I'm in. Ironman Germany 2008

It's official. I just entered Ironman Germany today. I hope I can pull everything together over the next 12 months and achieve a new PB.
As I have said previously I'll start concentrating on doing single sport focus periods between now and Christmas. The first being the swim. The carrot is now dangling in front of me and I'm psyched up to start focusing on improving my swimming, cycling and running over the next 12 months.
My foot problems have been improving and I'll start to slowly build up my bike volume again, while I'm concentrating on my swimming. Once I have my swimming where I want it, the plan is to then do a big cycling block followed by a consistent period of high frequency running before I start my IM specific preps.

I think the key for me to aim for a PB next year is to do these periods of one sport at a time and get myself into all time best shape in that particular sport. This will mean doing more volume in each sport and then once I'm satisfied with that sport I will then drop back the volume back into my regular IM training hours.
For example, over the next 2-3 months I want to slowly increase my swimming from a regular 8-10km PW up to 20km PW while I'm not running. Once I'm consistently swimming around 20km PW I think I should see some big gains in the water. Once I have those gains established I'll slowly reduce my swimming back down to 8-12km PW and then I'll start my bike focus for the following 3-4 months. I usually average around 10hrs PW on the bike but during the bike focus I want to slowly build this up to around 15-20hrs PW. Once again once I have my bike fitness established I'll then drop the volume back down to around 10-15hrs PW and then start my run focus. The plan is to run as frequently as possible with the aim of building up to around 6-8hrs PW. I'll do this for another 2-3 months and then drop the volume back down to around 5-6 hrs PW as I enter my IM specific preps.

I'll try to keep updating my blogger every Wednesday and Sunday for anyone that might be interested in following my progress.

If you have any questions about IM training please feel free to post on here or email at anytime. I love talking about this stuff.

Fluro