South Africa showed real progress, but it also showed we weren't yet in Kona-qualifying shape. So the last three months have been about taking that apart properly rather than just training harder and hoping - and it's led us to lock in Ironman Japan in September as the actual qualification attempt.
Finding the real limiters
Rather than just looking at the finish time, we went back to Manchester for run lactate and VO2 max testing to see exactly where performance was leaking. The run wasn't a VO2 max problem - it was fractional utilisation, the percentage of that ceiling I can actually hold for marathon distance. Which matters because the back end of an Ironman marathon is a mechanical durability problem as much as a fitness one: thousands of eccentric steps on legs that have already done a swim and 180km of biking. The bike's limiter was volume and leg strength to push a gear, tied directly to raising that same ceiling. The swim came down to stroke rate and simply not swimming enough. Underneath all three: total training volume and consistency through the winter weren't where they needed to be - the fitness was real, I just couldn't hold the output for long enough.
The plan, in detail
Swim: stroke rate has already improved a lot since the start, but the target now is real volume - around 10km a week across three or four sessions, plus pre-swim activation work for a left-right imbalance the physio traced to an underactive left lat compensating through the upper traps.
Bike: my LT1 sits at 180-190W, with the target closer to 210W - which means raising the ceiling itself, currently around 270-280W, alongside more volume and a second aero fit with Matt Bottrill to bring the drag down further. An Ironman bike leg at that LT1 should land close to 4:50.
Run stays mostly untouched - it's already one of my strengths, so the plan is pickups and small maintenance rather than a rebuild. Strength work is leg-focused (deadlifts, squats, feeding straight into the bike) plus plyometrics and bounding for running economy. Heat training is deliberately held back until August, since building it alongside raising the bike ceiling at the same time would be too much at once - you can't load everything simultaneously and expect any of it to stick.
Total volume is stepping up from the 12-15 hours a week I'd been doing toward 20, now that work isn't competing for the hours the way it used to.
Are we actually closer?
Andy's honest answer: there are no guarantees, but the markers are moving the right way - swim and bike pace are both up, run heart rate is down for the same effort, which is real evidence of durability improving, not just fitness. I'm apparently the happiest I've been in training for a long time, which counts for something on its own.
Japan was chosen partly because the usual European qualifying races are brutally oversubscribed and competitive, and partly because the conditions - heat and humidity - actually suit where my training's been heading, coming straight off a hot European summer. A rolling course, a sea swim, not a fast day by the numbers, but a genuine test of applying everything, all day, rather than chasing a single number.
One month out from the start line as this comes out. Testing and talking about it doesn't get you there - showing up and executing on the day does. That's what's left now.
