Brad and Lindsey catch up with Hobbo, who is on a mission to get off the couch to IronMan 70.3 Durban in June 2019. He just finished his first triathlon and they discuss how to keep training and focused over the December holidays as well which races they are going to target in the lead up to IronMan 70.3 in Durban next year.

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Transcription

BRAD
Welcome on to this edition of RUN with Coach Parry. I'm Brad Brown. It's good to have you with us once again. Thank you so much for downloading and listening to this podcast. And yeah, I'm pretty excited to have a returning guest on today's show. We've got Lindsey Parry, the coach with us once again, but we also welcome back James Hobbo Hobson.

If you've been listening to this podcast for a while or if you've been following our videos on YouTube and Facebook, you'll know that we've been helping Hobbo in his build up to his very first Ironman 70.3 triathlon which is taking place next June in Durban, and Hobbo's been making great strides. He did his first triathlon just a few days ago and I thought would be a great time to touch base with him and find out how it went and what he's working on and how things are going.

So that's going to be our chat on today's podcast. Lots to take out of it, particularly around this time of the year as far as resting up and taking a bit of a break. So doesn't matter what you're training for, there's some great advice in this one as well so definitely stick around for that. Hobbo joins us once again. Fresh off his first major milestone in his road to Ironman 70.3 old part of his Biogen journey. Hello, welcome back. Nice to touch base man.

HOBBO
Thanks for having me back, Brad.

BRAD
Hobbo, how're you feeling? You did the sprint and I need to correct you here because every video and piece of audio I've heard you talking, people talk about the Midlands Ultra Tri and you say 'I just did the sprint'. There's no such thing as 'just the sprint'. It's the sprint. You left everyone who was sitting on the couch last week Sunday, so let's get that straight. You did the sprint triathlon and that is a major achievement. Well done.

HOBBO
Yeah, thanks, feeling feeling great now. Monday, I didn't feel too hot. Legs were pretty sore after the cycle and the trail run, but feeling sort of Wednesday, Wednesday, Thursday, feel good about life again.

BRAD
Feeling sort of back to normal. But a cool experience, I'm sure, Hobbo. I mean I can remember my first one and, I know you didn't do anything like this, but my first triathlon, I headed out of the first transition onto the bike with my helmet on backwards. So you obviously didn't make any of those rookie mistakes.

HOBBO
No, I lost my heart rate monitor unpacking in the transition in the beginning but managed to find that. Otherwise, I think everything went pretty smoothly. No major hiccups. Yeah, so I was quite happy with the whole thing but it's quite a stressful thing packing for your first one. I mean, I went through my stuff about five or six times to make sure I had socks for the cycle, shoes for the run, glasses, you know, everything that you do need. Managed not to forget anything except losing the heart rate monitor but thankfully, it was found.

Hobbo's first triathlon

BRAD
Absolutely. I mean, there's no packing life in the triathlon compared to running. Lindsey, we've got the coach with us as well, your sort of take on Hobbo's first triathlon, Linds?

LINDSEY
Look, it was really good. I've said it a couple of times on a few different platforms that I think the biggest thing out of that was the confidence that Hobbo will get having now done all three, one after each other. And he was actually a long way from from last. I mean, I know that sounds like a silly thing to focus on but I think it just gives you confidence to know that you are ahead of quite a few people. But at the same time, now that we've done the three together, and we look at the different aspects of it, he'll also get some motivation now because he knows that we definitely need to improve, to finish 70.3 and I think we had some conversations in the week and one of the things that he asked me, he said, 'Listen, I really need to get faster on the bike'.

So you know there is a realization that there's a cut off time and we do need to get to a certain level and but there's confidence gained. And he really enjoyed himself, a big smile on his face. He really liked being out there and now he's put together a list of events that he wants to do next year. So you can see the excitement is there, he's digging what he's doing, he's starting to get a bit fitter. Looking forward to the next challenge. And that's kind of what we've gotta do now is to start pushing a little bit, take the gloves off a little bit and really just accelerate the process a little bit.

