Amateur Multidisciplinary Athletes…

The eighth annual XTERRA New Zealand Championship in Rotorua took place on Saturday 10 April, with two Andrew.Stewart staff members amongst those setting off into the Blue Lake in near perfect conditions.

After training for only 3 months for the event, Cushla Salt and Janelle Smith launched themselves into the 1km swim in the Blue Lake which for about 20 minutes turned into a blender of arms and legs. Janelle had a great swim and ran out of the water slightly ahead of Cushla who unfortunately received a blow to the face during the swim, but still managed to come out of the swim in a comfortable time.  Five minutes into the bike leg Cushla overtook Janelle and made good time, finishing the 29km mountain bike ride in 2 hours 20 minutes. Both Cushla and Janelle found the final leg – an 11km run twice around Blue Lake, difficult but finished the triathlon in 4 hours 9 minutes and 4 hours 20 minutes respectively. Considering this was their first off-road Triathlon and a large amount of the field regularly compete in triathlons and half ironman events the girls did amazingly well after such a small time in training. Both girls have already started training  for next year’s event and plan to better their times by at least 30 minutes. Big thanks to Andrew.Stewart for their support!