Mountain bike ace gears up for Xterra

It was the briefest of flirtations, a king of ``wham, bam, thank-you ma'am'' liaison more than a decade ago that was over almost as soon as it started.
Next week Mount Maunganui mountainbiking supremo Jon Hume will be reunited with the love he left behind 10 years ago in Colorado _ although this time fiancee Carla Forster is along for the ride.
Hume is heading to the World Xterra Championships in Hawaii, earning an invitation to one of the world's toughest multi-sport races after finishing second to Olympic triathlon gold medalist Hamish Carter at the national championships in Rotorua in April.
Xterra is offroad triathlon. The ninth annual world championships - a 1.5km rough-water swim, 30km mountainbike ride and 11km trail run - will attract athletes from 25 countries chasing $190,000 in prize money.
Xterra is the fastest-growing multi-sport event in the world, a fusion of triathlon and mountainbiking that had its official beginnings in 1996 in an event known as Aquaterra.
Hume, eight-time former national mountainbiking champion, knows the concept well. He could be described as one of Xterra's pioneers, having blazed a fairly nondescript trail competing in one of the first Xterra races in Colorado in 1994.
"Not many people know but I had a little dabble with Xterra way back when I was racing on the United States (crosscountry) circuit 10 years ago.
"It was pretty much the same format as it is now, but obviously it was all really new and there was a lot of intrigue among multi-sporters who'd never heard of this crazy new race before.
"I raced because I was keen to give anything a go. It was all very spur of the moment - I think I borrowed a wetsuit off someone that was too tight around the neck, nearly choked to death in the swim and that was about it."
Hume and Forster will leave tomorrow, flying to Kona to watch Cameron Brown race in the world Ironman championships before island-hopping to Maui.
Hume, 36, helped design the Xterra mountainbike course around Rotorua's Blue Lake and planned to enter the inaugural race 18 months ago before being struck down with campylobacter.
He made up for lost time in April when he finished second to Carter, giving up almost three minutes out of the water, grabbing two minutes back on the mountainbike but eventually bowing to the Olympic champion's supreme running ability.
As well as finishing second, Hume was a clear-out winner of the 35-39 years age group at Xterra. He has surrendered possible age-group glory in Maui for a hoped-for top 15 finish in the pro-elite field.
"(Xterra organiser Frank Clarke) phoned me and pretty much told me I wasn't racing age group, but it's pretty bloody scary lining up against guys who've been racing Xterra professionally all season, knowing I haven't really done the quality training or had the race pressure on me."
Hume and Forster have two children, four-year-old Felix and 17-month-old Giverny, and Hume's priorities have undergone a healthy overhaul since his days of riding professionally.
"It's a selfish mentality being an athlete. Although I've still got a passion for competing and keeping fit and active, I feel guilty now if I'm not being enough of a parent to my kids."
Hume is not fully prepared for the extremes of Maui, trying to juggle the demands of running his electrical business with a training workload he bluntly describes as "not enough".
He has been in the pool three mornings a week working on stroke changes with coach Rob de Villiers and has been pushing the pedals with local multi-sport gurus Hamish Lane and Dwarne Farley.
Although the quantity might be lacking, Hume got the quality boost he craved a month ago when he, Forster and the kids packed their bags for two weeks in Perth, where he hooked up with best mate Matt Brick, an orthopaedics specialist and former world duathlon champion who moved from Tauranga 18 months ago.
The Xterra Maui course is notorious for its unforgiving terrain and stifling heat, with part of the bike ride held on the slopes of the dormant Haleakala volcano.
There is no pre-riding of the course so, other than what he can glean off the internet and by watching old race tapes, Hume will be going in cold.
"So much of it is unknown and I'm wary of the heat on the run after buckling while doing the Ironman (in Taupo last year). I'm just itching to get going."