This is already the end of my third training period, out of four...
  • Swimming
    Swimming went fairly OK, I can cope with the distance without slowing down much. I missed 2 sessions though, and only pushed up to 3km (3.5km planned).
  • Cycling
    I'm eventually progressing :) I've ridden up to 140km with 1400m ascent. Speed is also getting there with a 60km session at over 30km/h average speed. I've not been to spinning classes, though...
  • Running
    Running has not been great lately. I've been slightly injured at the beginning of the session, then never really picked up after that. I'm not pushing it very hard anyway, following the "train your weaknesses, race your strength" moto. Maybe I took that a bit too far... I need to pick up a bit of distance during next period.
Issues to be addressed:
  • Hypoglycemia struck me twice during this period. Once in the middle of a bike ascent, and once on a cycle+run back-to-back session, 15 minutes after the transition. It's not clear to me why the former happened. For the latter, I think the sudden pace change got me. I'll need to be careful at the beginning of the run and practice more on transitions.
    Rough energy expenditure estimations on an Ironman are the following: swim 1000Kcal, bike 5000Kcal, run 3000Kcal, total 9000Kcal (on top of the regular requirements). Even if you eat a 100Kcal gel every 30min, that's only 3200Kcal after 16 hours...
  • PowerGel will be available on the race. I gave up with those 2 years ago because they're sweet and sticky. I've started to eat them again recently as part of my tummy training.
  • I need to train in open water as well as practice the swim to bike transition.
  • Overall, I don't think I recover quickly, especially from the long rides.
There will be only 127 triathletes under 26 years old (out of 2700), so I'll be in the 5% youngest. Youngest: 19, average: 38, oldest: 70.

It's pretty tricky to guess your first Ironman finish time. If I manage to finish, it'll probably be in this range:
fastest: 12h45: 1h30 + 7h00 + 4h00 (+15min)
slowest: 16h00: 1h45 + 9h00 + 5h00 (+15min)

Ultra triathlon core training.