The joy and magic of events!

After a fairly sizeable break over summer, we had our first Total Sport event on Saturday, the Cargo Plus Coastal Challenge. Oh boy, do I love this event! I love it for many, many reasons; it's the original TS event (it pretty well launched this business), it's totally unique, and quite amazing that in this huge, bustling city of ours we can still find 30km+ of top-notch off-road goodness. It also supports the North Shore Hospice, an incredible organisation full of amazing, empathetic people - these people cared for my Mum at the end of her innings, and I will never forget how they looked after her, and treated her right up until Mum's last breath was taken.

I digress, please meet Pete and Meisha. Pete is a good bugger, and has done hundreds of these sorts of events over the years, he loves this stuff. Meisha is Pete's 21-year old daughter. Meisha had never ever done an event of this nature, until Saturday that is, when she took on and conquered the 17km option at the Cargo Plus Coastal Challenge.

I was stationed in the Speight's tent, doing my best to help re-hydrate hundreds of thirsty people as they crossed the finish line (thanks Speight's!). This is a great place to get the real intel after an event, you get it all - it's a cocktail of pain, joy and accomplishment as the people realise they've achieved something pretty bloody awesome.

And then in walked Pete and Meisha, and BANG, I saw that AMAZING smile on Meisha's face, and in an instant I was reminded (again) what this Total Sport thing is all about... it's a lot of things to a lot of people nowadays, however, when you get to see the smile of pure, unadulterated joy from a first-timer (we fondly call them 'newbies'), we realise we're hugely blessed to be able to call this a job.

Long may that continue... congrats to all of you that choose to get off your bums and get outdoors to move. But mostly, today it's a huge congrats to you Meisha, welcome to your new world...!