Prediction time: a blog written last night...

So, I'm sat at the airport and, at the moment, I'm about as stressed as I've ever been about this whole Ironman malarey. The reason? Dubai sodding Airport. How I long for a time when I no longer have to pass through this graveyard of optimism and inferno of delayed dreams.

First up was check-in, where they informed me that my bike bag – in spite of containing far less than last time I flew with it – now weighed 29kgs. I took it aside, re-ordered some stuff and got the seat and some of the heavier accessories into my hand luggage. Excellent! Result? 29Kgs. Cost? 100 of your finest Euros, please. Oh, and a 100 dirham (20 Euro) airport 'handling fee'. My reaction? F$*k off!

After much now-embarrassing 'don't you know who I am'-ing, I was finally let through. Hurrah, I'd purposefully arrived at the airport early in order to chill out in the Irish Village with a beer in hand watching Spain v Portugal. I raced through security, slalommed down the never-ending escalator corridor, high-tailed it up many sets of stairs and hooned it down half the length of Terminal 1 to The IV. To discover they weren't showing the football.

Finally, I'm now sat, football-less, in the bar next door (it's a small protest to The IV not showing footie but, I feel, an important one) with that beer and can sit back and chill out for a couple of hours. It's a nice feeling even if the fact there's not free public wifi in every hotel and airport does wind me up a little; I probably won't get the chance to post this until Thursday now...

So, thoughts turn to my intentions and ambitions for Ironman Austria. I'd be lying if I said I hadn't totted up the best/worst combos of swim, bike, run and transition times just once or 96 times. But, I'm afraid, I'm going to have to leave both you and myself dangling on this one. My goals, my real ambitions are these:

1. Have fun and soak it all up
2. Ride and run with control
3. Get myself to 20k of the run in a position to keep running at a consistent pace, ideally getting as close as possible to a 4hr Ironman marathon

If I achieve these, I figure I'll achieve my biggest goal of all: I feel like I 'completed' Ironman Wales; I'd like to say I 'raced' Ironman Austria. Not at the front, not at the back, but to some extent I 'raced' it.

As I've said many times before too, I race well when I've a smile on my face and I revel in the atmosphere and other competitors. Why travel all that way and pay all that money if you're not going to enjoy it? At IMWales, I placed unrealistic time expectations on myself and enjoyed the experience less for it. That won't happen this time. A few months ago, I found myself starting to think up numbers but managed to stop that pretty quickly. At the end of the day, while I know the course and conditions will be far more advantageous and that I'm at a whole different level, my Ironman PB stands at 12.50 so I have to say that anything less than that is a result, right?

Hopefully it'll be a not insignificant chunk less, but that will be the outcome of smiling, sticking to the plan and revelling in the process (as well as the journey I've been on to even get to this point), not chasing the minutes.

On that note, I'm going to have another beer before boarding. Got to start the weekend on the right foot!