This is the second in my Mallorca Daily blog series, DAY 1 was all about travelling out here, getting set up and registering for the race.

Day 2 has been pretty relaxed as you might guess.

I woke at 7:40am, jumped straight into my wetsuit and was in the sea by 07:58. Not a bad turn around if you ask me.

I wanted to get in the water around the same time as I will be starting the swim tomorrow, although not in the same place, I got a good idea of how the water will be tomorrow, the forecast is for similar weather, around 19c and little breeze at 8am.

As you can see, the sea was pretty calm.

The swim wasn’t much, just a gentle 20 minutes. This is the first time I have used the wetsuit and first open water swim since IRONMAN UK back in July. No issues to report. I saw some starfish on the ocean floor as I was swimming past, I thought that was pretty cool.

Once back in the hotel I washed off the wetsuit and put that outside to dry. I had breakfast in the hotel to save walking around looking for somewhere.

Nothing special, I just had some yoghurt with seeds, some danish… ok a lot of danish, a bowl of cereal and a few cups of coffee.

After that I went out on the bike for a look at the one big climb on tomorrow’s bike course. Last night I planned the route in Garmin from my hotel to the bike start and then follow the official bike route but I will turn back at 16-miles and head back home.

The part of the bike course I saw was so beautiful. You start off riding along the bay into Port de Pollenca then head up an 11-mile climb to Lluc.

I made saw to take plenty of photos whilst steady climbing to 1,732ft. I had planned on turning back at 16-miles but I felt good and was enjoying it so I continued until 20-miles just going past Coll de Femenia.

I had a quick stop at the famous Coll de Femenia sign along with all the banana skins. Then headed back down the way I came, but a damn sight faster than going up.

Once back at the hotel, I had a quick shower, put all the race number onto the bike and helmet and got my blue (bike) and red (run) bags packed ready for transition tomorrow. My slot for racking was until 4pm – 5pm but I figured I would go early and get it out of the way, grab some lunch and relax on the beach for the rest of the day.

I got to transition just before 2pm and it was virtually empty. I have dropped on really well with my rack position. This transition zone is huge with over 4,000 bikes, I clocked it at 0.5km long so finding your bike will be a challenge. One of the longest transition zones in the world!!

So I was expecting it to be tough to find my bike, but I have a spot right near the end of the racks at the half-way point. Here there is a traffic island with a directional sign, that sign is next to my bike so I can’t miss it, watch me lose the bike tomorrow now I have said that.

I even had the voice of Ironman Europe, Paul Kaye standing with me as I racked the bike. After a brief chat, he told me that there are over 1,000 athletes from the UK racing tomorrow, the UK makes up the biggest proportion of the field at over 25% with Spain coming in second at 18%.

As you can imagine with a field this large, finding your blue and red bags is going to be a challenge. This photo shows the first half, there are just as many behind me.

After sorting all the racking and bags off, I grabbed some lunch, Burger & Fries again and spent the next two hours lying in the sun on the beach, relaxing and resting the legs.

I have set out my swim gear ready to take with me in the morning, got all my bike and run nutrition out ready to pack on the bike and in the red bag in the morning, the bottles are mixed and in the fridge chilling ready to go on the bike. I am hoping there might be some ice at breakfast so I can cool them a little more, unfortunately, the freezer section of my room fridge is only large enough to fit a 500ml bottle.

Dinner tonight was pizza, garlic bread, and Sprite. This is the same meal I have had before every big race for the past two years. It hasn’t let me down yet and those carbs are needed tomorrow.  Although I don’t just rely on “carb loading” the night before a race, I make sure I have a high carb diet pretty much all of the race week, stay very well hydrated all week and get as much sleep as possible. Being a parent of a 3yr old daughter, the sleep part isn’t as easy to manage, that is down to her. Being out here by myself has meant that I did get a good 8hrs 40min last night and will be in bed early tonight.

Tomorrow I wake at 5:30am, swim 1.9km, cycle 57-miles and run 13.1-miles as hard as I can on the day. I hope to do better than I did at IRONMAN 70.3 STAFFORDSHIRE last year, but whatever happens, I want to cross this finish line knowing I gave it my best.