They Call Me Seashell

When I first started blogging in 2006 and joined a network of running bloggers (Running Blog Family [RBF] in da house!)  I would find inspiration in their daily musings.  I guess because I started running in order to train for a marathon -  sort of the end all be all running races back then - I felt like an insider.  I got what they were saying even if they were faster or more advanced than I.  I was one of them.   They were like me. We were runners... we got it . *pops collar.  wipes dirt off of shoulder* It was then that I discovered triathlon and stumbled upon a new group of bloggers.  They were a group of not only triathletes, but a mix of Ironman veterans and Ironmen in training.  I was enamored with their ability to not only run a marathon, but to have run a marathon after riding 112 miles (on a bike!  At one time!) after swimming 2.4 miles (in open water!) before that.  What?  I mean Who. Do...

Those were the words that came over the soundsystem at Ironman Florida, November 3rd, 2012 at 11:06 PM. 16 hours and 6 minutes after I started my very first 140.6 mile race, I finished. I chronicled the journey, or more so the final weeks and days, at my blog Journey to Ironman Florida .  I am opening this blog to chronicle my journey to Ironman Wisconsin 2014.  I learned a lot about myself on the way to Florida.  I have fallen in love with the process of Ironman.  With the lifestyle.  What it gave me and what I give to it.  I never want this process of give and take, race and learn, to end. So why two years until my next?  I decided to give myself a year to focus on speed and trying a different form of training and then a year of solid Ironman training. 2012 was a long year of training for me.  I want some space to live and learn and go back and execute the distance again.  Better. This is the start of the next leg of my journey,...