Hello

Well this could be the shortest blog in history. It's been set up in preperation for my assault on Ironman Florida in November 2008, problem is that as it stands I'm not in (ooops!!) which could make the title a bit of an embarrassment. Currently the race is full, people over in Florida for the race weekend could register initially and then entries went online at midday (6pm our time), 2mins later the entries closed as the race was full, I guess my computer wasn't quick enough. The hope now is for one of the 25 'first come first served' International slots which my fingers and toes are crossed for while my cheque races its way across the Atlantic to NAS (North American Sports) HQ.

So while I'm here and there's still hope I may as well write down a small bit about myself.

My name is Iain, I'm 37 (soon to be 38) and I live in North Devon, England with my long suffering girlfriend Michelle and my 13month old Springer Spaniel training partner Rosie (you'll read lots about her if this continues). We live in a tiny tiny house in a beautiful part of the country with off road trails, hills, beaches and all sorts of joyous terrain which is great for training. The IMUK 70.3 course is around 35miles from my front door.

I've been racing Triathlons for longer than I care to remember and have done many many Sprints, sometimes successfully, several Olympic Distance races, a few Half IM's and 4(ish) IM's. I'm pretty good at the short stuff, I've won a few local Sprint Tri's, but the further the distance goes up the worse I get and I'm yet to do a decent Ironman.

As this is all intended to (hopefully) spur me on to finally nail a race I'll ignore all the shorter races from the past and just tell my IM story of woe.

2003 - Ironman Austria - 59:24/5:49:17/4:08:51 = 10:57:32

2004 - The Longest Day (UK) - 1:03:40/5:50:46/4:16:50 = 11:11:16

2004 - Ironman Florida - 1:02:31/5:22:50/4:59:30 = 11:24:51

2005 - Ironman Florida - 1:01:50/5:12:43/ DNF!!!!!!

So what's the problem here I hear you ask. The problem is the run, the problem is the pacing and most importantly the problem is that I've never crossed the finish line with a smile on my face. The problem is that I should ideally be finishing between 9:30 and 10hrs yet I can't get close. My head tells me to accept the fact that I'm no Ironmna racer and enjoy the shorter stuff that I'm good at, but my heart tells me that I won't be happy until I can say I've crossed the line and given a race everything. I could cope with a finishing time slower than any I've done if I could turn around and say I've swam, biked and ran to the best of my ability so that's the target for 2008. Race Ironman Florida, swim properly, bike properly and finally, finally be able to run the run. That'll make me happy.

So there we go, that's a small bit about me, much more will (hopefully) follow as I find out my fate for IM Florida 2008 and see where my Triathlon life is going to take me. Hopefully it will give my training a bit of a kick start to as it's been a bit slack lately. Here's hoping.

Until next time.

Ciao ;)