Allowing for a little poetic license the hanging with the star(fest) has started. Seeing so many of the top Ironmen hanging out is one of the things that makes the build up to this race so awesome. Here’s my tally over the past day or so

• Breakfast with Norman (Stadler) in Lava Java
• Cycled by Tara Norton as she was running along the Queen K
• Dinner with Mark (Allen) in Lava Java
• Swim with Tina (Bowman); and capping it off with style
• Shower with Natasha (Badman) !!

Been cracking on with steady state training and acclimatization. Yesterday morning I swam with Paul to the halfway buoy doing a few bursts at race pace. Then coming back Paul started off from the buoy like it was the start of the race. This was great practise for me as he’s pretty quick off the mark (he’s had his 1500m time as low as 17.30) and I tried to jump on his feet and stay with him. I managed it !

Roger has arrived so we all went and had a very relaxed breakie in Lava Java. My plan was to ride to Hawi. Roger and Paul had a car and were going to drive so far and cycle the rest. This motivated me to get moving. I think I’d covered the best part of 20 miles before they passed me in the car. I then motored on and managed to get to Hawi before them and was sat chilling with an iced latte when they arrived. The winds were there but not cross winds, more in your face so not too hairy. Coming back down from Hawi with the tailwind was awesome. Strangely enough I got back  here in exactly 5h40 ride time which is identical to what I did the other day.

This morning I swam on my own. Half course is 31 minutes. Feel like I’m getting strong as that felt very easy and it’s was pretty choppy this morning. Roger did the full course but got lost on the way and took 90 minutes ! I’d almost gave up hope. Bumped into Douglas (from Epic Camp) and had a natter. No Paul this morning as he was spending the day with a mate on a boat tagging Tiger Sharks ! They track them and apparently yesterday late afternoon one cruised across the bay !

I relaxed for most of the morning and finished off building a training planner spreadsheet. Yes … thats what I do to relax. I wanted to start planning next year but had left my planner spreadsheet on the computer at home so I decided to build another. This one is simpler and I’ve decided to make it available for download. Feel free to use it and let me know what you think. This is a first version so I may do updates shortly.

At noon I headed out on the bike to ride the Queen K and back. Very strong winds today but tail / head wind rather than the horrible cross winds. Did a 4 hour ride and felt ok. It’s noticeable that I don’t feel anywhere near as strong as last year on the bike. I remember training with John on the Queen K last year and just wanting to put the hammer down and feeling great doing it. I’ve done significantly less mileage this year, we’re talking to this point over 100 miles less per week !! However, last year I did nothing like the quality of sessions I did this summer. Fingers crossed that on the day I’ll feel alot better than last year.