{"id":190572,"date":"2025-12-18T20:39:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-18T20:39:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/190572\/"},"modified":"2025-12-18T20:39:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-18T20:39:09","slug":"whanganui-cyclist-glenn-haden-smashes-national-record-for-hour-distance-sets-masters-world-record","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/190572\/","title":{"rendered":"Whanganui cyclist Glenn Haden smashes national record for hour distance, sets masters world record"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cI\u2019d done all the winter mileage, so I thought I could use it for some sort of purpose.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said he had a rehearsal at the Whanganui velodrome<\/a> and signs were promising.<\/p>\n

With the help of Cycling NZ commissaire John McDonnell, formerly of Whanganui, the Cambridge facility was booked for December 12.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the short timeframe worked well. If I knew it was happening in eight months, it would have consumed me,\u201d Haden said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe got up there and just got it done.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whanganui Cycling Club patron Ron Cheatley<\/a> travelled with Haden to Cambridge.<\/p>\n

\"GlennGlenn Haden completed around 211 laps of the Cambridge track. <\/p>\n

He said if the record was going to be broken, \u201ceverything had to be detailed and perfect\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re allowed one person trackside, so I set the schedule and gave him information every two or three laps, and made sure he wasn\u2019t going too fast or too slow,\u201d Cheatley said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe also had Noel Anderson, [Olympic cycling medallist] Gary Anderson\u2019s father, recording the laps, and Jono Hamlin, another Whanganui boy.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe used to be the national sprint coach. Jono was helping with preparation and getting ice jackets on and off him at the right time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Haden said it was a \u201creal mental battle\u201d to stay focused for about 211 laps.<\/p>\n

His distance was taken from the black line around the bottom of the velodrome, which measures the official length of the track.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery time you creep up the track, you\u2019re adding distance that won\u2019t be counted,\u201d Haden said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you\u2019re on the road for a one-hour time trial, you can free-wheel into corners and get out of the seat in little climbs.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith this, there is a lot of repetition and no reprieve. You\u2019re trying not to move your head a centimetre.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cheatley said Haden won the time trial at last year\u2019s Tour of Southland \u201cagainst all the top pros\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat opened a few eyes.<\/p>\n

\u201cGlenn\u2019s always been good at that sort of thing, and he knows how to look after himself.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s so determined and a pleasure to work with.\u201d<\/p>\n

The previous national record was set by Rob Scarlett on the same track earlier this year, with a distance of 51.623km.<\/p>\n

Haden said he could not have broken the records without Cheatley and the rest of his team.<\/p>\n

\u201cJono and I have been super close friends <\/a>since Form 1 at [Whanganui] Intermediate.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was always chasing his tail on bikes growing up, so to have him there was great.\u201d<\/p>\n

He was not allowed any water during the attempt, and there was no data on his bike.<\/p>\n

Haden said he ate more than 1kg of blended ice before the attempt.<\/p>\n

\"GlennGlenn Haden after the event, with his support crew of Jono Hamlin (left), Ron Cheatley (second from right) and Noel Anderson. Photo \/ Cycling Tom<\/p>\n

In the lead-up, there were training sessions in a hot shed, wearing a bomber jacket and a beanie.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the last few years, especially, they\u2019ve figured out that you can prepare for heat and the body will adapt.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut it\u2019s not much fun going through the process, I can tell you that.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said there \u201chaven\u2019t been many pedal strokes this week\u201d, but training was about to resume for next month\u2019s rescheduled Tour of Southland.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll also compete in the elite national champs in February, but I\u2019ve got to apply for an exemption because of my age.<\/p>\n

\u201cGenerally, that\u2019s when we have all our professional riders, most based in Europe, back in New Zealand.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s the big one for me. I\u2019d really like to have a good performance there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cheatley said there were only two or three other riders in New Zealand capable of getting close to Haden over an hour.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was pretty confident he would break the record, but not by that much.<\/p>\n

\u201cAbout 50 kids were there watching, cheering and yelling.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey came piling on to the centre of the track as soon as Glenn finished, getting ready for a training session. That\u2019s how busy [Cambridge Velodrome] is.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mike Tweed is a multimedia journalist at the Whanganui Chronicle. Since starting in March 2020, he has dabbled in everything from sport to music. At present, his focus is on local government, primarily the Whanganui District Council.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cI\u2019d done all the winter mileage, so I thought I could use it for some sort of purpose.\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":190573,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[119178,119179,74,489,16659,23676,53449,2082,21934,119180,119177,33262,58253,3556,111,139,69,1974,1973,78891,213,87086,9438,119181,1883,377],"class_list":["post-190572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-42yearold","tag-60minute","tag-after","tag-books","tag-cambridge","tag-cyclist","tag-distance","tag-for","tag-glenn","tag-grassroots","tag-haden","tag-hour","tag-masters","tag-national","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-record","tag-sets","tag-smashes","tag-sports","tag-sprint","tag-trust","tag-velodrome","tag-whanganui","tag-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190572","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=190572"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190572\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/190573"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=190572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=190572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=190572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}