Ironman Training Update....

It's been a very busy few months, lots of training and working. Winter is rapidly coming to Melbourne, both Saturday and Sunday I left the house at 7am for my morning ride and it was only 4 degrees. Brrrrrrrrrr.
I've started losing weight again, I recently started seeing a sport nutritionist, Alan at Recovery Sports, he has been a huge help with my recent weight loss. I plateaued in weight for about 8 months, I couldn't seem to budge off 187 pounds. I'm currently sitting around 181 pounds, 1 pound from my original weight loss goal I set for myself 3 years ago. To date I've lost 42 pounds.
My Ironman race weight goal will be about 172 pounds, so I still have some lard to lose.
My training schedule last week was a little on the insane side, 14 hours in total, 7 hours of that just over the weekend. By Sunday afternoon I was completely exhausted, the old legs were good and tired.
I'm following a pretty detailed training program that spans 9 months, each work out is broken down into different components, times and goals. Last weeks schedule went like this...

Monday
Swim - 45 min
Bike- 40min
Tuesday
Bike - 1hr 15min
Run - 45min
Wednesday
Swim - 45 min
Bike - 1hr
Thursday
Swim - 1hr
Run - 1hr 5min
Friday
Rest
Saturday
Bike - 2hr 30min
Followed immediately by...
Run - 45min
Sunday
Bike - 2hr 30min
followed immediately by....
Run - 1hr 10min

All my rides during the week are done either in the morning or evening on an indoor fluid trainer. I find that I get a extremely good work out on the trainer, it's nice being able to spin and watch a good movie at the same time.

A new addition has been added to my triathlon arsenal, I recently purchased an Orbea Ora Tri bike. It is an awesome ride, handles great, is very fast and extremely comfortable.

Some time ago I signed up for the Capricorn Resort Half Ironman. The race is held in Yeppon Queensland on August 15th. Almost the whole race is held on the Capricorn resort property, for the first time in a long time Cari is excited for one of my events, I think she will enjoy hanging out at a resort while I race. This half Ironman will be my fitness barometer for my Ironman event that will be in Dec. Some pics of the resort below that I found on the net.

This weekend is the first race of the season for the Chase the Sun MTB series, which is a mountain bike endurance race. This event is the first of 4 that will be held over the next few months. I've signed up for the solo male category and am really looking forward to spending the day on my very neglected mountain bike.

Steve (should be swimming and not typing) Dickinson