Yesterday was the South Island XC Champs out at QEII.  There was a good turnout from Nelson, but that was about it really.  It’s always the same – a bit hollow when you think it’s never held anywhere else in the South Island, so it really is just a race for Cantabrians, and anyone else that can be blowed travelling from out of town.

It was an okay day of racing for the fandamily.  Well, Ella had a bad race because she has come down with yet another heavy cold.  She was 3rd last time, yesterday she was 5th.  She also had a wicked bout of pre-race nerves – hmmm, she never gets nervous.  We put it down to her bad race at Central Zones, and the fact she hasn’t been well enough to race since.  Louis had a great race… for someone who doesn’t train!  He would have been on the podium if a couple of Nelson lads hadn’t come in before him, so hopefully he’ll make the podium at the Canterbury Champs in a fortnight (bah… those out-of-towners!).

Graham and his relationship with his new Garmin/HRM seems to be blossoming.   He has worn it in every race since his birthday, just to give him an accurate indication of the race distance, and also to see what his HR actually does when under pressure!  For someone who hasn’t trained or raced with an HRM before, he’s found it pretty interesting.

The course for the big boys was 4.5 laps, or 9km in total.  In actual fact, according to Mr Garmin, it was 8.37km.  He was pretty pleased with his race – each lap only varied by around 1-2 seconds, so his laps were really consistent over the whole course.  But his HR got up to 199 – he puts that down to ectopic heart beats, which he has tended to get since his AF procedure.  It’s that sort of thing which scares him off using an HRM! 

Between Graham and Iain (Mr Zarnia), it was a really exciting race and came down to the wire, Iain crossing the line ahead by just three seconds.  Another guy that Graham used to key off over the past couple of years seems to have disappeared off this year’s XC scene, so hopefully Iain and Graham can use the remaining races to pace off each other which can only be good for speed development!  Graham was pretty pleased to average 3.40 minute kilometres for a XC race – hopefully Iain is pleased with that too!

Graham bridging some of the gap in the last lap…

…but he just couldn’t quite get there!

 Finishing straight

 Other than that, it was a great opportunity to try out the continuous “Sport Burst” on the new camera – really effective for steeple action!