Jakarta. Amateur triathlete Abdoullah Mitiche, known by his nickname Doel, recently shared his training regime to the Jakarta Globe after qualifying for the 2017 Ironman 70.3 World Championship in Tennessee in September.

The annual international triathlon event features a combined race of swimming, cycling and running, measuring nearly 113 kilometers.

The 2017 World Championship only invites 3,000 qualified athletes selected from a pool of 130,000 earlier participants in 85 qualifying events across five continents.

"It's an honor to be one of them, representing Indonesia, the country which I call home," Doel said on Monday (31/07).

"I expect the race to be very competitive obviously, but I also feel very excited," he said.

Doel, actually an Algerian national, was chosen by Fitness First Indonesia to be part of its performance team, which comprises five top endurance athletes.

Beside actualizing his performance by exercising at least 11 hours per week, Doel is a full-time risk management consultant who has resided in Jakarta since 2013. Self discipline is one of the keys to his workout, he admitted when was asked how to manage life between the office and a world championship.

"Effective time management is also the key: squeezing workouts before and after work hours, or even in lunch break sometimes, commuting on foot whenever possible and training indoor is much less time-consuming than outdoors," he said.

"It is the fastest and safer way to optimize fitness and performance," he continued.

Doel said he always tries to focus on quality rather than quantity.

"With a full-time job, I don’t have the luxury of training 'quantity' that full-time athletes have anyways; luckily, 'quality' workouts are scientifically proven to be far more effective at improving fitness," the 35-year-old said.

Endurance events are typically physically challenging, but physical readiness is not enough to win races. According to Doel, mental strength is actually more important, especially when talking about pain management, or how to overcome physical discomfort during long and high intense movements.

"I consider mental training a key element to success in this sport. I’m mentally prepared to embrace and tolerate 'physical discomfort' and visualize crossing the finish line ahead when things get tough," he said.