A first-year Bachelor of Recreation and Sport student supported by a Sport Hawke’s Bay and EIT sports scholarship, waka ama
sportsman Truman Stuart gained EIT’s Certificate in Health and Fitness as a Hawke’s Bay Schools Trades Academy student.

I was excited coming into the second semester as the four new papers I am currently doing are areas I enjoy participating in and getting involved with. Balancing study with sport hasn’t really been an issue up to now where I am able to find a good flow of juggling the two placing priority where it is needed. Not much has happened so far in terms of studying and assessments which has allowed for more focus towards my trainings and getting prepared for upcoming races. I spend around 30 hours a week in class, studying and working on assessments but longer down the track, that number will definitely increase towards the end of year.

During this week I will be competing in a long distance race held in Rotorua with my team. The race is 20km long and will give my team an indication of where we are at in terms of how fast we are and possible errors that we need to work on to prepares us for more important upcoming races.

My trainings intensity has increased a lot since we have long distance nationals in less than two months and is a big event for my team. The distance for this race is 30km, which requires tremendous amounts of concentration on every aspect of you paddling so that you are able to preserve yourself throughout the whole race efficiently.

We train 3 times as a group, and on top of that I would do around 3 hours’ within the gym and possibly 1 -2 runs a week. Trainings consist of around 1 hour and a half then 30 – 45 minutes of land training each session. One of the three trainings usually is based on technique and timing of the whole team and some trainings will be based on getting distance under your belt followed by and intense a land workout focussed more on body weight exercises.

I am looking forward to the challenge of getting good academic results as well as meeting my sports goals this semester.