Hi blog followers,
Well this is it. My final weekend before I head to Australia to compete in Ultraman Australia with my support crew of Ray Boardman (Coach and Team Captain from Qwik Kiwi Endurance Sports Consultants), Derrick McMillan (support crew team member) and Scott Cordwell (support crew team member), all from the New Zealand Army, to fundraise for KIWI – Killed, Injured, Wounded and Ill of the New Zealand Defence Force.
There has been a bit of joviality around work the last few days as we prepare to focus, with other colleagues giving my Wellington based support crew a bit of jib about their role. This has all been a bit of good fun. In reality they know what we are in for and everything will be under the watchful eye and direction of Ray.
To recap, 515 kms is a hell of a long way.
Day 1 on Saturday 14 May 2016 consists of a 10 km swim and 140 km cycle. Day 2 on Sunday 15 May is a 281 km cycle and Day 3 on Monday 16 May is the double marathon.
I have not covered these distances before swimming, cycling or running, but I have the utmost faith in Ray preparing me for this occasion.
The training in the weekend is the start of the taper off period, where I returned to Taupo to uplift my event bike from my bike mechanic and shop owner of Huka Cycles, Brendon Reynolds, where he has been fine tuning it. As such I hit the Ironman course for a two and a half hour bike ride on my training bike. The Ironman is a great course, because I experienced it as per usual with hill work (De-Bretts Hill, Heartbreak Hill, Speedway Hill, etc) and the inevitable head winds.
For the run on Sunday I returned to Hawkes Bay and ran part of the cycle trails to feel the heat.
Ray caught up with me earlier in the week when I was in Christchurch and spent some time programming my Garmin for me. It certainly has all the bells and whistles going with beep alerts if I am too slow, too fast or not putting in enough effort with the heart rate being too low. This will certainly take me a bit of getting use to, but my Garmin has become my best friend.
Tuesday I fly out and we will be met at Brisbane International by Debs Pohatu, a former Army colleague, who has arranged a vehicle through Anodyne Services Australia (ASA) as a form of sponsorship for us. Once in the country, we have various activities to attend to such as the Ultraman Australia bike inspection, a trial swim with the safety paddler, welcome function, etc and then game on!
Ray will keep you posted on Facebook as we go and I’ll provide a follow up blog once the event is over.
I wish to take this opportunity to thank everyone for their support to get me to the start line. In particular Coach Ray for his tireless efforts with coaching and running the Facebook page to allow me to concentrate on other requirements.
Take care – regards John Humphries (UltraHumps)!
https://facebook.com/ultrahumps
https://givealittle.co.nz/cause/help4ultrahumps