Dunedin City Mazda 12 hour Adventure Challenge!

What a great day out - Saturday 3rd November. A super event put on by Josh Harris and his team of helpers. More of a blurb/report and some photos here very soon...

Challenge Wanaka - 87 Days to Go!!!

Well with Challenge Wanaka getting closer at around 87 days to go, I am starting to get some feelings of excitement along with a few nerves as well, the thought of the 3.8km swim, 180km cycle and 42,2km run is definitely going to put on a challenge!

 I have a good base of fitness and experience from many endurance, multisport, triathlon and adventure based races over the years so this puts me in a good position knowing how my body responds and copes with challenges like the full course Challenge Wanaka. I have sorted myself out a good schedule of training to build up and be ready to go for the Challenge on January 19^th – The toughest challenges so far of lately have been getting out of bad super early to transform my swimming style from sluggish to slick, I work as a teacher and have a couple of students in my class who are up and at the pool at 5am 6 days a week – I am not sure how they manage this so well – I find it tough 3-4 mornings a week ( A young family of a 3 year old and a 9 month old sons may affect this sleep monster and have some impacts on training, but of anything make me tougher!) 

Anyway things are going good so far in training and prep for Challenge Wanaka. I raced in a local running event the other weekend “Kellys Canter” a blast to the monument at the top of a hill and return – more of a lug and leg burner but a good we blast – retaining my trophy of 1^st  in the ‘Local category’ for the 3^rd year and 6^th overall. A few weeks earlier in September I ran in the Dunedin Marathon clocking in at just over 3 and a half hours so my running is feeling good. All this mixed  into some good training over the recent weeks including some good cycling should see me on track fine, one focus over the next 2 months is to get really strong on the bike!

Coming up on the 3^rd of November I will race in the Dunedin City Mazda 12 Hour Adventure Challenge ( www.adventurechallenge.co.nz ), this will be a good day out with 12 hours of MTBing, running and Kayaking to give the body a good blast of racing over a similar timeframe to what I expect to be on my feet for in the Challenge Wanaka Race.

Anyway once again many thanks must go to lake Wanaka Tourism

 www.lakewanaka.co.nz for the entry into the Challenge Wanaka for 2013! More updates again soon!

Andrew

Kelly's Canter October 14 2012

This annual event is one I have competed in ever since my youngster days, attracting a field of around 40-50 runners it is about a 4km blast to the top of the monument hill in Palmerston and back – a real lung and leg burner. I was there to defend my 1^st Placed Local trophy for the 3^rd year running and managed to come away with the title and trophy again this year along with finishing 6th overall, I got to the top and back in 25min 9 seconds which was 2 and a half minutes down on the winner – The winner is my team mate for the upcoming Dunedin Mazda 12 hour Challenge so we should have a good solid combo for this.

Dunedin Marathon -September 2012

It is amazing how quickly you forget the struggle of the last few kms of a marathon, I guess this is why you keep coming back to them to try and chip a little more off a previous time or just see if you can 'pace' yourself better and feel better... anyway the 2012 Dunedin marathon was held on a perfectly clear blue sky Dunedin morning with a light breeze to keep you at a good temperature. As per usual the marathon in my mind is the 32km warm up for the 10km run at the end to give all that you have left. This was to be a good test on my body being a good distance and time duration to see that the kidney repair I had in March was 100% successful when the boyd was under a good level of stress (all the CT scans etc had shown this was all good, but your own physical thrashing is always a good measure too!) I ran the first 21km at a pace slightly quicker than i should have, running around 4.30 per km, this was evened out and brought my time down a little in the 2nd half as once i got to the 35km mark my km pace was cut down to size considerably. My target time of 3hrs30min was a good achievable time to target without completely destroying myself and i ended up just off this coming in with 3hrs40min. A good pleasing time and result, the night before the Marathon both Cherie (who ran her first half marathon in this event also) and I were running on about 4 hours sleep due to our two little ones having unsettled sleeps as they both had colds, so it was a pretty quiet time on our house after this run this year! Anyway wiht my sights set on completing the Challenge Wanaka full iron disatance race in January  the marathon was a good early checkpoint of my running and everything is sitting good, so over the next few months it will be a good time to maintain the running and build up some good time on the bike as well as getting out and about enjoying some fun missions on the MTB. The next couple of events are a few small running races before Josh Harris' chapter 2 of the Dunedin Mazda 12 hour Adventure Challenge, which if it is anything like his first 4 hour race he put together it will be great!

