Scott's space

Nationals is over for another year. There was as always some hard racing. Personally I came away with 3 golds, a silver and a handful of bronze medals. It could of been worse.

 

The main thing I learned from nationals was that my shape is good, and everything looks positive for the 2007 season.

 

Check out www.world-inline-cup.com because the 2007 season will be posted soon, in the meantime the Swiss Inline cup season is up at www.swiss-inline-cup.ch

 

Back into training now. Building base miles. In a couple of week I have the NZ marathon champs in Palmerston North, and then a couple of weeks after that I have the NZ track nationals. So there is abit of racing to keep the boys busy.

 

Also to keep everyone on their toes we have been doing a few small bike races here and there. I found this picture of Raphael from last Thursday's race.

Its been a busy month here in NZ. Training is getting better and better with the team, and we've been getting some good work done, and alot on the bikes. In the last week or so it has finally started to look like summer so lets hope we get abit more of that for this weekend and maybe abit longer afterwards.

 

We took a couple of days off just after Christmas to go to the beach. It was good to take some time out because we had been training pretty hard. The swiss guys, Raphael and Roman tried their hand at some watersports including surfing but decided they would stick to skating.

 

NZ holds its National Championships this weekend. Alot of people think its abit strange, its still 8 or 9 months till the Worlds, but it is the NZ summer after all. Nationals are being held in Waganui. They have been there many times in the past, 2002 being the last. There is 3 days of raod and then 3 or 4 days of indoor.

 

For me its not the biggest race, but its still a race and its good to break up the training. It is also the first part of the selection of the NZ National team, its not essential to win here, just essential to be fit.

 

My preperations for 2007 are going ok. Although I was out cycling 10 days ago and was hit by a car. Nothing too major was wrong, however somethings still don't feel 100% so if things still hurt at all Nationals will be short for me, there are others things to worry about and its not much point making an injury worse this time of the year.

 

Good news, Kalon Dobbin made it through to the final few in the Helburg Sporting awards. This a big deal to finally be recognised. The Helburgs are essentially the NZ sports awards. Myself, Kalon, and Shane were also nominated for team of the year for our results at the Worlds, but unfortunately we were eliminated.

 

I'll post news and maybe some pictures from the nationals here when I get home.

Hi everyone,

 

Its been a case of getting back to work the last couple of weeks. Its often hard to find the motivation to train again after a break, but my training has been coming along well. I've been building up and doing some good bike rides, and even a couple of bike races. Its not the tour de france, but they are still more than hard enough.

 

My new team mate Reyon Kay has been in Auckland the past couple of weeks, and 2 of my Swiss team mates, Raphael Pfulg and Roman Christen. They are still pretty tired from the travel but they are getting into things. Its Roman's first time out of Europe so its a big learning curve for him, but I'm sure that with all of us training full time we'll be ready for 2007.

 

Have a look at www.swiss-inline-cup.ch there is a calender of the 2007 season. There still isn't any word on how the World Cup is looking but there are rumours of more races outside of Europe.

 

 

Its been a big week for Speed skating in NZ. I won the Auckland Sportsman of the year, Kalon Dobbin won the Manawatu Sportsman of the year, and Peter Michael won the Manawatu Junior Sportsman of the year.

 

Also too I tried ice for the first time. Just short track, and our skates were average at best, but it was better than nothing. I still don't know if its for me, maybe next year when I'm in Europe I'll look more seriously at it, but for now I'm stay on my inlines.

 

Training is coming along good. Not long till my Athleticum team mates get here, and then we'll really get into the hard work.

 

Until next time

 

Scott

About now is when all the professional teams start to cement their line ups for the following year. I am staying on Athleticum-Rollerblade. Two of my team mates from this year are coming out to New Zealand to train in December. Raphael and Roman. They will race the NZ nationals, and train in Auckland until we head off to the first World Cup race in April next year.

 

Also too, its likely the team will sign another New Zealander, Reyon Kay from Kapati. He will also be coming up to Auckland for some training in Decmeber.

 

Scott