Humbold Goes Five for Five

Fran Arfaras profiles 2009 Men's 60-64 Age Group Champion Reinhold Humbold, Unterhatching, Bavaria, Germany.

With persistence and determination, Reinhold Humbold overcame the wrath of Madame Pele to win his fifth age group title in a row last year. The extreme winds prevented him from making his target time, but his 10:27 was fast enough to keep his winning streak going.

But there have been some major changes in Humbold’s life. Until July 2009 he was General Manager of a Transport Company that was taken over by an international corporation. The new owners offered him an early retirement, which he accepted. This opened up new training opportunities. Now he is free to spend most of his time training for triathlon, playing golf and relaxing. He had joined a fitness center last year that has a 25m indoor pool and an excellent spa area which he can now use at his leisure, instead of before work and at lunch.

It seemed that everything was going great until January, when he injured his Achilles tendon. This meant no more heavy training for the run.

For 2010, Humbold completed his first triathlon in early June in Kulmbach, the German Championship Middle Distance. Because of his Achilles injury, his doctor restricted Humbold to an average of five minutes per kilometer, which was too slow to win his age group and he finished four minutes behind the winner to take second place. His swim was good and he had an excellent bike of 2:24 for 90km, but it wasn’t enough to win the race. It’s hard for him to be satisfied with his current situation, but his leg problem is getting better.

Humbold’s race plans for the rest of the year include the German Championship Olympic Distance, the Bavarian Mastership, German Championship Long Distance and World Championship Long Distance in Immenstadt, Germany. He also plans to compete in the Duathlon Championship in Ireland and the World Championship in Budapest, Hungary where he compete in three events: the Run-Swim-Run race, the Sprint Distance and the Olympic Distance.

His grand finale will be the Ford Ironman World Championship. He’s very optimistic he will be 100 percent by October and will return to Kona with a time under 10 hours.

In August 2009, Humbold’s older daughter, Caroline, made him an “Ironman Grandpa.” Grandson Paul is now 10 months old and had his first swim training in January.

“If you ask me for the long term aims,” he said, “in 2028 I am 80 years old and will have my last race in Kona, and Paul will have his first race in the 18-25 age group.”

“In the meantime,” he continued, “with “Gotes Hilfe” (God’s Assistance) we stay healthy and be able to keep me fit with triathlon training and playing golf with my wife.

You can contact Fran Arfaras at farfaras@ironman.com.