Ironman 70.3 Oman 2026: 11 week check-in
January 11, 2026I am now ~11 weeks into Ironman training, about 5 weeks out from the Ironman 70.3 Oman, and about a week out from TMM `26. Decent progress across all 3 sports, although the last month has seen a bunch of travel-induced breaks in the schedule.
I began making a Claude coach for my training, only to realise that its output was generally fragile and susceptible to large swings in performance reviews based on my prompts - very undesirable attributes in a coach. I also noticed significant drift in context when using one master chat for workout analysis and for building the webapp. More on this later, back to the progress update
Swim (5-6/10)
I am slightly more confident in the pool with freestyle than I was a month ago, which is great. My Z2/3 pace has come down to 3:00/ 100m, probably as good as it will get for this event. Three hurdles left:
- Swimming for 1.9K continuous - Dogfooding this by doing a 1.6K swim this evening. Not looking forward to this, it is brutally cold in Bangalore today and the pool isn’t temperature controlled
- Getting used to the wetsuit - My wetsuit arrived!! It’s super tight and fits just right, not a cm of wiggle room. I need to get used to swimming in a wetsuit, I will start incorporating this in weekly sessions
- Open water - This is what I’m most concerned about. When I went from a 25m pool to a 50m pool, there was considerable mental adaption required. I now know that openwater practice is critical. I just don’t know how/ where to get it. I don’t want to risk swimming in a lake in Bangalore, I might try something in Mumbai next week when I’m there for TMM `26
Overall, I feel like I’m a 5-6/10 in the Swim. Needs focused work to get to an 8/10 by Oman.
Bike (7/10)
Much better progress than Swim over the last month. Just yesterday I did a 2:30 ride (which both my Garmin and Zwift estimated wildly different distances for). My nutrition plan is starting to get dialed in, I am getting comfortable with long periods on the bike. A few hurdles to cross here:
- Hill climbs - Getting used to keeping consistent wattage on hills and not ruining my legs by surging is critical, something I haven’t been able to achieve
- Power discipline - I need to do more outdoor rides to see how I maintain power without watching it on my Zwift screen. I will do maybe 2-3 more outdoor rides in the weeks following TMM `26
Run (8/10)
Feeling good with running off the bike, I can Z2 maintain a 6:45 pace for up to 7km. One thing I’m not very excited about is sandbagging TMM `26 so as to not injure myself. Let's see how it goes.
Overall (6/10)
Feeling a strong 6/10 overall. Mainly need to focus on the swim, getting used to the new equipment, hill climbs and I think I’ll get there. Excited for Oman.
I am surprised by how much mental bandwidth, coordination and all-out training hours this takes. For the next one, I’m going to budget at least 6 months and working out a schedule that allows me to train once a day, with strength in the evening.