Training over the holidays

BRAD
Cool. We're going to talk about those races in just a minute. Hobbo, December traditionally is quite a difficult time of the year to stay focused and stay training. I know you had a bit of a blowout in November but you're back on the rails but you are travelling for a lot of December as well. So it's going to be pretty tough. Are you worried the next four weeks that you're going to sort of firstly, on the training front, stay on the rails, but also on the the overindulging side, you're going to stay on the straight and narrow?

HOBBO
Not too worried, I think I'll be alright. We basically leave end of December. So most of December, it should be fine. And the training, I think I'll be fine because I actually sort of missed it now. It's a weird thing for me to say it, but I sort of look forward to training, you know. Yesterday, I was looking forward to going doing a five K run, which is probably one of the first times of my life. It's in my routine now so if I don't have it, I'm sort of at a loose end, you know.

Like Lindsey said, 'Don't worry about training Monday' and I was sort of like, well, I could maybe just spin my legs out on the bike or, you know, but I said, I'll leave it. But, you know, I think I'll be fine. I mean, obviously, I'm not gonna have a bike overseas. But I think that's good for focusing on the running and like I said earlier, you know might be able to get a few lake open water swims in and and then find a pool where ever I am. I think it's quite a good thing to focus on the running because that's the easiest thing, you just need a pair of shoes and that's it pretty much.

BRAD
Lindsey, if I can bring you in here as well, I mean December is just a tough time for everyone. I mean you're on holiday and like I say, lots of eating lots of drinking, what advice would you give to people this time of the year to sort of stay on the straight and narrow?

LINDSEY
The most important thing for me I think is just to get up and get your exercise done early. So the triathlon is often complicated because people feel like you have to train twice a day and look certainly, there's some advantages to being able to do that. But really the most important thing is that you get up and you do something on most days of the week. So five to six days of your week. You're up early, you get your exercise done and then that kind of sets the tone for the rest of the day. New Zealand's the kind of place that you go to, and you do have a fairly active holiday too.

So, you know, there's probably going to be a lot of walking, a lot of outdoor stuff, which will help. And then, you know, we're all going to have a beer or three when we're on holiday, so again, I just always just try and start that as late as possible. You know, often people have the first drink with lunch or something along those lines. And I'll always try to push that out to Sundowners or that sort of thing, but the most critical aspect for me is that the fitness moves along.

To ensure that the fitness moves along you do your training in the morning, and then you literally don't have to worry about it. You're not trying to squeeze it in around other things, you're not irritating the people that you're on holiday with because you know we want to go and do this but no I still have to go squeeze in a run. Get it done in the morning and then that's that.

BRAD
I'm going to be in the big five game reserves, Lindsey, smack bang in the middle of the park. The camp area is pretty small. So I'm going to be working on my speed work outside of the camp if that's good.

LINDSEY
Or laps. I have seen people that are really that dedicated to the cause where they run laps of like 1500 metres and they just go round and round and round.

Putting a plan together 

BRAD
Circuit racing on holiday, I can't think of anything worse. Lindsey I know you mentioned Hobbo's got quite a few races he wants to do and he sent through a list so I'm going to hand over to you and talk about sort of planning the 2019, I can't believe we talking 2019 already, but sort of putting a plan together and how you go about putting a plan. And we can talk in broad strokes but also obviously then dealing directly with what Hobbo wants to do.

LINDSEY
Yeah, look, I think it's great to have some events to look forward to. Especially with this type of project, I mean, we're not looking to peak on the second of June and to win 70.3. We want to be able to go there and finish the race and the cut off and so therefore, doing as many events and getting as much experience as you can is important. But also it really just gives you some good fortune you in essence, stop training for the second of June, and you train from race to race. So we've got many more lined up on the 10th of February which is fairly early in the year.

So obviously soon after Hobbo gets back, he knows he's got to be ready to do a reasonable open water swim. And that also just ensure that he does get into the odd lake, finds the odd pool and we're going to look to swim walk a minimum of once a week on holiday. Hopefully we get in 2 swims but if he swims once a week, he's not going to lose the swimming gains he's made and then it means that there he is, he's looking good for a swim on the 10th Feb. And then soon after that it's the Dischem Ride for Sight. So look that's also great, because we definitely going to miss cycling.

