This week i finally got around to getting my triathlon life sorted out. I joined up with BRAT again, then got my TriNSW licence and finally entered the Canberra Half-Ironman which is on in eight weeks. A Half-Ironman is a 1.9km swim, then a 90km bike ride followed by a half-marathon, so I’ll have my work cut out for me.

I entered this race in 2005 at the last minute, but I was only doing the swim that time as I was part of a team. The atmosphere was great and I decided there and then that one day I’d come back and do the whole thing. Given that my longest bike recent bike ride is 45km and my longest recent run is 12km I might have over-estimated my abilities, but my only aim is to finish so, with that in mind, I’ll be sticking to a relatively easy pace. Still, a relatively easy pace for almost 6 hours will still leave me exhausted!

Ideally I’d like to finish as far under six hours as possible, but it all depends on the bike leg. Canberra is a hilly course as triathlons go, so there’s a risk that my legs will be destroyed despite taking it relatively easy. The last triathlon I did was also in Canberra and, although its course omitted the hilly section, the 10km run after that ride was probably the worst physical thing I’ve done as my legs just never got into it and it was just pain the whole way.

My very tentative goals are:

• Swim: <30mins
• Bike: 3hrs
• Run: 2hrs

The swim is an easy target, but the others are just “pick a number” at this stage. I’ll revise those closer to the event.