IM Wales build up

The final build up

took sunday off, went out on the bike monday afternoon .from the dock to tenby and back. Put full race kit on. Tri spoke with extra stans added.sorted out the water bottles . Going for the aero bottle off the tri bars and a double bottle cage off the saddle. Different machine with both the 808 and tri spoke on. Tested the co2 canisters and adapter.

The ride itself was okish. Started off with want changed into a 5 m tt then micro bursts. Went down the harbour then rode back quite steadily.called in to c fab at feel good ink.discussed race day tactics .wide open this one. The wind is currently forecast for 12 mile per hour from the east. Which will make the swim choppier. More chop the better as far as I am concerned. A difficult swim would suit me . Legs were firing ok but not amazing. Hope to get this taper right.

Feel pretty much fucked all the time. Hope its in my head. Went for a swim with claire in tenby tuesday night. She had already swam yesterday and wasn’t feeling too motivated. I felt ok in the water which seems to be my most consistent discipline . There were a few swimmers in the water and was rinsing all of them felt pretty good. Claire had given up swimming but watched me swim back from the mayors slip. I got out felt good, right up until the point where she said ‘ were you taking it easy on that leg ,you looked like you were going very slow’ a quick word from our motivational coach. Talk about deflated. Claire has no tact at all. No malice,just doesn’t think. Which is strange as a good athlete you would think she would be aware how a negative comment can affect someone. She wasn’t done yet either. I asked her if she had read the last part of this blog about the actual race in austria ,she said ‘no, I didn’t finish it, got bored half way through’ boom with the left ,right combo. Tactless ,insensitive, thoughtless…all of the above. Thats our kid.She is good company though and all in all a nice girl.

Went out for dinner then and it was nice in the village.

Wednesday. Working with mongo doing an installation at the colemans garage. Had a good chat to paul and jill .who I do like a lot. Paul cracks me up, perhaps the only person in pembs whose loves a controversial comment more than I do. Anyway a surprise at the end of the day when the mighty DJ turns up at the garage. I was a bit taken aback , didn’t know how to react. DJ and I have a big show down this weekend , we are fierce rivals but that ends with the racing. He’s a very good athlete and quite a laugh. So we chatted for a bit . The one thing that came out of the whole thing is I couldn’t get over how we both looked….we look ill to be honest. We both agreed a good race ,hopefully with no mechanicals or trouble could easily see us running down the red carpet together. DJ has had the better of me the last 2 IM .We shall see. Rest day anyway today and felt really tired. Think I am done with training now and will take the rest of the days off before the race. Which will be 4 straight days. Not sleeping too well for a host of reasons.

Thursday another shit nights sleep. Start carbing up today .not working today or tomorrow. do have a bit to do at the b and b and a bit of preparation to do.