Hi Blog Followers and welcome,
Training went relatively well this week for the majority, but not on Wednesday. I call it the Good, the Bad and the Ugly! And always report as such to Coach Ray to analyse and plan, although I always feel I am letting him down more than myself when training is not up to speed. So how did it all go… I recently had the opportunity to take some Army Colleagues through their paces in preparation for IronMaori and it was great fun, plus great to see it from the other side of the fence, I remember getting ready for my very first event five years ago and being exactly in their shoes. So with training this week I managed to swim faster in my 2 km Time Trial (TT) that Coach Ray had on the programme and do relatively well in all the other activities, except for Wednesday. Wednesday is a brick session of 1 hour 20 minutes on the bike followed immediately with a 40 minute run. After a couple of nights of not sleeping very well (2-3 hours a night) I got home from work and headed out on the bike, I felt flat but wrote that off to a hectic day and I normally pick up once I have finished climbing Silverstream’s Blue Mountain Hill Road, but it didn’t happen, I just had limited energy. I almost got to the point of turning around and heading back to Camp to rack my bike and call it a day. I’d email Coach Ray who would understand, but also knew I would be disappointing two people, so continued through as DNF is not in my vocabulary for events let alone training. Once I finished the bike ride it was off for a run and I was still flat. I noticed a car was slowing and watching me and once around the corner the passenger jumped out in running kit and said, “Hey Humps, I’ll join you for the length of this block before I have to head off with the driver”. Martin Dransfield who is one of my superiors offered to run with me and have a catch up. I didn’t tell him I was feeling flat, but I did notice it made me pick things up a little so was really stoked he took the time from his busy schedule to run with me when he had other things on. I met Martin when he first came out from the UK to join our Army in the late 1980’s, I was probably one of the first Kiwi’s he met and have come across each other a number of times since. The “inspiration” he provided was great, but I was to flat for it to last, but did manage to finish the run.
This brings me to this weeks photo’s, where if anyone wanted to see inspiration, it lies in the form of Andre Kajlich. I wanted to show inspiration from others in this weeks blog which I have briefly described with Martin, no matter how big or small the moment is, and this guy (Andre Kajlich) shows the most inspiration I could find. After suffering a horrific accident he woke up in hospital with both legs missing. He said at his prize-giving speech at Ultraman that when he woke up in hospital he thought he would never be happy again, now he is an Ultraman and a true inspiration to all. The photo’s inspire, he personally inspired every Athlete, every Support Crew, every Race Official, and everybody from the general public who saw him in action at Ultraman Australia. He left me behind in the 10 km Swim and 140 km Bike on day one, I caught him on the longest Bike of 281 Km’s on day two, but he cleaned me up in the Double Marathon. The first photo is of him in action in the very last stages of the Double Marathon where he cruelly had to push his wheel chair along the beach for quite some distance. The second photo is making it to the finishers chute where the sand was to much and he ditched his wheel chair and went for it using his hands as power. 
The third photo is receiving his finishers medal from the Race Director Tony Horton with smiles all round, and the fourth photo is the congratulations shot with his Support Crew. Noticing the time on the clock for his Double Marathon he left me in the dust, I was still on the road for almost another 3 hours… Receiving Inspiration From Others!
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).
