Well its nearly time for a South Island showing of the Tryathlon! just a few more days till the Weetbix Try hits Christchurch. Sadly I won't be down there to see if you guys have as good a time as we all did up in St Heliers in Auckland, I have no doubt that you all will though.

Training is hitting the home stretch for me, I am in the last week of my hard training before I start a three week taper and rest for our Commonwealth Games trials in April. Now is a very important time for us to work on the smaller details of our races like the starts and turns. We have done all the hard work getting fit and fast and now its just concentrating on shaving off time on the skill parts of our races. We spend hours now just doing dives, then progressing to dives with a few kicks and then further onto the full first 25 meters of our race, just to make sure that we nail every detail to make sure we are fast as possible.

Well anyone that is going to do the Try down in Christchurch this weekend, all the best and get as many of your mates down there with you because it is a fun event and its always cool to do something like this with a few friends.

Cheers
Corney

Today was AWESOME! I was down at St Heliers watching almost 3000 of you guys do the Tryathlon, and I have to admit I was pretty impressed. Today's event was a lot of fun for everyone, those of you who were competing and us that were there watching and supporting you guys. I couldn't believe how much fun it was and how many of you guys were sprinting at the end of the race to beat Weet-Bix guy to the line. I hope you guys that are going to do it this weekend in Nelson are going to have as good a day as we had up here in Auckland.

As for me and the rest of my team getting ready for the Commonwealth Games trials in April it's just business as usual, we are doing 10 swim sessions a week and averaging about 4-5km each session. We are also in the gym four times a week doing a lot of different stuff to get ourselves stronger for the pool. We are doing less weight training than we have in the past and more skipping and medicine ball workouts to get us leaner so we are as light as possible when we race.

The most important thing for us at the moment is to stay healthy before our trials come up, especially with the weather becoming a bit colder now we have to wear warmer gear after our swims. This is probably a good tip for you guys too, keep warm after your swims and stay healthy so you can get out there on to the Tryathlons and have a good time!

Cheers

Corney

I'm sitting on a plane on my way to Sydney for the New South Wales Champs this weekend and thought I would update you guys and make sure you are all getting yourselves ready for upcoming Weet-Bix Tryathlons. By now you should have all have had a few practise swims in the ocean and hit the streets for a few runs and bike rides to get yourselves fit.

This weekend is pretty similar for me. It's going to be a good practise for me to see how my training has been going and afterwards I will sit down with my coach and we will talk about how I swam the race and what we might need to work on in the next few weeks before our trials for the Commonwealth Games.

The fitness you will get from doing the Weet-bix Trathlons will ensure you run circles around all of your mates in any of the other sports you might play, be it soccer, rugby or netball. And you will be having more fun and will get to make heaps of new friends doing it. I am so excited about these events that I am going to come down and watch a few of them and will bring some of the other members of the NZ Swim team along too!

The past week has been pretty busy trying to get myself organised for the next few weeks as we have a few different competitions we are travelling to. So I have had to get all my gear prepared beforehand so that when the race days comes along I have to worry about anything other than actually getting in and swimming! Next weekend I am travelling to Sydney for the New South Wales Championships. We travel to race in Australia often, so that we can race some of the best people in the Commonwealth to prepare ourselves for the Commonwealth Games at the end of the year. We always have to have a good stretch after long flights or drives to a competition to keep our muscles relaxed and ready to compete. It is also part of every one of our training sessions. We stretch and warm up for 20 minutes before we swim in the mornings and make sure we stretch afterwards too, this is very important for me and YOU to keep injury free and performing at our best. Right, its about time for me to head to the pool.

Hi kids, today is nearly the end of our fourth week of preparation for our Commonwealth Games trials in April. We had a bit of a break over Christmas and so this first few weeks we have just been getting fit again, so in short all we are doing is eating, sleeping and swimming!

With it being summer it is the perfect time for us to get out in the sun, so when we can we do our land workouts in the sun. Its just a pity the pool I train in isn't outdoors too. But for all of you that are getting ready to compete in the Weet-bix Tryathlon's you should take the opportunity on nice days like today to get out to the beach and get a few practise swims in so your are fit and confident by the time you get to the starting line of the first Tryathlon.

One of the most important things for me outside of training has been making sure I get enough rest and enough food, each morning I seem to have to add one more "Weet-Bix " to my breakfast bowl! I know you guys will be training as hard as me so I cant wait to see you at the start line!