Mother of three Rachel Hamill and husband Rob will pose a formidable combination when they team with Wanganui's Aaron Cox for this weekend's Mountains to Sea multisport event. Photo/Supplied
Mother of three Rachel Hamill and husband Rob will pose a formidable combination when they team with Wanganui's Aaron Cox for this weekend's Mountains to Sea multisport event. Photo/Supplied
Former top Kiwi international athletes Rob and Rachel Hamill have been lured to the returning Mountains to Sea multisport event this weekend to help form a Dream Team.
The Mountains to Sea event ran from 1987 to 1997 before going into limbo returns to the national multisport calender when afield of up to 80 competitors line up tomorrow to tackle the three-day event that tracks from Ruapehu to Wanganui.
The husband and wife Hamill have joined forces with Wanganui athlete Aaron Cox to form what organisers describe as the Dream Team.
Marathon rowing champion Rob Hamill will be taking on the mountain bike leg on day one. Hamill has been a New Zealand International rowing representative for 16 years and his numerous rowing achievements include World Championship silver, Commonwealth gold and a world record on the indoor rowing machine.
Hamill represented New Zealand at the Atlanta Olympics and published The Naked Rower on how he and Phil Stubbs captured headlines around the world winning the first Atlantic Rowing Race in 41 days.
Hamill's wife Rachel is no slouch either. She is geared up for the Road Cycle on day three. The Waikato mother of three recently took out the women's 40-44 years age-group triathlon event at the world championships in Auckland, as well as winning the aquathlon race five days earlier. Remarkably she is doing times as good as she was producing in her 20s which got her to two previous world champs.
She has also won five national age-group titles in Masters swimming events.
She takes on the tough sessions, which include plenty of work on the hills which surround their Te Pahu home. She is an inspiration to anyone who thinks they're too old or too busy to compete at that level.
She trains twice a day for between two to three hours, and gets one day off a month. In between that she home-schools children Declan, 8, and Ivan, 5, while 10-year-old Finn goes to school, and husband Rob is overseas for a fair chunk of time. "Sometimes it's a little bit difficult," she said.
"The kids do after-school activities, like swimming, dancing and touch rugby, and it's just me trying to get them there and get them fed and trying to fit in a training session."
Former national kayak representative Aaron Cox rounds out the team and is taking on both run legs and the epic 90km kayak leg on day two. Cox has numerous titles to his name and recently took the men's individual title in the Wanganui Gutbuster.
He's also a keen supporter of the next generation of gunny paddlers and coaches local athletes at the Wanganui Multisport and Triathlon Club to the high level demanded by the regattas run by Canoe Racing New Zealand.
