Talking to Rotorua's Sam Osborne ahead of the Xterra New Zealand Championships, it does not take long to realise how excited he is to be racing at home.
The long course race, which Osborne won last year, is the main event at tomorrow's Xterra Rotorua Festival and marks the start of his journey to defend his Xterra Asia-Pacific crown.
"I'm very eager [to defend the Xterra New Zealand title]. It's something I've thought about a lot. It's not often you get to race at home, you spend all this time overseas, travelling the world and racing in countries that don't even speak English. To have a race where you actually live makes it pretty special and you obviously want to put on a good show for everybody as well.
"I'm feeling pretty good, I've had a good uninterrupted build-up for a lot of weeks. I've stayed healthy and injury free which is always a good thing.
"If you can get a big block of training in now it's essentially what you end up racing a lot of the year off because once you're in a big racing block there's not a lot of time for training," Osborne said.
