Post 001. Back to Origin. The 44-week road to Ogopogo. Origin.

Why this race, why now

In August 2023 I finished the Starvation Extreme Triathlon. I wrote about the last miles on the Origin blog at the time, sun-cooked and honest. It remains the hardest thing I have done in sport, and for three years I have mostly coasted on the memory of it. Meanwhile the job grew, the kids stayed gloriously demanding, and 225 lb happened one normal week at a time.

The Ogopogo Extreme Triathlon runs for the first time on Sep 5, 2027, in Penticton, BC. A first-year extreme race in one of triathlon's great towns, named for a lake monster. As comeback targets go, subtle it is not. That is the point. Small goals got negotiated away. This one cannot be.

Here is the day, from the official course pages. The swim is 3.8 km, two loops in Skaha Lake, starting at 5 am in the dark with lit buoys and a lighted swim buoy on every athlete. The bike is 183.4 km with 3,100 m of climbing, finishing up Apex Mountain at a ski resort. The run is 43 km of trail with 1,675 m of climbing. The clock gives you 19 hours. At 225 lb, gravity is not a detail in that math. Gravity is the main opponent, with the monster as a mascot.

Part one. The prep plan

Forty-four weeks sounds generous until you subtract school plays, work travel, winter viruses and two small humans who believe 5 am is a social hour. So the plan is built for the calendar I have: five to six real training slots a week, mostly before the house wakes, one long weekend session guarded like a board meeting.

Phase 1. Rebuild. Now to late Dec 2026

Become a person who trains again

Easy aerobic volume, strength twice a week, swim technique before swim fitness. Baseline tests in week one, repeated at Christmas. Success looks boring on purpose: six green weeks in a row and joints that still like me.

Phase 2. Build. Jan to Apr 2027

Raise the ceiling, drop the weight

Bike threshold work and run durability join the menu. Long ride grows toward five hours. This is where most of the 35 lb needs to leave, while training load is high but not yet race-specific. Checkpoint races and tests every six weeks.

Phase 3. Get specific. May to Jul 2027

Train for this course, not a generic one

Climbing repeats that mimic the Apex ascent, trail longs with vert, open-water swims in the cold and dark, and full fueling rehearsals at race grams per hour. Support crew practice included, since extreme tri is a team sport wearing a solo costume.

Phase 4. Peak and taper. Aug to Sep 5, 2027

Arrive tired in the right way, then freshen up

Two peak weeks, gear locked, nutrition locked, no new ideas after mid August. Travel to Penticton early, swim the lake in daylight first, then wait for a 5 am start in the dark like everyone else.

The weight plan, without theater

From 225 to 190 is 35 lb across about 44 weeks, roughly 0.8 lb a week on average. That pace should let training quality survive, which matters more than any single weigh-in. The numbers on the home page show where things stand, and the journal explains the blips, travel weeks, holidays and the odd birthday cake included.

Alcohol is out for the season. Not a moral stance, a logistics one. It costs sleep, and sleep is the scarcest resource in this house. If the experiment teaches anything surprising, good or bad, it goes in the notes with numbers attached.

Fueling long sessions stays aggressive on purpose. Cutting weight on rest days and under-fueling a five-hour ride are different sports, and only one of them ends in Penticton. Origin gels will feature heavily in testing once supply allows, disclosed every time, right here in the open.

The bot crew, and its limits

Four AI assistants handle the paperwork of this project. A planner builds the week around work and family. A morning brief reads sleep and load and can shrink the day. A fuel clerk does grams, bottles and weight trend math. An editor turns files and voice notes into a draft of these posts. Post 003 will show the actual setup, prompts and failure modes.

Two limits stay non-negotiable. First, I hold a human veto over every workout, no appeals. Second, bots never touch medical calls. Pain that changes a stride, illness, or anything cardiac goes to a human professional, full stop. The bots make consistency cheaper. They do not make me braver than my body allows.

Five checkpoints grade the whole thing

Swim. A threshold pace test each phase, same pool, same protocol. The dark Skaha swim rewards calm more than speed, but calm is easier with fitness in the bank.
Bike. A long climbing test and watts per kilo as the weight falls. On a 3,100 m course, the ratio is the race.
Run. A trail durability check, pace and heart rate late in a long run, plus the new running economy numbers once the chest strap joins testing.
Body. Weight trend against the 190 line, resting heart rate and sleep, reviewed weekly, judged monthly.
Life. Sessions completed as planned, family dinners kept, work delivered. A plan that wins Tuesday and loses the household fails.

