Well I have now arrived in Canada and sitting at Vancouver Airport on the way to Edmonton. More about that later but right now it is time to catch up.

Having achieved goal one it was now goal two. I had identified that you could not get NZ Colours for representing NZ Masters in swimming. I found the alternative to be an event called Aquathlon, which is a 1km swim and 5Km run. The trials for the worlds were in Tauranga in November 2013.

I had been doing some run training but nothing faster than a jog so I would have to ensure my skates were on the do well in the Trials. I set off to Tauranga with a lot of pressure which I had put on my own performance. I did a great swim and managed to maintain a steady pace in the run. I was not very confident at the end as I saw some bald grey guys just like me finish in front of me. Then the results were announced. They called out third place and it was not me, damn so it was either second or forth. They then called second, my heart sank, it was not me so was hardly listening when they called out my name for first place. WoooHoo, I was astounded, I had just won my age group for the NZ Champ and world trials.

The wait was now on for selection in the NZ team. It happened when I was driving to Taupo for a weekend, I stopped in Huntley to buy the obligatory party mix lollies for road trips. I checked my emails and there it was, selected for the NZ team.

I was called by the selector the following week to discuss this with me. She said it was unusual for somebody to only do the Aquathlon at worlds and with my times why did I not do the trials for the Triathlon team. I explained that I did not have a bike and the last time I rode one was in about 1986. So it came to be that on 23 December 2013 I went on to Trademe and bought a time trial bike. It is a really cool Cannondale Aero slice. I started training immediately as the trials were to be held at Kinloch, Taupo in February.

Well the day came and I was as nervous as hell. I went to look at the transition to rack my bike and there were so many things I had not done. I went to register and did not have my bike, wetsuit or helmet so had to go back to collect them. Then I did not have my pump or any transition equipment so had to go back again. I eventually got my numbers and took my bike into transition. I saw that all the others had their numbers on a fancy tri-belt, (the number must be on the back for the bike and front for the run). They had also connected their bike shoes to the bike with elastic bands so they stayed straight during the transition run. The athletes also had elastic laces in their shoes so they did not have to tie lases. Well I did not have elastics so gave up on that but pulled some laces out of some shoes to fashion a tri-belt.

The morning came for the trials and I did a great swim coming out of the water in the front bunch, my changeover was a disaster, I ran with the bike and the shoes were bouncing around in the cleats and came out. When I climbed on I pushed my feet into the shoes and realised the tongue of the shoe was now pushed backwards in front of my toes and very uncomfortable. It was very painful every time I peddled.  To add to this, as I started descending one of the hills, my home made tri-belt was not holding the number and it was flapping in the wind. It then ripped through the attachment holes and went flying across a field next to the road. Well I had at least read the rules and it stated clearly that if you crossed the centreline of the road on the bike it was disqualification so I rode on about 100m down the road to find a marshal. I stopped and asked permission to go back and get my number. They said yes so I rode back, got off the bike and ran across the field to get my number. Why I did not think to adjust the tongues of the shoes at this time I don’t know. Well I rode on with my number down my tri-suit. While descending a steep hill at great speed the suit zip came undone and the number flew out. I decided to leave it.

At the run transition I stopped to tell the official that I had lost my number and asked permission to continue. They said yes so I started the run. At the end on the race, once the results were out, they called me to say they had no record of me passing the halfway mark as my number was not recorded. As a result of this I was disqualified. Well that was my selection, well so I thought.

I was called later in the week to say the selectors had reviewed my times and gave me the opportunity to do the Auckland race in April to qualify. This gave me more time to train so I agreed.

The Akl race was, as expected, a hard race but I made the time and qualified. It was now up to the selectors. I received an email a week later to say I was part of the team. Hooray!!

Now for the Road to Edmonton.

I was still training 4 times a week so needed to fit in cycling and running. I bought an old wind trainer and bought a program for my laptop to train three mornings a week in my room on the bike as it was dark and winter outside. I would then do a long cycle on Saturday mornings with Mike, Jeannie and Barry. My runs were in the evenings with a long run on a Sunday evening. This was my entire week for the whole of winter.

The training on cold dark mornings and running on windy raining evenings took an enormous amount of will power but I kept it up. The only breaks were for a dose of flu for two weeks and 2 weeks after a car accident.

Well the payments were made for the flights, the bags were packed and on 24 August Dave dropped me at Akl International for the flight to Canada.