Greetings from the shores of Lake Taupo

The race wheels are on, the powerbars are standing by, and Taupo is full of triathletes. Wandering around town I can't help smiling at the collection of hard bodies and flash gear. No doubt the local supermarkets have shipped in extra skim milk and powerbars.

It looks like we are going to have ideal conditions for race day. The lake is warm, so warm I bet that we are only a few degrees off having a no wetsuit race. The forecast is for some cloud, some sun and pleasant temperatures. The sun down here is very strong, so any cloud cover will be a welcome addition to race day.

Guess what race number they gave me? #111 - probably the closest I'll ever come to a #1 seeding! I always like to come up with an interpretation of my race number. This time I have - "Doing my best at every minute of each event." and "One stroke at a time, one crank at a time, one step at a time".

When you last heard from me, I was at the start of my build period for the race. While the roadies beat me around a bit, it was a good few days of hard cycling and I met some new friends. There is a lot of camaraderie at the back of the pack.

The rest of my build period went as planned. After recovering from the Tour, I managed 21 days of consistent training where, each week, I took myself right to the edge. There were a few injury scares and minor niggles. Fortunately, my body held together and the minor stayed minor. At the time there were a few sessions where I felt that I should have pushed harder. Looking back, however, I did all that I could manage and arrived at the other side intact.

A typical build week for me has been about 25 hours of training. Five swims (two open water), five rides and five runs.

The highlight of my swimming was improving my fly from awful to reasonable. As for my pool speed, I have no idea. My swim coach structures the sessions with strength work at the start. Being a little fatigued going into the main set, my splits tend to be a bit slow.