Ultraman Training

UltraHumps: Another month has disappeared

Hi Blog Followers

Another week or rather month has ticked by as I get closer to the start of the events in December, with the three events towards the 1306 kms.  These are the 3 Half Ironmans over 3 consecutive weekends that month.  Gee it’s the start of October already so only two months to go and it’s game on!

Ultraman TrainingTraining has been going relatively well this week.  I enjoyed the swim time trials (TT) which matched the last ones.  I was happy with this as I had to stop three times due to congestion in the pool with other swimmers filling the lanes.  It happens!

I also had a 10 km run TT.  As I was very briefly in Palmerston North, I stopped by the Massey University Athletic Track and did my TT there, running round and round in circles.  My Garmin gave me two new records indicating a Personal Best (PB) for 5 kms and for 10 kms, with the later reading 43 mins 11 secs.  I am quite stoked considering I turned 50 this year, when we first made this crazy announcement (no pressure to better it next time lol).

Some of the training on the bike with higher Heart Rate (HR) Zones has been good, and some had me not quite achieving the HR Zone that Coach Ray has scheduled.  It’s a work in progress, but all in all I am happy with my progress, especially considering I was the skinny fat guy 5 years ago (skinny arms and legs and a stomach that was bought and paid for lol).

Ultraman TrainingTip of the week, if not the year.

I didn’t have my training bike with me, so thought I’d experiment on my mountain bike.  Riding a mountain bike on the road for 100 kms wasn’t much fun in the freezing rain with mountain bike tyres instead of the road tyres you can get for them, along with non-clip in or caged pedals.  I just used my running shoes on top of the pedals (blonde moment on my behalf, which I am sure had Coach Ray rolling his eyes back).

My entry was made this week with Challenge Wanaka for the first of the two Ironman events I have over two weeks.  Challenge Wanaka is in February 2017.  They kindly gave me a 20% discount towards my cause of 3+2+1=Charity, which was greatly appreciated.

Ironman Training NZ

So this weeks photos are once again from Day 3 of Ultraman Australia.  The first is Scott Cordwell, one of my Support Crew, running beside me.  It looks like he’s about to disappear or head off somewhere.  The Support Crew were fantastic and truly got me to the finish line, particularly towards the later stages of the Day 3 Double Marathon when I was in the ‘hurt locker’.  As you can tell by the smile on my face in the next photo we are still in the first Marathon or heading out the 42+ km’s to the turn around point.

Photo’s courtesy of Barry Alsop of Eyes Wide Open Images – Official Photographer for Ultraman Australia 2016.

Take care team, and I’ll keep you posted on the journey.

Regards UltraHumps (aka Humps, aka John Humphries).

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