Sinking In....

So it has been 24 hours since I officially entered into Ironman Melbourne 2013 - I am now $825 dollars poorer. That's just crazy isn't it?! Here I am - struggling to pay my bills (problems in the first world) and I just forked out $825 of my hard earned money into a day's race.

I have been looking at some Ironman results for Port Mac, Busso and the last Melbourne race and it gives me confidence that I can do this race and finish it within the 17 hour mark.

Doing some preliminary sums:

3.8km Swim - lets take 4 x 23 min (my 1km TT time is approx 21min) = 92 min = 1:32

180km Ride - lets take my 20km TT of 45min x 9 (180km/20km) = 405 min = 6:45

42.2km Run - lets take my slowest 10km and multiply that by 4.5 (instead of 4.2) = 315min = 5:15

Add 5 - 15min transitions and the total time for a full ironman will be approximately 13:45 so if everything goes to plan (weather, no injuries, nutrition), I should be able to complete this race under 14 hours - that will be my target time.

The fact that I am going to be participating in this race is starting to become real. This morning over breakfast with the girls, we were all talking about the up and coming races we all have. Noosa is no longer a stressful race as we have all done it before. Most of us have Shepparton as our first half ironman in 80 days. We all agreed that the run part is our main worry as it is not our strength and we are to run 21.1km after swimming 1.9km and riding 90km. None of us were stressed about the swim as we had been consistently turning up to swim sessions and swimming up to 3km per session. Cycling is not an issue as Shepparton is a relatively flat course and we had been riding up to 110km on Saturdays with 2 x 40-50km windtrainer sessions during the week. Running has been our weakness (not coming from a running background) but it seems that consistently doing run sessions with Coach Greg is really paying off (cold soak is the answer after long sessions).

I am personally not too stressed about Shepparton anymore. I know that I will finish this race under the 7 hour cut off time. I will just need to continue with my training under the watchful eye of the coaches and continue with the maintenance of the body with regular massages.

The next months are busy busy busy with cycling, running or triathlon camp events which will tie in with training. This includes the Apollo Bay training camp over the 21-23 Sept, Kinglake 115km ride on the 6th Oct, Half marathon on the 14th Oct, Round the Bay on the 21st Oct, an event break weekend and then its Noosa, a break and then it is Shepparton. Bang bang bang!

After Shep, it is Corporate Games (I am doing the 1km open water swim again for my work), December which will include Hell Week and then its the Falls Creek camp (hopefully its on) so that it provides me with a training spike for Geelong on the 10th Feb, followed with 6 weeks leading up to Melbourne Ironman with a few events in between (Nissan Corporate Triathlon (tentative) and the 3.2km Big Bay Swim).

Ironman Melbourne will be my last race for 2012/2013 season and I am sure that I will be taking a good month off triathlon as part of recovery month.

Looking through what I just noted down - I do have a busy schedule. I guess I am doing all this because I have the ability to do so - physically and financially.

As the motto says "You only live once" - so I am going to live this life, fit, healthy and happy.