The Ironman 70.3 is a 1.9 kilometre swim, 90km bike ride followed by a 21.1km run.

It started with the swim leg in Lake Burley Griffin, a three lap ride through the nation's major iconic buildings and landmarks and a two lap run through downtown Canberra's parklands along the side of the lake.

Skafte-Zauss had been training for this event since April after he had challenged his son Alex to compete at the Ironman.

The average weekly six-day training regime consisted of swimming 3kms, riding 90kms and running 30kms.

The Hilldale man also participated in several leadup events locally and a bit further afield such as the Maitland Triathlon, Hunter Valley Gardens and Coffs Harbour half marathons as well as the inaugural Dungog Dash.

All of this effort paid off with a finish time of six hours six minutes for Wolf however to be beaten by Alex who finished in five hours 54 minutes.

"I was in a world of pain on the last 10 ks of the run, however finishing was what I wanted and I actually was nearly an hour quicker then I had set myself,” he said.

“I'm very happy with the result and the day and we had a fantastic support crew for the day as well.

The support crew included three friends from Sydney as well as his wife Carol.