The rhythm of life for a full-time triathlete is exhaustingly simple: you swim, you bike, you run, you eat, you sleep, you swim, you bike, you run.

More important, you improve -- significantly. Edmonton's Paul Tichelaar sure has, zooming up to No. 5 in the International Triathlon Union World Cup rankings this year.

And if the minor downside of the daily triathlon treadmill is a bit of boredom for someone who's as smart as he is fit, well, you blog, you read, you listen to books on tape while you pedal.

And you keep your eyes on the prize: a berth on the Canadian team for the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.

After all, that's why Tichelaar, 25, put his budding career as an electrical engineer on hold this year, took a nine-month leave of absence and rented an apartment in Victoria to train full time under national team coach Joel Filliol.

"At the end of the year last year, things were looking pretty iffy for me making the Olympic team," Tichelaar said in a telephone interview this week. "So I decided I needed to take the time away from work and put everything I had into this last-ditch effort to make the team."

So far, so good. Tichelaar finished the 2007 season with a flourish, coming second behind 2000 Olympic gold medallist Simon Whitfield in the final ITU World Cup race in Cancun, Mexico.

Decamping to Victoria means Tichelaar isn't scheduling his workouts around the 30 hours a week he was working for Edmonton-based Magna IV Engineering.

So, instead of training about 15 hours a week, he's grinding away for 20-25 hours a week, measuring himself against fellow-Canadians Whitfield, Kyle Jones, Colin Jenkins and Brent McMahon. And getting impressive World Cup results.

Tichelaar posted a season-opening seventh-place finish at the Mooloolaba event in Australia on March 30 as well as a pair of sixth-place results: at New Plymouth, N.Z., on April 6 and Tongyeong, South Korea, on April 26.

"I've really got to another level this year," said Tichelaar.

"Every year for the last four years has been a breakthrough year for me," Tichelaar said.

"But now, I'm starting to get to the top of the sport. Before, they were big improvements, but now I'm ranked No. 5 in the world."

Tichelaar was ranked 105th in the world in 2005, but moved to 53rd in 2006 and was up to 19th by the end of last season.

Now, he has pulled himself into the elite among male triathletes, which is crucial to earning a spot on Canada's team for the Summer Olympics in Beijing from Aug. 8-24.

Under Triathlon Canada's selection criteria, athletes need to post a top-eight finish in a World Cup event, then replicate that at the ITU World Triathlon Championships in Vancouver from June 5-8 to punch their ticket to Beijing.

As well, ITU criteria stipulate that the top eight-ranked countries in the world will qualify for three quota spots in Beijing. Canada's men currently are ranked fifth, but they're in a dogfight with a handful of countries.

Tichelaar hopes to qualify outright with a top-eight finish in Vancouver.

"The bar is set quite high to make this Olympic team, it has been quite daunting," Tichelaar said. " I've had to raise my game to that level to even have a hope of qualifying.