big stoke)



- I have been doing an ocean swim series of races, which I am really enjoying. It also helps the enjoyment to win my age group (40-49 years) but I look at this as an incredible bonus as the main focus on this is to enjoy it, participate and as training for a race at the end of this month – the Sovereign New Zealand Ocean Swim Series and Corsair Bay. This is my first entry into this event so I am going in with the goal of finishing in the top 10 of my age group and maybe I can do better – who knows but I’ll keep you posted. Ocean swimming (HUGE STOKE)


My wife said to me the other day that she was very proud of what I have achieved over the last few months – this is the biggest stoke so far.


I have completed a number of small triathlons and also short ocean swims (500m, 600m, 700m and 1000m races), the wife has been my biggest supporter in everything I do and this has been no different – for that I thank her and again say – she is simply the best !!!!!!