Hi blog followers
Welcome to my weekly blog for the Cameron Brown Award and the IronMaori / Port of Tauranga Legend Series, as we head back into the working week for the start of the year after a couple of weeks break. Not a break from training, but a refreshing break from work.
As the second week of my Christmas and New Years break came to a close, I once again managed to complete all of the training planned by Coach Ray for my journey. This week I managed to complete all but one on the allocated day. Christmas often means a switch around of days, whether it is due to visitors, resource availability such as swimming pool opening days, or other family commitments, but if I have to swap it around within the training week I still make sure the training gets done. To me, if Coach Ray is putting the effort into me, I need to front up and complete his training plan.
Electronics – Yep they didn’t go to plan. My Smart Phone was playing up and required the Spark Shop to do a factory reset. I therefore lost all my apps and now it won’t download apps, so I couldn’t transfer my training for Coach Ray to see. The solution was to load it via Garmin Connect on my laptop into Training Peaks. Well my laptop is on it’s way out taking over 20 minutes to fire up, but I eventually got the training uploaded for Coach Ray. Then my HR Monitor battery went flat and the replacement battery was a dud and was flat. Fortunately I had a couple of spare so I am now all good to go.
Training – So how did my training go? All good except for the last one of the week being Coach Ray’s long bike ride. We had headed out to Waimarama Beach in Hawkes Bay (photos enclosed) to see Mel’s mum for a day or so, so I took my running shoes. Mel’s mum wasn’t too well so we stayed for a few days. Mel suggested I go to a gym to do my long cycle on an exercycle so she could spend time with her mum. I headed into Napier but the gym was blocked off with a cycle event. I went to a bike hire place and hired a mountain bike as that was all they had due to a lot hired out. As I wasn’t planning on being in location for so long I didn’t have any cycling gear, so armed with runners, Singapore shorts and a T-shirt off I went on my hired bike and helmet. I also had no gels or bananas etc and only water for hydration. Singapore shorts are a term we use in the Army for ultra thin cotton shorts (speedos have more cushioning). To top it off I had no sunblock and this is Hawkes Bay in January. You can imagine the result after 4 hours. A red crayfish / lobster with a sore butt, too stubborn to not want to complete Coach Ray’s training, but it did give Mel a good laugh.
Stay tuned team as I head into Coach Ray’s taper week, as I have my 5th out of 8 events for this journey this weekend, being the Port of Tauranga Enduro Half Ironman of a 3 km Swim, 120 km Cycle, 25 km Run.
Photos of Waimarama in Hawkes Bay. One day with Coach Ray’s blessing I’ll swim around the distant island in the sea.
Regards John Humphries (aka UltraHumps).
Humps will be writing weekly as he continues his journey raising funds for the Fallen Hero’s Trust
Read Humps’ article from last week here:
And all his previous articles are stored here:
https://www.coachray.nz/category/client-stories/ultra-humps/