Alex is the one team member that Lisa knows the best; from years of orienteering. Alex (21) is a 4th year electrical engineering student at Wits: "I picked the right degree somehow and I'm really enjoying it," he says of his studies.
Although Alex enjoys biking (road and mtb) and running, his favourite discipline is orienteering. "I have been orienteering since I can remember. I started cycling at about 15 and I've done every 94.7 Cycle Challenge since." It is in orienteering that Alex has really excelled, winning the SA junior title for many years. He has competed at big orienteering events in Lithuania and Sweden.
Three years ago Alex started doing sprint adventure races. "I gradually became faster and gained experience with each race. But I always felt that I couldn't really call myself an adventure racer until I had done a long race. That finally changed in January when I did the Uge Classic." For Alex his race presented a steep learning curve on this introduction to longer races because his team was really fast with more experience.
Alex is competitive, but he's happy to participate in any event just for the experience. "I think experience is better if you go fast, but I'm happy to have fun by being outside, with interesting people in challenging situations," he says.
Over the next few years Alex has his sights on a number of challening events, including Wartrail, Swazi Xtreme and Cape Epic. He may goes on to do a Masters degree in 2010; an attractive option not only professionally, but because of the time and freedom that being a student allows for lots of training, sports events and travel.
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