I woke up to my alarm going off at 4am, I initially wondered why on earth I had set my alarm for that ungodly hour, hit snooze and rolled over, then it dawned on me – I had an important date with Ironman France!

I’d managed to take with me the same breakfast I’d eaten on many of my long training days so it felt comforting to know I wasn’t trying anything new – after a bowl of bircher muesli, a bagel and banana, and two espressos I was good to go.

It had been getting warmer and warmer since arriving in Nice, with the previous day being at least 30oC. As I walked down Promenade Des Anglais to the transition area, I could tell that we were all going to be in for a hot race day.

I had racked the night before, so just needed to make some last minute checks and place all my nutrition on my bike. Whilst racking the night before I had noticed that my front tyre was slightly flat, after pumping it up and monitoring the tyre pressure it looked like it was ok – however in...Read on..>

It doesn’t seem like 6 months since my first meeting with Coach Fi to discuss my training programme for my first Ironman. I remember us both sheltering from the cold on a dreary January evening, and me bombarding Fiona with hundreds of questions over a couple of cups of coffee, I just couldn’t wait to start my programme and now in the blink of an eye and several hundreds, if not thousand of km’s of swimming, cycling and running – IM France is imminent, I will be on the start line two weeks today!

A lot has happened in that blink of an eye, hilly sportives, a sprained ankle that took forever to heal, team road trips, V02 max testing, broken bike :-(, new bike :-), a love/hate relationship with aqua-running, physio sessions, a bike course recce weekend, team rides with bacon sandwich stops :-), team rides without bacon sandwich stops :-(, team swims followed by team talking nonsense at The White Horse, tentative runs along the towpath willing my ankle to heal … being part of...Read on..>