Dunedin City Mazda Adventure Challenge July 2012

Naseby 12hr MTB 14th April 2012 from the side line..

Naseby is a fantastic little village in this great place we live in! Naseby has a huge selection for some fantastic MTB trails, Weather and just general atmosphere... The Naseby 12 hour MTB Challenge is a massive event attracting all sorts of riders from about the place. I am still in recovery mode from my recent surgery but did manage a good day out on the side of the trails with my Camera (another interest and passion is a bit of photography). I spent several hours around a few different locations of the trails snapping shots of riders. A good fix on biking while in recovery mode, not long now until I will be back on the bike and enjoying this stuff again. Check out some of the images I have snapped in the slide show below from my other webpage. www.sloanshots.blogspot.co.nz

Kidney Salvage (23rd March 2012) and Recovery.....

Well after completing the Rail Trail Duathlon and then the Motatapu Xerra Tri in late Feb & early March I was scheduled to have some pretty major surgery to repair my left kidney that was not doing what it should have been. Lots of ongoing side and flank pain over the last 6months, the pains aggravated with longer sessions of running and biking and drinking lots of fluids.. several scans and a visit to a urologist confirmed tha tthere was some sort of obstruction in the drainage of my left kidney and possibly a renal artery needing to be moved.... so putting full trust in my Surgeon up at mercy Hospital he got in and carried out a 3 hour operation titled as a 'renal pyleoplasty'. After 3 hours of open surgery he had successfully moved and re attached one of the arteries and removed and rebuilt part of the renal pelvis drainage system. So 5 days in hospital with all sorts of hoses and monitors along with a 20cm wound on my tummy side from where the surgeon went in. So a good month of rest has now passed and things are slowly healng as they should, the removal of a stent in another couple of weeks and a scan and I should be good to start resuming some exercise and build back inot things from there with no more niggles form the left kidney!

The very tender wound healing up as it should.

2012 Motatapu Xterra Off Road Triathlon 10th March 2012

A video slide show of some images from me in the event - one small error the date I have in the first few slides says 2011 it is actually 2012!!

A great race, this was the first time I had competed in this event, it is quite nice going into an event with no ideas of how it will be. The Race Started with a 2km Swim in Glendhu Bay Wanaka, Followed by a 47km MTB Through the Motatapu Valley to Arrowtown and then a 15km Run around the Hills above Arrowtown. I had an OK Swim, struggled a bit towards the end due to minimal swim training recently but still came out ok, great bike ride and then onto the touight and hilly 15km Miners Trail run around the hills above Arrowtown! All up 5hrs35min and finished 23rd Open Man and 36th overall from 108 Starters. Check out www.iconicadventures.co.nz for details of the events they hold.

2012 Rail Trail Duathlon Feb 25-26 2012 - 3rd

L-R 2nd Adam keen, 1st Tim Johnston, 3rd Andrew Sloan

A great two days of Racing over the Central Otago Rail Trail. I had a good two days of racing and enjoyed the bike stages on the new 2012 Giant XTC 0 29er from R&R Sport - A real speed weapon on this terrain. All up a solid two days of racing I placed 3rd in the Open Mens Individual with a total time of 7hrs and 9min.

Running With Tom Denniss - Around the World Mission!

Joining Tom Denniss www.tomsnextstep.com for about 14kms from Waikouaiti to Palmerston of his 29000km run around the world for Oxfama nd a Guiness Record of the fastest circumnavigation of the WORLD on FOOT

December 2011 - Otago XC Naseby

Headed up to Naseby for the Otago XC Champs. A great balst around some of the trails, with about an 8km lap. The course was a typical old school XC track with lots of good technical riding. I completely cooked myself and sufferred from this, but all up a good honest stretch of the legs on some fantastic trails.