Hockey and my Silver Fern

While trying to get in my run training for TUM, I've also been regularly making the two hour drive to Hamilton to train with the Waikato 35s Masters Team for National Tournament.  This group of ladies has some serious talent, and play the best hockey I've ever been part of.  Long story short - we came home with a silver medal, and I got a call up to the NZ 35s team to play against Australia in the Trans Tasman Challenge.

This was all really a bit crazy.  I've not come through representative or age grade hockey - I didn't even get to play on an artificial turf until I was at university - I'm a good player but not a great one.  At the National Tournament, I added my name to the list available for selection for the NZ team, thinking that I should at least get my name out there, and nastily hope that over the next few years lots of better players succumb to age and poor knees.  Considering my advanced age, my body is in pretty good knick, with remarkably few injury issues - I figured that as long as I could hold it together longer than others, eventually I'd have a better chance of making a national team.  Added to this, the Waikato ladies play a lovely structure of hockey and a fast paced passing game and I look good just by association with them. 

Anyway, after deciding that getting a Silver Fern has been my dream since a child and was therefore worth paying for the trip on the mortgage - I headed off to Melbourne.

It was a crazy week for me.  Excited, nervous, emotional.  Living, training, competing = we had some down time but the focus was definitely on producing the hockey required to win.  My fitness was high, and I had worked really hard on my skills in the months prior.  I'm proud to have been in the best hockey form of my life, but these ladies were largely in a different realm of hockey talent to me and I was pushing hard constantly just to feel able to take the field as part of the team. 

Distinct moments

Being presented with our playing shirts by the team captain, an ex-NZ international, and given a rousing speech from the coach about the importance of representing our country.

Taking the field, facing the NZ flag and getting ready to cry for the National Anthem, as a defining moment in my life.  Then the bl****y Aussies played the worst 1970s screechy skipping record rendition of God Defend New Zealand that I have EVER heard.

 Gold.  I can tell you, that being one of the few Kiwis wearing a gold medal at the prizegiving dinner was as close as I've come to feeling famous.  I wasn't one of the starting, or core players, but I ran my arse off and gave it everything when I was on the field.  It was probably only when Tauranga friends playing in other age grade teams came to give their congratulations and comment on the games they'd seen, that I realised the achievement of even being there. 

Anyway - I made it through the week.  Learned a lot - in awe of playing the hockey that I see others are capable of.  Unsure if hockey will take up more of my focus or other racing is my thing..............