Ten weeks out from the big day in October, I find myself in good health, 3 kg lighter than last year on race day. I’ve purposely lowered my body weight to make training easier and hill climbing on the bike a lot easier.

My weight reduction plan was simple. I only ate fish and vegetables for two weeks. I ate as much as I could fit in. For two weeks I had no wheat, no dairy foods, no rice, no animal protein, no trans fats, no saturated fats. To give a bit of variety, I made pumpkin soup, potato and leek soup, bean soup, (recipes on the forum) oven roasted veges, stir fried fish and veges. It was an easy diet to stick to and the added benefit was a de-tox effect.

In June I did the Honu Half Ironman race as a dress rehearsal for the main event in October. I celebrated my 62nd birthday the day after the Honu race. The Honu race uses the toughest 90km of the full Ironman bike course. I used my Power Tap wheel and Garmin to record the data from the ride, so I can structure my bike intervals as closely as possible to my requirements on race day. This may seem a bit specialised for a 62yr old athlete, but the guys I’m racing are all as serious as me.

On Sunday I did my first 200km ride with a 30min run off the bike. Physiologically, I don’t think I really need to do a ride of this distance, but I have a lot of guys and girls in the squad who get a lot out of a workout like this both physically and psychologically. If I didn’t go, the pace would not necessarily controlled to suit the bulk of the squad, and it would look like I was dodging the workout.

My squad having respect/confidence in me is really important. As long as I can, I’m going to be setting an example for the guys and girls in the squad. Apart from all that, I love those epic workouts. Enjoying eight hours training in a day with a bunch of great people is something most people who are not involved in this great sport, would understand.

I’m building my run distances up. Spreading the volume over three runs in each week. I’ve been running five minutes and walking for 30 paces. We do this religiously. Something which is very interesting is that we’re covering the same distance as if we kept running all the way. The 30 pace walk refreshes our legs and re focusses our mind, and we run on more efficiently. Instead of slowing down, the further we go.

We’re recovering better from these long runs as well. It appears that releasing the muscular tension at regular intervals, prevents the muscle damage that often takes days to recover from.

I’ve been pretty tired this week, an eight hour workout can take several days to recover from. This 200km ride has a 26km climb in it, and by time we stop for toilet stops, drink refills etc, time slips away.

This week has been a tough one, but I’m looking forward to next Sunday already. We’ll be doing a 4hr aerobic bike with 10 x 2km run repeats as a brick session. It’s always a good day with the whole squad running up and down the dirt track at Qld Uni along the river bank. Lots of laughs and lots of suffering for those who haven’t prepared well.