Dent won the Sydney Harbour 10 kilometres in a time of 28 minutes and 38 seconds - his fastest time in a 10km road race - just 19 days out from the start of the Games.

The veteran will leave Canberra on July 21 to finalise preparations for his first Olympic appearance and he will arrive with winning form after a solid six weeks of training.

Dent blitzed his rivals by almost 30 seconds as he closes in on his Olympic dream.

''I've been training pretty hard, I did another 10km event in Launceston three weeks ago and ran pretty well there, too,'' Dent said.

''There's five weeks to go [before the Olympic marathon] so I have a bit of training to go.

''I'll stay with my normal training group in Canberra with a couple of hard weeks and then head over.

''A run [yesterday] was probably right for me, but you don't want to run too well too far out from the Games.''

The 32-year-old has been waiting all his running life for a shot at the Olympics and while he leaves for London in 12 days, he will have to wait a little longer before competing.

The men's marathon is one of the last events on the program in London with the race to be held on August 12.

But Dent isn't fazed by the thought of sitting by and watching everyone else compete. He will be based an hour outside of London in Tonbridge when he arrives before moving into the Olympic village at the start of the second week of the competition.

However, he will make a special trip to the Olympic precinct to go to the opening ceremony on July 27.

''I'll be a full-time athlete when I'm over there to get ready, which will be good,'' Dent said. ''We'll have two weeks in Tonbridge but we get to go to the opening ceremony, which will be a good experience.

''It's something I've been excited about for a while … extra little things keep popping up like flight details, the selection letter and things like that which have been happening.

''I just can't wait to get over there.''