Exclusive ..........Ironman suffers early loss in the battle of the bulge

With only 24 hours gone since the Ironman announces he is to focus on shifting 'the bulge', he has failed the first battle. When entertaining a client at lunchtime today, he felt it only polite to accompany his guest in digesting a plateful of chips.

This blog commits to keeping its readers up to date with the truth about the battle of the Bulge. Bigman is taking control of the catering arrangement for the Skye trip. A health pasta dish at Saucy Mary's Hostel on Friday evening will be followed by porridge for the breakfast with dried chewy bananas for food intake during the event.

Ironman has made mention of a fine 5 star restaurant called 'The Three Chimneys' which is located half way around the 95 mile course that he thinks is well worth a visit! Watch this blog to find out whether Bigman and Ironman stop for a three course lunch or do they feast on Tesco chewy bananas?

A chat with Craig at Hardies today confirmed that a compact chainring will help the Bigman on his climbs with limited impact on his speed on the flat. You would have to be doing over 40 miles per hour on a 34/12 to outpace the max cadence! Not much chance of this happening and it will be good to have some 'spare gears' commented the Bigman.

Ironman is packing the Stinger honey juice for sustenance on the Skye event. He is not one for the other gels which play havoc with his digestion. It is going to be a big climbing day and the team have set themselves the challenge of coming home in 6 hours 30 mins.

Tomorrow the guys are travelling up to Skye and so will have a rest day. They were out this afternoon for the 30 mile circuit of yesterday however agreed to keep the pace sensible and both spun on the small cog for most of the journey to keep the pace in check. It was a lovely summer afternoon although there were several stages where the flies were a bit of a pest and limited the conversation to avoid swallowing. Let's hope the midgies in Skye have not yet awoken from hiberbation!