Woods Family New Zealand Adventure: Woods Kids off to the Races

We've had a couple of 'routine weeks' back in Auckland. The kids have school, dance practice, 'football' practices and games. Erin has already put in many kilometers on her road bike and is enjoying (and challenged) by her early morning all men ride group. She is working towards a road race in February. Rob is training with the North Harbour Triathlon Club with the hopes of completing his first triathlon in March. The Club has started swim bike run sessions on Saturday mornings, starting with ocean swimming. This is Rob's first real ocean swimming experience. He has seen (and been stung by) several jellyfish and saw a stingray! Shockingly it is his nose that seems to get stung the most...who would have thought.

It is springtime here now, and the 'race season' has begun. Every night there is some running series that you can participate in. The one that is easiest for us is Beach Series because it runs out of Takapuna Beach just down the street from the apartment. There are running, ocean swimming and stand-up paddleboard races of varying distances. Week one was Tuesday last week. Jonah did the 2.5km beach run and got 3rd place out of 91 participants!

Rob had quite the adventure on the coastal run. It was made very clear that the course could involve getting wet depending on the tide. Well we were only a couple hours off of high tide and Rob got soaked! For portions of the run he had to swim in neck deep water! Maybe that was why there were only 24 people competing. It was a true kiwi experience.

Over the weekend, the kids participated in a Kids Duathlon at Bayswater School. It was a slick event with 'heaps' (the kiwi word for 'loads' or 'lots') of kids participating. What a great event for a school fundraiser. The format was run, bike, run. The kids did great! Once again, Naysa was the fastest girl in a running race. Those long legs are fast.