Two days off training is a holiday for John Howard

Press, 29 January 1986, Page 30

Two days off training is a holiday for John Howard

Two days off training is akin to a holiday for John Howard. The 26-year-old Christchurch window cleaner has built up an impressive record in endurance events over the past few years but training for such competition has had its drawbacks. Sometimes training seven days a week means Howard cannot sleep; at other times it means weight loss to such an extent that he now finds getting up at night to eat almost second nature.

“If I start not sleeping at night, I just take a day off the training. I’m always watching my weight but if I lose too much I find myself getting up in the middle of the night to eat,” says the four-time winner of the Fresh-Up Iron Man contest and 1984 Coast to Coast champion. Painful injuries do not

bar Howard from his training regime. While preparing for last year’s Coast to Coast race he suffered severe skinning to his back and arms in a tumble from his cycle; preparing for this year’s event he broke an arm. “It’s not a bad break and I’ve really got no qualms about competing with it. I didn’t have it in plaster and I’ve been working on it a lot. Sure accidents happen but they happen to anyone,” he says. Accidents seem to be an

accepted thing for Howard who gleaned his interest in iron man events as a follow-up to tramping and mountaineering. “I’ve been training now for about three or four months for this particular event but I’ve been training throughout the year for others,” he says. That training has

helped him to his four iron man titles and second place in the two other iron man events he has not won. He has a philosophy about that same training though that suggests it should be something that is to be enjoyed as well as hard work. “Sometimes if it’s too hot, or raining, or I don’t feel like it, I don’t go. A holiday for me is two days off,” he jokes. Two days is about all the "holiday” that Howard feels he can give himself. He would not consider taking a week off at all. Despite his apparently easy-going attitude to training for such endurance events, his actual training is intense. “A lot really depends on your background and if you are relatively fit for a start, I keep fairly active through my job so that helps a lot,” he says. A typical week for Howard could include a full training schedule but, once again, depends on how he feels. It could include.—

Saturday: “Normally I go in the cycle races and do about 30 to 40km in an hour. Depending on how I feel I might go canoeing for an hour and a half that afternoon.”

Sunday: “I might take in a run in the hills. Normally about an hour, hour and a half but probably not if I did it the day before. I try to make it different each day.”

Monday: “I couldn’t run again. I can’t do that more than three or four times a week. I’m not a high mileage man so I might do two things, canoeing and cycling in the hills perhaps.” Tuesday: “I might go for a run, say 45 minutes and later I’d probably go out in the canoe for one to one and a half hours.”

Wednesday: “Probably a two hour canoeing session. It depends on how I feel but I like to do one long activity sometime during the week.”

Thursday: “I’d run again, say just 10km through the Burwood plantation. Not par-

ticularly fast but I might put in the occasional sprint.” Friday: “Biking and canoeing

again but it depends on whether I’m training at a maximum or whether I’m slowing down a bit before an event.”