Hi everyone, I have been back in Singapore for over a week now and am getting used to the heat again, or so I thought. Last Sunday was my final warm up race before the Ironman in Bintan in 3 weeks. It was hot, sooooooo hot.

First of all, I have to say, I am pretty happy with how it went. It was long, but not quite as long as the big race on 19th August. The swim was actually a bit longer than the half Ironman swim with 2.3k in East Coast Park in Singapore, followed by 42k cycling (much shorter than the real deal) and finally a 15k run (not that far off the half marathon part of the Ironman). I felt pretty good, but by the time I got to the run it was already 11am so it was starting to get really hot. The organisers did a fantastic job planting lots of water stops along the route, so I constantly splashed lots of ice cold water over my head.

My legs felt ok, so all the training is paying off. I have two more weeks of proper training to get through before I slow down in the final week leading up to the race. The slightly worrying part is that I will be out in the heat for at least 2 additional hours from what I had to do this Sunday, but I did it before so know I can do it again.

Oh, and if you would like to support my chosen charity EMpower there is a big fat donation button on the site, so don't let anyone stop you from helping at risk youth in emerging market economies fulfil their dreams of building a better future for themselves and their families. It will mean a lot to them.

Thank you so much for everyone's support. Until the next update....

Cheers

Oliver

Setting up my gear in the transition area. It was still early, around 6:45am, the moon was still shining up there and most people from later heats hadn't arrived yet. My heat was meant to start at 7:20am, but we go delayed by more than an hour as the tide hadn't come in yet (hmmm, I guess someone must have forgotten to do the homework and check what time the tide was meant to come in!!!).