You are an Ironman! These are the 4 words a lot of triathletes aspire to hear one day.

It is not just receiving the medal, or wearing the Ironman shirt afterwards, that makes those words so special, but the knowledge that you have achieved something significant that you can look back on with pride. It means that you were able to master the 3 distinct disciplines of the Ironman event (swim 3.8km, bike 180km and then run 42.2km).

This 5 part post will discuss these 3 disciplines as well as the most important and neglected 4th discipline of nutrition. Nutrition relates to your eating lifestyle months prior to the event and not just the supposed carbo-loading fallacy most athletes do the days prior to their event.

I hope you can learn from what I did right (as well as wrong) so your first Ironman will be a success.




Origins of Attempting Melbourne Ironman

After successfully completing Japan Ironman in Hokkaido in August 2013, I knew an Ironman event in 2014 was a definite possibility so I could improve on my time of 14:07:55. The Hokkaido course was rated as one of the most grueling in the world due to the mountainous terrain which was made more difficult due to the cold and torrential rain.

Luckily we learned that there was a very strong contingent of Filipinos doing Melbourne Ironman and that Princess from Sunrise Events somehow managed to get late entry slots for people from the Philippines. It was with joy and trepidation that Natasha and I signed up (and convinced our teammate David Richmond to have a go too).

The beauty of this spontaneous decision was that we only had 11 weeks to train and did not have to do it in the heat of summer. We were also fortunate that we had an excellent training base from 2013 and that we were still training and being mindful of what we ate and drank over the Christmas holiday period.

The next 4 posts will take you on my 11 week journey through training in Manila, discovering my Primed lifestyle, enjoying the sights of Melbourne and ultimately beating my Japan Ironman personal best by 2 hours and 26 minutes to become a 2 time Ironman.