Initial Blog Post.

I am in the middle of, hands down, my best triathlon season ever. I spent the winter months preparing for Ironman Lake Placid on July 24, 2011. Throughout my training process I was lacking a way to record my thoughts outside of my training log and I decided I will try to see how consistently I can blog for the remainder or the season and hopefully up until Ironman Lake Placid 2012. I will write a race report as soon as I get some time to sit down and put some thought into my response.
I started training for Placid in December 2010 without much of an idea of what was to come. The months were going slow and I was dreading the thought of competing without preparing myself over the course of an entire year. I kept exercising regularly and working on my swim technique while maintaining and improving my marathon fitness through March. I knew the Ironman marathon would be a challenge if I wasn't 100% prepared so I began transforming myself back into the runner I used to be in my xc days. It was back to repeat intervals, tempo runs, and for the first time ever, actually doing my long runs. I missed some of the long runs but managed to get a lot of quality running in despite the difficult winter in Buffalo, NY.
April brought bike ride after bike ride of torrential rain showers and it was difficult to get into the mindset of training on the bike, especially without having much success on the indoor trainer. One day in late April, everything changed and I believe I noticed that it was time to get the work done. Rusty brought up the idea of having a 180 mile week on the bike, culminating in a long ride through the hills of Warsaw, NY.  This week was significantly more than either of us had done on our Placid buildup and we took it on as a challenge and met it. This week of training showed me that it wasn't too bad to be on the bike that long and I developed a new motto, "It can hurt now, or it can hurt in Placid." This was all the motivation I needed to begin the most focused and intensive training I have ever put myself through.
The momentum of April carried into May and then into June where I had a month I still cannot believe I completed. I contribute most of my Ironman race day success to the month of June where I began swimming regularly again, rode 850 miles, and ran 136 miles. This month showed me that I could handle a ton of training volume and still remain strong. I had a great A Tri in the Buff one week after my peak buildup week, where I PRed in 2:10.
I began to shut things down and started a very specific taper to prepare for Placid. I bounced ideas of taper around with Coach Grant and read a few articles then sat down and wrote up a 4 week decrease in volume that I hoped would maintain my speed and fitness. I finished my taper and headed to race in Placid. The race report can be found in my next post.
I hope I find enjoyment in writing about my path and that someone will take something from following. If nothing else, I can look back and review my journey and see my progress.

Remainder of 2011 Race Schedule:
8/6/2011 - Wilson Wet N Wild.
8/13/2011 - Summer Sizzler Sprint.
8/21/2011 - East Aurora Road Race Category 5 - First road race.
8/27/2011 - Tri Dunkirk Intermediate F1.
9/18/2011 - Ironman Syracuse 70.3.
9/24/2011 - Nickel City Intermediate.
9/25/2011 - Akron TT.
10/2/2011 - Wineglass Marathon.
11/26/2011 - YMCA Turkey Trot.
6/5/2012 - Ironman 70.3 Mooseman.
or
6/30/2012 - Tupper Lake Tinman.

7/22/2012 - Ironman Lake Placid.