It’s race week again, and I am really looking forward to race in paradise: the Ironman Asia-Pacific Championship on Sunday, 16 June 2024, will be my 6th long distance triathlon, and my 3rd Ironman race in about one year after Ironman Philippines in Subic on 11 June 2023 and Ironman Western Australia in Busselton on 3 December 2023.

I had Ironman Cairns on my bucket list for a while but did not expect to sign up this year. The main reason that I kinda signed up on short notice about 3 weeks ago was the fact that I could not travel to the Philippines and race again in Subic as initially planned. I was then looking for good alternatives and did not have to search for a long time: Ironman Cairns would just happend a week after Ironman Philippines.

Since my training has been quite consistent in the last months, I did not hesitate much, so I registered for Cairns. This will actually be the 2nd time that I join the Ironman Asia-Pacific Championship, since my very first Ironman race in Mellbourne 2015 was also dubbed as the championship before it moved to Cairns in 2016.

The Ironman Asia-Pacific Championship will be my 6th long distance triathlon, and my 4th Ironman after Melbourne 2015, Subic 2023, and Busselton 2023.

Similar to last year, I did a quite intense bike training session a few weeks prior to the Ironman: I cycled from Ocean Shores to Forster where the first Ironman Australia took place about 40 years ago, totalling 598 kilometres in 3 days.

The week from May 20 – May 26, 2024 was pretty intensive in terms of cycling: with more than 37 hours total training time, I am pretty sure that this was my biggest week so far

This week boosted my fitness from 87 CTL to 101 CTL according to Trainingpeaks, and I have more or less maintained my fitness since. My fatigue level was also pretty high with about 150 ATL, so tapering in the last days was very important. Looking at my trainingplan on Trainingpeaks for the rest of this current week, I should end up with 110 CTL fitness and 25 TSB form, while my fatigue will be 121 ATL – fatigue would ideally a bit less, I suppose; but apart from that, pretty spot on, I would say!

I am pretty confident that the race will be a good one, and I will enjoy the event as much as possible. Some further specifics and “fun facts” about Ironman Cairns:

  • the swim will be in the beautiful Great Barrier Reef
  • the crocodiles ate all the sharks, so we don’t need to fear sharks, at least:P
  • the headwind going from Port Douglas back to Cairns Airport is pretty strong, so I am preparing for a tough last 70 kms on the bike
  • the race has been voted World’s Best IRONMAN in the 2022 Athlete Choice Awards
  • before it became Ironman Cairns, the Challenge Family had actually created “Challenge Cairns” back in 2011 (results here); the Ironman company bought the event company USM events and turned the race into “Ironman Cairns” in 2012.

Bea and I will fly from Gold Cost airport to Cairns tomorrow morning and stay around Trinity Beach for 3 nights, not far from T1 in Palm Cove. After that, we will visit the beautiful Daintree Rainforest and discover Port Douglas – just some more beautiful places “in paradise”.

Ironman CairnsTrainingpeaks
By Triathlon