I’m not sure what happened this year, but life seems to go by so much faster nowadays, with a great deal of Ironman training to cram into each passing week, and I simply have not had the energy or time to update my Blog.

I’m heading to the Big Island again! I guess that I must be a glutton for punishment, or I have caught the Ironman ‘bug’ which compels me to train and compete at long distance events. I actually love all the training, especially when I can see improvement in ‘B’ races that I do for fun, or when I achieve a new Personal Best. I know that since I changed Coach earlier this year, and added weight training back into my schedule, I am fitter and stronger and less prone to injury than in previous years. I’ve changed my race chair position, thanks to input from Paralympian David Weir, and improved my race bike fit with the help of Chris at Draft Wheelchairs. At the moment, I’m fine-tuning my diet in favor of eating what my body tells me it needs, and fueling my workouts properly. My Coach is an advocate of ‘active recovery’ days, but I’m not afraid of dropping or changing workouts if I feel that my body is not recovering properly.

But it’s the mental side of things which I have struggled with just recently, compounded by some external events and personal struggles plus an injury, which has made me doubt myself and my abilities to finish the Ironman World Champs on my second attempt. The Chimp on my back is telling me that I haven’t done enough, that I should have pushed harder in workouts, lost some weight, got my new push gloves in time to improve my wheelchair technique, got more sponsors on board so that I didn’t struggle financially, slept better, eaten better…that I only have four more weeks to put it all right.

Then I smash out a ten minute PB in a Half Marathon race and I know everything is moving in the right direction, that all those hard weeks of training are leading me inextricably towards my third, and possibly my best, Ironman.