The pass mark for season one is not a finish time. It is this. Show up in Penticton healthy, near 190 lb, with a crew that still likes me, and give the 19-hour clock a fair fight. Style points get awarded at home, by a panel of two small judges.

Part two. Garmin Forerunner 970, first look

Every number above needs a witness, so season one starts with new hardware. Garmin's Forerunner 970 launched in May 2025 as the top of the Forerunner line, at a US list price of $749.99. I bought this one. This is a first look, specs and setup questions today, logged verdict after 30 days. A quick orientation for non-watch people: this class of watch records GPS, heart rate, sleep and training load, then grades your recovery each morning like a tiny, judgmental coach.

Forerunner 970, maker specs that matter for this build
Item	Spec	Why it matters here
Display	1.4 inch AMOLED, 454 by 454, sapphire lens, titanium bezel	Readable in Colorado sun and on dark trails. Sapphire should shrug off support-crew chaos.
Battery	Up to 15 days smartwatch, 26 hrs GPS only, 23 hrs SatIQ, 21 hrs all systems with multi-band	The Ogopogo cutoff is 19 hrs. On paper the watch outlasts the race. Paper and mountains differ, so it gets logged.
Flashlight	Built-in LED, white and red modes	Made for 5 am dad miles and a dark T1. Red mode saves night vision and sleeping kids.
Running Economy, Step Speed Loss	New metrics, need the HRM 600 chest strap, $169.99 extra	Step Speed Loss estimates braking at foot strike. At 225 lb, braking is my whole personality. Worth testing.
Running Tolerance, readiness	Load guidance, training readiness, evening report	A second opinion for the morning brief bot. The human veto still wins ties.
Everyday kit	Speaker and mic for calls, ECG app, maps, 32 GB storage, 5 ATM water rating	Calls from the trailhead, maps above Penticton, and a swim rating the dark lake demands.

What looks right, on day one

The flashlight is not a gimmick at this address. Winter training in Denver starts and ends in darkness. A wrist light beats a headlamp for garage exits, leashes and icy sidewalks.
The screen jump serves tired eyes. Bigger, brighter numbers at hour five of a ride, read at a glance, no squinting into pace fields.
The metrics aim at my actual limiter. Heavy runners leak speed at foot strike. A metric that prices that leak, paired with weight loss, gives checkpoints three and four a shared scoreboard.

What needs proving, or gives pause

The real price is $919.98. The two headline metrics need the HRM 600 strap at $169.99. Reviews should quote the system, not the watch, and this one now does.
Smartwatch battery stepped back. Garmin lists 15 days, down from 23 on the older 965, the tax for the brighter screen and new hardware. Fine if GPS endurance holds, annoying if travel charging joins the routine.
26 GPS hours must survive settings. Multi-band tracking, maps, music and a bright screen all draw power. The day-30 review will publish drain per hour in race-like settings, because a dead watch at hour 15 above Penticton helps nobody.
Big wrists, honest test pending. Strap length, button feel with gloves and heart rate lock on cold mornings get judged after real weeks, not unboxing day.

First-look verdict. Race it? Not yet

Promising, and on probation. The 970 reads like a tool built for exactly this season: dark starts, long days, a heavy runner chasing efficiency. Tools earn trust in logs, not launches. Come back for post 004, thirty days of battery drains, sleep scores and economy numbers, where this watch either graduates to race-day lock or gets demoted to an expensive flashlight with opinions.

What happens next

Baseline week starts now. Post 002 will publish the ugly first numbers: swim, bike, run and scale, with no rounding in my favor. The numbers on the home page update with it. If you want the weekly note by email, join below. If you are also heavy, busy and quietly plotting a comeback, this journal is being written with you in the room.

Day one of 310. Back to Origin.

Sources checked Oct 2026. Official course facts, ogopogoextremetri.com. Watch specs, Garmin product listings via US retailers. Prices are US list at writing and move often.

What this post started

Each part of the plan is on the front page, with where the next evidence lands.

Alcohol fragments sleep and blocks REM.No alcohol for the season. Sleep, weight and mood get logged.
Losing weight slowly keeps more muscle.Roughly 0.8 lb a week. Today: 225 lb.
A busy calendar leaves enough time to train.Graded by the Life checkpoint.
The Forerunner 970 runs up to 26 hours on GPS.First look is out, full verdict after 30 days of logs.
AI can run the logistics of training and life.Four bots run the week, and I can veto any workout.