So an innocuous e-mail from the UK 70.3 Ironman team asking if I would like to move my start wave forward to the leading pack led me to ask myself how much I wanted to race this and try for a better position within my Age Group. The upshot is after a realistic conversation with Gobi is, yeah, I moved it forward with a very real view to trying to qualify for the Ironman 70.3 World Championship in Canada on September 7th 2014. I need the perfect race, I need to lose more weight, I need to do a little more run training and a little bit of luck wouldn’t go a miss either!
To automatically qualify for the Worlds I need a top 6 finish in my Age Group (M40-44) as there are 6 slots available at this event for it, however in previous years the top 6 havent always taken up the option of this slot so this is where ‘Roll-Down’ happens. the quickest finishers are asked first and if they don’t want the slot (still have to pay) it’s moved onto the next finisher so on and so on, last year it went down to 16th place with a time of 6.02. I am targeting 5.35-5.45 and should see a top 12 finish from this, and with the Worlds not being in Vegas this year (its Austria next year, closer) I am going to assume it could be a done deal. Obviously a few things need to go my way, but its given me something else to race for!
My planning for this event hasn’t changed because of this, but it will encourage me to make sure I don’t miss sessions! I am off to Wimbleball (the event location) in May for a couple of days training with Gobi. This will give me a performance marker for the bike course and a race pace run effort off the bike will be a tell as well, this will be a Friday and Saturday, then Sunday I will be competing in the season’s first 50 mile TT which I know will be slightly compromised because of this but it’s the bigger picture now!
Never in a thousand years would I have thought I would be trying to do this, but I believe in my training, my passion and my ability Am I setting my goals to high with a view to being crushed if I fail to achieve them…some people will probably say that, but I have learn’t along the way that setting the bar too low means I get very little satisfaction from what I achieved, I have set my stall out and now lets just wait and see what happens, if anyone wants to laugh at me…a heavy bloke who can’t run very fast then so be it, but get on a bike and try to beat my arse!
So my constant question with will I give up long distance triathlon still rages on, I have even less idea about the answer now but this year could well be a very long year indeed.
TRI-ing Athlete 
Great post. With that focus I’m positive you will achieve it.