Why 10:30?

Why 10:30? Why not 10:45, or 10:15, or 11:00 as a target time for this race? Well, let's have a look at my previous performances. I've done 3 IM distance races now. First was The Longest Day in 2000, where I finished in 11:49 (I think). I can't remember my splits except that the swim was atrocious, something like 1.44. Fast forward to 2008 and I managed 11.34 for IMUK, with a much faster swim (1:20) a slow bike on a hilly and windy course (6:30) and a nice fast run (3:23). Transitions were slow, both of the order of ten minutes. Finally, in 2009 I went to Busselton without much training and managed a PB of 11:29, with splits of 1:21, 6:08 and 3:49, with faster transitions - T1 was 5:40 and T2 3:55. Looking at that last set of splits, the run time was very slow for me. I was really feeling the lack of training on the run, and given that I'd really done very little running apart from water running in the months leading up to the race it's hardly surprising that I was so slow. Since I did 3:23 on the hilly IMUK course I would expect to do at least 3:30 at IMWA when properly trained, even allowing a bit extra for wilting in the sun. My IMWA swim split was annoying: I got a bit beaten up at the start of the swim and basically forgot to keep my stroke nice. Still, being a little conservative I should face up to the fact that I am a lousy swimmer anyway, so let's keep a 1:20 estimate.

I rode the bike course very conservatively at Busselton because I knew I wasn't very fit and I wanted to save as much energy for the run as possible. I still came close to breaking six hours, though - what should I guess for a day when I'm actually properly fit? This is the difficult one to estimate because conditions can play a big part at Busselton, with the possibility of strong winds slowing everything down. Hmmm. I reckon that if I were properly trained and it wasn't too windy I should be able to manage a 5:30 bike split. Right. Put those together, add in 10 minutes for transition and you get 10:30. A difficult but not impossible target, and those are always the best ones.