UltraHumps: Time to Buy a Lotto Ticket

Hi blog followers

I’ve been reading the articles of the other blog writers with interest and can relate to: what to write, or the struggle with staying in Coach Ray’s training zones, or missing a training session and how you beat yourself up over it, or training with an injury. Trust me I can relate to all the articles and they are truly inspirational, so keep them coming.

At the moment I am in between events for the Cameron Brown Award and IronMaori / Port of Tauranga Legend Series, having two weeks ago completed the IronMaori Quarter Ironman (previously completed the Taupo Half Marathon), and over the next two weeks have the 160 km around Lake Taupo Cycle Challenge then the IronMaori Half Ironman.  So busy times for myself to juggle work commitments and family, as we all do, and to also ensure I stay on top of Coach Ray’s magic of completing what training is required to get me there.

During this week I managed to complete all his training with a slight hiccup or two.

For the Tuesday night Quad Killer (my terminology) I normally cycle around Whiteman’s Valley, which is in the back of Upper Hutt to Silverstream for those that know Wellington. This requires a diversion up Maymourn Valley Road before I head back to Whiteman’s Valley Road, as the Whitemans Valley Road is a slow uphill.  Once you get to the end, it is a crazy spiral downhill. I misjudged the diversion duration I needed and ran out of road trying to hit the higher tempo or training zone, so had to listen to my Garmin alerting me on the way down, bugger!

Another scary moment is I normally run a set route for my runs.  Friday has always been a 2 hour run and I tried a different route near State Highway 2.  I always run on the shoulder of the road and into traffic unless there is a footpath, but with not wanting to dash across the expressway, I stayed with the traffic coming towards me from behind (me and traffic on the same side of the road moving in the same direction).  Running into traffic doesn’t bother me as you can see any issues and take evasive action if necessary.  Not sure if it was a sixth sense or that I was just uncomfortable with not being used to vehicles coming up behind me, but I spotted the cycle path on the river flood bank beside the motorway and headed up there. I had only been on it a short while and heard a huge bang, saw sparks flying, and rubber burning as a logging truck filled to the maximum blew a tyre and the driver racing down through the gears to slow his truck gliding to where I would of been running with him having no other choice.  His tyre was shredded all over the expressway and the sparks flew where the wheel rim carved its signature into the tarseal.  The logging truck behind him straddled the broken white lines to slow other vehicles down.  The drivers got their respective trucks stopped safely and the first driver who saw the new route I had just started running on, yelled out suggesting I buy a Lotto ticket.  I think my HR Monitor gave my Garmin some exciting readings for a short while lol.

So apart from the cycling and the running Coach Ray has also had me in the pool working on swimming with my injured arm.  This is coming along really well. I wear a compression sleeve on my left arm similar to what American Football Players wear. Until I could restart swimming I couldn’t even swim one length without having to stop. Last week I could swim one lap with the arm, but had to either rest or switch to one arm swimming. Coach Ray isn’t a fan of one arm swimming as it throws out the timing etc, so I stayed with swimming a lap then resting a few seconds, then swimming another lap, and so on.  Now I have found I am able to swim non stop with both arms for the respective reps that Coach Ray plans.  It’s nothing fast or gracious, but a great improvement that has me smiling.

Stay tuned team as I prepare for two more events over the next two weekends.

Regards

John Humphries (aka UltraHumps).