The Prelude to 2010 Iroman Challenge

It is 20 weeks out from IM New Zealand and then a further 22 days to IM Australia.

Yesterday was the IM Information afternoon for the members of the Squad who are expressing an interest in doing either IM NZ or IM Oz, or in my case both. It was a fabulous turn up and it was great to see all the partners there. The outline for the next 20 weeks looks something like this:

• For the next 4 weeks, focussing on our 'weakness' - In my case this would be a bit of swimming and I would also like to say core would also be a critical weakness which I believe is causing many of the latest niggles (or the lack of core strength)
• For the following 4 weeks it will be a 'bike' focus.
• Then it takes us into the 12 weeks out period.....where the tough stuff begins....time to pull the finger out and do away with the pitiful excuses NOT to train.
  

The last couple of weeks whilst being very frustrating has been very inspirational. Watching the World Champ athletes digging deep and realising all there hard training in fantastic results and then Scott's champion effort at Hawaii last week end was just eating at me to take this champaign even more 'professionally' than my previous champaigns give it a real go at quailifying for Hawaii in either IM NZ (which is my 'AA' race) and IM Oz.

Watching Hawaii for about 7 hours last sunday just gave me the drive to 'fire-up' for this campaign...take no prisoners and instead of working around 80%, in terms of attitude and seriousness to training, nutrition, recovery and mental training, I am very serious to take it to the next level and work at about 95-100% of my potential ability.
The things I really have to nail this time round is:

• Core strength
• Diet and nutrition ----> getting my weight down to 78kg by 8 weeks out (I am currently 86.6kg as of 19-10-09)
  
• Stretching
• Recovery
• Consistent training commitment
  

These are 5 most critical for achieving this 95-100% training potential!
The other areas I am keen to improve within this campaign is:

• Riding hills
• Overall speed
• Arm strength in the swim

Today I applied for my leave from work for the 2010 Ironman Challenge and had this time off approved. So now it is full steam ahead for booking accommodation, flights and paying for entry.

For the 2010 Ironman Challenge, I am again going the regularly update my blog with text, video and podcasts on my journey towards successfully completing the 2010 IM Challenge.

The BOMOAG for this campaign is this:

• IM NZ - go sub 10hr 20min
  
• IM OZ - go sub 12hrs