This weekend pretty much sums up life in Team HPT. Racing across the Endurance spectrum and kicking butt.

We had Port Macquarie Ironman and 70.3, then closer to home we had the Sydney Half Marathon and The Royal Challenge. Then heading west we were at the Mudgee Cycling Classic .

Port Macquarie

Ironman = chaos to a certain extent. There’s always something going on. This year was no different with the swim being cancelled at 11pm the night before the race. I speak a lot about managing emotions and this was going to be the opportunity to put those skills into place.

Easier said than done. We put a lot of effort into this and quite rightly tie ourselves to times and goals. With this it all got tipped upside down.

Strategies had to change. You now had to tie yourself to why you do this. The challenge.

Our team put their hands up and took it on. With a rolling start based on race number some got the good end of that and some didn’t.

Ironman Results :

Sam Judd 10:31, Ty Scott 10:41, Dave Hurst 10:50, Dylan Synnott 11:03, Chris Gaffney 11:05, Storm Drury 11:20, Angie Coleman 12:05

70.3 Results :

Harry Wiles 3:29, Jonah Newton 3:44, Greg Attwells 4:14, Darren Alchin 4:15 (3rd AG) , Andy Walker 4:29, Justin Hess withdrew with stomach issues

And of course a huge shoutout to the supporters staying out in the dark and rain to get everyone home.

The Royal Challenge

A local endurance race with something diffferent. 10.5km kayak, 21km run, 10.5km kayak. This race was making it’s comeback from its last iteration in 2018 and I hope it sticks with so many more HPT athletes getting into paddling.

Jarrod Denny continued with his great form lately and came 3rd Overall in the individual event. finishing in 4:11, Jeff Davis wasn’t going to miss this event despite not a lot of paddling experience and managed to find every upper body muscle he posseses. He came in 4th in 4:19. Benny Bourke paddled strongly in a team that finished in 3:51.

Sydney Half Marathon

Jen Medina had the breakthrough of all breakthroughs in this race. With a few little shifts in her approach lately we found a whopping 10min PB for a 1:36. For those that know Jen, we were all so happy to see her hard work rewarded. Jen leaves no stone unturned in her preparations and this shows that a bit of patience and a lot of work reaps rewards

Mudgee Maxi Classic 170k

Keaton Tull headed up to get a taste of the Mudgee region on a bike and with juggling a Cairns 70.3 prep with a long term eye on Gold Coast Marathon we treated as a training day. Keaton set a very unassuming goal of 5 hours and smashed that by 30min posting a 4:30 by getting himself in the front group and holding on as long as he could. This turned out to be 160k !

Club Racing :

Just one that i could spot this week in TP. That was Amanda Behrendt in a 5km Kayak Club TT finishing in 31:08 and first female.

If you do a club race let me know ! I love athletes doing local clubbie events.

What … no swim ?