A beautiful place to suffer!

This is how the Copenhagen Tourist Board describes the city:

Copenhagen's surrounding region is easy to reach and is packed with beautiful landscapes and cozy beach towns, historic castles and modern museums that all make for a perfect day trip.

My Copenhagen Visit

I intend to spend about 14 hours in close-up sightseeing of this wonderful city. The Ironman event starts with a 2 mile swim in the canal, continues with cycling 112 mile in the surrounding countryside, and finishes on foot with a marathon run as 4 laps of the historic city. 

Additional pressure is generated by the cut off times, which are:

• 2hrs 20 mins for the swim, 
• 9 hrs 30 mins for swim and bike, and
• 15hrs 45 mins to complete the whole event.

I boldly signed up for the event and immediately had a wobble given the enormity of the task. Reading the training and nutrition programmes has done nothing to calm my nerves. In August 2025 I shall be approaching my 63rd birthday! 

The one note of joy, to which I cling, is that to undertake the training and the event, you have to enjoy eating due to the large calorie intake required! TICK, I can do that, I have Olympian potential where eating is concerned :)

Training

The standard IronMan training programme is for regular triathletes, so I need to adapt it to suit my fitness level and age. 

The first stage is “training to train”: preparing the body and mind for 12-20 hours per week of swimming, cycling and running. 

Then there are 3 phases: (1) Base Training, approx 12 weeks, (2) Race Training, 4-6 weeks, (3) Taper Phase, 2-3 weeks. I plan to repeat both the Base and Race Training phases over the next 10 months.

During the year I shall also do a couple of short triathlons to familiarise myself with the event and transitions.

So, nothing to it really :) I will be posting regular updates on MayContainIron on Instagram and Twitter, so please follow my journey.