Wow - two weeks to go and then we will be making our way to Exmoor for my first ever middle distance triathlon or the 70.3 Ironman triathlon race. As you might have read in previous posts I will be doing the "toughest 70.3 Ironman" in the world - cough cough. Scary!

Swim and bike training has been going well and feel that I'm prepared for these two, running that's a different story. I have been suffering from the beginning of the year with my right quad and have not been running a lot. I had MRI scans a couple of weeks ago and have been diagnosed with a prolapsed L4/L5 disc which causes pain and numbness in my quad area. The specialist has told me to rest from running for 6 weeks and I had an epidural injection last week in hospital. The 1/2 Ironman event will be after 5 weeks of running rest and as such will still be doing the Ironman 70.3 event, the spinal specialis thas advised me not to participate, I will even if I have to crawl over the finish line (remember Pain is Temporary and quitting lasts forever), however I might regret this later. My last run was 11.3K and dates from 12th of May.

In my mind I have started to prepare for the actual event, have been going through the online information several times. The entire setup is new to me, we need to plan for a Bike (=Blue) bag and a Run (=Red) bag and prepare a white bag for after the event with dry clothes. My bike will not contain my usual setup; we need to change into a separate area for both T1 and T2.

The swim scares me; it will be a mass start with 1500 participants. I'm looking at a 50 minutes swim time for 1900m. I have added a few minutes just incase I get knocked a few times. After this a hill run follows of 400m towardsT1 and we have been advised to take it easy here as we could use a lot of energy on this hill whilst going into transition.

The bike will be a killer, there is a total ascent of more than 1700m in 90K with a lot of technical turns and decents. I had a good practice weekend on the Isle of Wight with lots of little climbs but still managed to climb only around 1100m. I saw my average dropping to about 15 miles/hour whereas on similar distances this would be around 17 miles/hour.  Taking this average forward then I would get around in 3:40.

Last but not least - the run. This is going to be a hilly run with some technical parts built in. Based upon my Reading 1/2 Marathon experience from last year then this would take me just over 2 hours. I have not been running and after a 90K hill bike ride I'm not planning to go crazy and hopefully I can get around in 2:30. 

If my predictions are correct then I could pass the finish line just over 7 hours, but then again I really don't care how long it will take this is really to test myself and see how far I can take my body and how deep I can dig.

Nutrition, hmmm, what do I know about this, not much actually, there is just too much conflicting information available. In the beginning of the year I attended a seminar from someone from SIS. It was stated that during a 1/2 Ironman event your intake should be between 50 and 80mg of carbs. I'm going to aim for 70mg of carbs.

This breaks down as follows:

• Assume my race predictions are correct and the total event lasts 7 hours then I would need to consume 490g carbs in total. 

• During the swim I cannot take anything in, so that leaves 6 hours for 490mg or 81mg every hour.

• I will stick with SIS and TORQ, after all I have been training with this.

• One SIS gel of 60g contains 21g of carbs, one 70g TORQ bar contains 45g of carbs, 750ml of SIS Electrolyte contains 55g carb, 750ml SIS Energy contains 70g Carb.

Based upon this the following should be my nutrition plan:

• Hour 1: Swim - No nutrition

• Hour 2: Bar + Gel + SIS drink = 66g plus drink

• Hour 3: Bar + Gel + SIS drink = 66g plus drink

• Hour 4: 3 gels = 63g + SIS drink

• Hour 5: 3 gels = 63g + SIS drink

• Hour 6: 3 gels = 63g + Gatorade drink (supplied during race)

• Hour 7: 3 gels = 63g + Gatorade drink (supplied during race)

I guess that's all for now, will do a full write up after the event, till then happy racing.