11 days. A half-marathon PR in training. And now: decrease.

Last week was my final hard training week. Since Monday, I've been in the taper for Ironman Frankfurt. 11 days to go.

I closed out the weekend with a running interval session: 1h30m with 5 × 6 minutes at half-marathon pace. The plan was simple execution, no forcing. It went well. Better than expected. The session ended with a 10km PR of 39:38 and a half-marathon PR of 1:29:30. That kind of result at this point in the build gives you confidence when you need it most.

Now the waiting starts. Shorter sessions, less volume, letting the body recover without losing sharpness. That's the idea. Mentally it's a different challenge — when you only have a 30-minute swim on the schedule, you suddenly don't know what to do with the rest of your day. I know that feeling. It comes with the territory.

Frankfurt, June 28th

The goal is clear: finish under 9 hours. The math is straightforward — swim in 1:07, bike in 4:35 at an average of 235 watts, and run a marathon in 3:06 at 4:21 per kilometer. The gun goes off at 6:30am. I want to cross the finish line in Frankfurt around 3:30pm.

It's a demanding course. The heat will almost certainly make it a non-wetsuit swim, which slows everyone down in the water. The bike is 176 kilometers with 1,299 meters of elevation, including two cobblestone climbs — The Beast and Heartbreak Hill. Then a four-loop marathon along the Main river, in the hottest part of the day, around 30 degrees Celsius with little wind.

The past few months of training have been built specifically for these conditions. A race simulation earlier this month, a week of riding in the hilly Limburg region, and a lot of heat training. The legs know what's coming.

The fitness is there. Now it's about protecting it and executing Frankfurt exactly as planned.

Follow me on the Ironman Tracker App to follow along live on June 28th.