Ok, I admit it, a year ago I had never heard of XRACE and when I first heard the term I envisaged finely tuned lycra clad athletes dashing forth trying to take a couple of seconds off their PB. How wrong was I? In reality it was about as far from that image that you could get. Instead you have a parent and child teaming up to face the various challenges in front of them and where the victory is having a great bonding experience and finishing first in your group is really just a bonus. Don’t get me wrong, everyone was out there to compete and win as it definitely a race, but the memories that linger are ones of overcoming the challenges as a team - the parent seeing their kid shine and achieve things that they did not know they could do, and the kids seeing their parent believing in them to do these things. Magic moments indeed.

Being a new sponsorship for New ZealandHome Loans I had the good fortune of spending all of the weekends of February and March attending and often participating in XRACE events around New Zealand. I had the pleasure of teaming up with my ten year old son Tate in 8 of the 16 events and he also raced with his mum, Lisa, in the Cambridge event and poppa, Lance, in the Hawera race. My elder son, Cooper, who is 14, was unfortunately too old to compete in XRACE but he got taken on board as an XRACE volunteer at a number of the events to help with the setting up and running of them.

Each XRACE race had its own character and dynamics with that largely being determined by the location and  those that participated in them. The venue highlights of the season for me were:

Hawera – seeing my 70 year old father compete with his 10 year old grandson and them giving it their all despite getting hung up on the first challenge of trying to solve the word puzzle.

Rotorua – being a big fan of the Redwoods mountain bike tracks it was great to be at this venue and winding through the tracks a big part of the challenge.

Auckland – seeing 1800 racers streaming their way across the Totara Park countryside and wading down through the creeks was quite a spectacle. Even more impressive was that they all finished with a huge smile on their faces.

Cambridge – my home town turned out to be a real success with over 400 people turning up to race in the great amphitheatre that is Lake Te Ko Utu. On a per capita basis this was a huge turnout for the town and would equate to Auckland having 32,000 racers turn up for the Auckland event! Having my wife Lisa race with my son in the final event was really special especially as they were competing against my brother and his son and managed to beat them home.

Of the some 8,000+ racers that I got to see do the race it was great to see them all compete in really good spirit and despite being in a race they all knew that it was their time together facing and conquering the challenges that were put in front of them that really made the experience. For Tate and I the unofficial winning of the Rotorua event was the most satisfying as we knew that we had competed on an equal basis with everyone else and come through ahead. We knew that as sponsors that officially we would not get recognised for that achievement but we knew and that it what counted and also the fact that we had a really great time doing it. Well look forward to next years XRACE series.

The information contained in this article is of a general nature and should not be taken as advice. It reflects the opinions of the writer only and does not necessarily reflect the opinions of New Zealand Home Loans.