It's a long way to the top...

It is a little under 12months out from IM 4 which is going to be another assault on IM Australia on May 1, 2011 in Port MacQuarie.

Being a little under 12 months away allows the opportunity to prepare a lot better for achieving my goals in this race. The ultimate goal....qualifying for Hawaii.

The preparation has begun with a trip to Sally Garrard a sports nutritionist to refine my eating habits and to clarify what is an ideal race weight for this race. The goal being that I be at 80kg at the start of the 20 weeks out from IM.

Last night, was my visit to Sally. It was a bit daunting because I was dreading what was going to be said. Well I was anticipating what I was needing to cut out and improve upon within my diet. In fact to some extent I new what was going to be said. But in saying this and knowing the deficiencies in my eating habits, sometimes you need some one just to tell you from a health, professional and scientific perspective.

Basically like a training program it is a plan to follow to assist in achieving my goals within my IM events, something that I haven't really place a great deal of importance in the past and one that is in fact very important....To tell you the truth...yes it's time to get serious....yes...that's right I'm nearly 40 and thinking about getting even more serious about this IM racing....qualifying for Kona is becoming even more an obsession...in say that it is what i would call a controlled obsession.

Some thoughts and ideas that came out of my visit to the Sports Nutritionist:

• Need to control more portions a lot better.
• Reduce the amount of 'sugars' (the bad type) in my diet
• My race and training nutrition is just about spot on.
• Pre training nutrition needs a little more refining.
• Skin fold test...not bad...but not good either.
• Triceps skin fold was very impressive :-)
• Stomach line measurement is an issue...needs urgent work.
• We determined that a 'more' than realistic weight to be at for racing and training is no more then 80kg.
• Overall it was a positive and exciting experience, to think what would be possible if I get down to this weight.
• The eating plan kicks in on Monday...wooohooo.....could be interesting!!
• I have to keep a eating diary....no different to my blog really....shouldn't be a problem at all.

This is going to be a challenge but one that will assist me to achieve the goals throughout the coming season.....Just need to work on these injuries now.