I have been following the fortunes of those who “live the dream’’ in Wanaka since 2003 and one thing I’ve noticed: ambitious trainers abound.

While world champions haven’t quite reached plague proportions (some cyclist-hating motorists would disagree), I’ve learned that many who move into our growing district are quickly infected with the Wanaka addiction and begin training for world domination in anything from triathlon to taekwondo to rock’n roll dancing.

Many years ago, I met former Te Anau farm girl Mops (Melissa Newell), at my favourite watering hole. We are now regular sitters at Kai Whakapai’s round table.

Four years ago, Mops announced I too was in “training for the worlds’’ and she’d coach me.

It was a mega surprise to me and still is. I don’t know what or where my “worlds’’ will be or when it will happen, and we’ve only ever been on one bike ride together (Sticky Forest, I fell off, cried, end of story).

Back in 2014, Mops - a former New Zealand representative in rugby, soccer and basketball  - was a teacher at Mt Aspiring College, recovering from a hip operation and thinking about becoming a triathlete.

Her sights were set on the 2015 Xterra World Triathlon Championships in Hawaii and she intended to qualify through the Motatapu Race at Wanaka.

Mops was the first to admit her hip was holding her back. She could not run –had not actually run for six years – and was still learning to swim. But she could ride a mountain bike.

Fast forward four years, Mops (39) still has to do any Xterra triathlon and is now working as a hammer hand for builder Mike Plimmer.

Mops during the Deans Bank race 2017. PHOTO: Wanaka App

While Mops saw no reason in 2014 why she should not aspire to potentially unachievable goals, she proved adept at tweaking her goals once it became clear they were not working.

So she rode her bike a lot and now she is the 2018 Master Women’s Enduro Series World Champion.

Mops has proved difficult to pin down for coaching advice over the past four years (she’s been busy riding her bike) so I haven’t started working on my own race plan. But I did me catch up with her to learn more about her worlds.

First up, I reprise a question from 2014: why should people aspire to “the worlds’’?

“Everyone should think big, dream big, have courage and say “Why not’’. The only person who says you can’t do something is yourself,’’ Mops said.

So, now she has a world championship trophy, what does she dream about now?

Another Enduro world championship bid, this time in the women’s professional elite category. Based on this year’s results, Mops could have finished a creditable 15th.

Mops is going “back to basics’’, training under Wellington coach Tom Bradshaw, before starting to ramp things up in March for her 2019 season.

In early December, she raced Dunedin’s Three Peaks Enduro as a “shake down’’ and was fourth woman. But she is okay with that. She had just completed a 50km training session before the race and was fatigued.

“I had some really good learnings and that was really cool ... My proprioception [sense of equilibrium and balance] is a bit off when fatigued and I was not hitting my lines. It makes you go, “Okay. What I need to do is regain focus, to strip things back to basics.’’ A big thing for me was my body position, keeping a good, strong, safe position ... I didn’t give myself the best opportunity to perform, but I wanted to be up against it,’’ Mops said.

Mops says she has thrived on the international stage.

“I definitely didn’t intend to be the Enduro world champion. It all just happened by accident. Back then when we were sitting at Kai, that genre of mountain biking hadn’t come up on my radar. I wasn’t competing in Enduro. I had ridden cross country but not at World Championship level, just at Nationals and Oceanias. Enduro sits outside those events.’’

Although the Enduro World Championship Series is stand alone, like other mountain biking disciplines, it has a points system and requires qualification through New Zealand and overseas races.

There are eight races in the series and the rider with the most points wins. Mops raced five: Chile, Columbia, Canada, Spain and Italy.

Her risk paid off, just. The woman who finished second, just 25 points behind, raced all eight events and could easily have taken the title if things had gone differently in Italy and Spain.

“I was only 25 ahead and was cutting it a bit fine. I had a shocker of a race in Italy. I was third. It was bitter sweet. I had mixed emotions. It was a terrible race but I got enough points,’’ Mops said.

The 2018 world championship bid cost about $26,000. Mops is now hoping to raise a similar amount through business sponsorship so she can step up to the 2019 elite series.

She will keep working full time for Mike Plimmer and squeeze in her training outside work hours and in weekends.

“My biggest hurdle is I am time poor ... But I love what I do,’’ she said.

Mops’ competitive season begins in Rotorua in March. She then travels to Tasmania, Portugal, France, Italy and Switzerland, aiming to complete seven of the eight races.

An Enduro race consists of several timed race runs over off-road courses. These are separated by untimed “liaisons’’ or routes the cyclist must ride or walk, to get from one race run to the next. Riders usually cover up to 70km a day.