The last post

Well today is my last update before we head down to Busso this morning. It has been a roller coaster of a week. And nearly 20 weeks of hard work!

From feeling great and strong on Sat during the RW ride to feeling like crap on Sun/Mon with a cold. I got heaps of sleep on Monday night and went to bed at 840. Then had a pretty good interval ride / brick run on Tuesday. Felt heaps better, maybe 95%. Had a pretty long day at work with end of month to do and all. Got up early on Wed and got to the pool at opening time (530). Felt like I was pretty much over the cough and cold. Had a great little swim where the main set was 20 x 50m as hard / easy with 10' rest after each 100. Did a total of 1.9k and felt great.

By last night however, I felt about 90% healthy again and was pretty tired. I had to do some running around and pick up Greg's trailer to cart all our stuff down to Busso in. By 9pm I was ready for bed. Hopefully I can be close to 100% by Sat at 0615hrs! So we will finish packing up and cruise down at about 10am today. Checklists have been written and ticked off, bike checked and cleaned. I feel nervous just typing all this down now!

The last 20 weeks have seen me swim 104km, ride 4,582km and run 849km. That works out at an avg per week of 5.5/229/43. Now all that counts for nothing if I don't execute race day correctly. Race day is all about proper pacing and nutrition. It will be even more important with the weather forecast being hot and windy. The current forecast is a top of 29 deg with SE to S winds blowing all day. That means off shore for the swim and cross winds for most of the ride. It will be pretty warm on the run, but at least some breeze to dry the sweat off!

My stretch time based goal is 9:59 hours. But that is dependant on weather and some good luck (eg no kicks to the nose during the 1st 400m of the swim!) Realistically more like 1010-1015 I would say. But my real goals in order are;
1. Finish the race
2. Run without slowing down
3. Finish in the top 20% of the field
4. Enjoy the day - this is very important
5. Crack 10 hours

Well the 13 weeks of truth is almost done. I will update this on my return on Monday after the race is done and dusted. I have done all the work and now all is left, is to actually do the job on race day. Race day is a celebration of all the training and the culmination of all those hard sessions, early mornings, cold starts, early to bed nights and sacrifices made by not only me but my family, especially Lisa. So I want to make it really count for something on Saturday and give 100% of what I have and lay it all on the course there at Busso. It's a long day, anything can happen, but no matter what I will never give up until I cross that finish line - or I get taken away on a stretcher!

"...It never get any easier - you just go faster..."