So while he's away, we're going to have close to a month of no cycling. But this means that as soon as he gets back, he's gonna want to get on his bike. Little bit of fear there because he wants to do a reasonable ride there. And it just means that as soon as we're back in Joburg, he's gonna want to get on his on his bike. I would like a few more triathlons in this build up and I will have a look and see if we can find some more. You know, we're going to do the Durban Ultra on the 3rd of March, but it's unlikely that we're going to be in a position to be able to finish that race.

So that will be just getting a sea swim in, seeing how different it is to swimming in a dam. Part of this route will be similar to what he's got to ride come the second of June. So it'll give him some good experience on the bike course. And then of course, we'll let him do probably a three to maximum 10 k if he's capable off the bike, again just so that he gets the feels. Then we move on to his first full Olympic distance triathlon, which I'm pretty sure he'll be in a position to finish, that's in April. And then he's going to cycle the tour of Durban on the 28th of April. Sun City ultra in May although we'll have to have a look and see where we are there.

In fact, the Sun City ultra, they I think have a sprint as part of that event. So we'll definitely be there. We'll just figure out what we're going to do. But the point is that every month we've got something for Hobbo to look forward to and something for him to take off his list and to grow in confidence and become more technically proficient because, you know, as much as I took a lot of confidence out of the weekend with Hobbo, when we go through the numbers, we do have to get faster between now and the second of June. Part of that is just getting fitter, getting more comfortable, part of that is losing more weight. And really the only way we're going to do that is now to kick on and train hard.

BRAD
Hobbo, let's touch on the weight before we wrap things up as well. You're looking lean and mean, like every time I see you, you're wasting away.

HOBBO
Yeah, I'm getting there, Brad. I'm down 16 kilos now so obviously November was a bit of a plateau but Ruth put me on this sort of food diary, which keeps me accountable. So it's quite good for that. Just carrying on, it's always nice to see the weight falling off and compliments like that also help. I'm feeling a lot a lot lighter as well.

BRAD
That's brilliant. 16k's is half a backstreet boy, that's fantastic.

HOBBO
One Parry child.

BRAD
I love it. Well you're doing great stuff! I mean, I don't know if you want to add anything but you're chatting to Lindsey every week and you're staying on track on your training programme and you're ticking the boxes. That's pretty much all you can do. But I mean you're feeling good and looking forward to 2019, who would have thunk? I mean, if I said to you two years ago, this is what we'd be talking about at the closing of the year planning your new year. You would have told us stop smoking your socks.

HOBBO
Yeah, I mean even during that first triathlon on Sunday, you know, if you had told me four or five months ago, you'll finish a sprint triathlon, I would have thought I don't know about that. So getting that under the belt was quite awesome. Really looking forward to 2019 and sort of doing the events and trying to get quicker off the bike I think is one of my major concerns and then also obviously the running but I think the running will come and hopefully sort of improve quite a bit over December.

BRAD
Brilliant well, Hobbo, keep up the good work! You're doing amazingly well and we look forward to following the progress into 2019 and beyond. Lindsey, parting shot from you? Happy days.

LINDSEY
Yeah, look, I'm very happy and we gotta work now. You know, New Zealand does give us a chance to work on the running and as of next week, we actually moving into a three minute run two minute walk. So that in itself is a lot of progress. Because that means for the first time now we're actually going to be doing more running than walking when we do our sessions.

So I mean, when you look back, sometimes the progress feels really small, but when you look back as he says, he's come a hell of a long way. He's finished the triathlon. And, you know, a couple of months off the start of starting the process. So I'm really excited. And I'm going to start pushing him on the bike and I said to him yesterday, it's really time for him to start pushing himself in the bike and pushing himself in the water. And then we'll see what January brings.

BRAD
I love it. Yeah, like I said, if you want to follow Hobbo's journey, you can, just use the hashtag Biogen journey on the socials and you can follow the progress. We'll be keeping you updated and chatting to Hobbo every now and again as well.