Ask a handful of coaches how long it takes to train for Ironman, and you’ll get answers that span anywhere from 18 weeks to a year. Ask the athletes why they train for Ironman, and you’ll get more answers that can fit on this page.

I spend a lot of time on this blog looking in hindsight. Retrospecting. Because there is no surer way to valuate how far you’ve traveled, then to relate your current position to that of some starting point. On paper, it’s taken me nine months to train for Ironman. It’s taken me approximately 450 training hours, in fact, from the start of November 2006 through this week. That was about 65 hours of swimming in an endless routine of down-and-back, of which I lost count after the umpteenth lap. On the bike, it was somewhere around 200 hours of riding upwards of 3500 miles. And roughly 100 hours of running, over 700 miles in fact. There was a lot of weight-lifting, core-strengthening, cross-training and recovering thrown into the mix too.

Believe it or not, this wasn’t a year-long plan. No sir. In fact, I put the stake in the ground in 2004 that I would compete in Ironman Lake Placid in 2007. I’m sort of a long range planner. And with a great amount of patience, I kept my long-range goal to myself through a season of short-course triathlon racing in 2005. As I began to see good results, I moved to long-course racing in 2006, and announced my bid to toe the line in Lake Placid this coming week. A three-year progression. And though I always kept my focus on the near-term, you see, in the back of my mind it was always Ironman that mattered in the end.

Invariably, the most common question I’m asked (after, of course, the “how long are the distances in Ironman?” question) is: “why?” Well, the “why?” might just be the one thing that is unquantifiable. The power meter doesn’t help with the “why?” and the heart-rate monitor doesn’t yield any information either. There is no pace target, mile-marker, or split-time associated with the “why?” – no stopwatch, no pace clock. Yet the “why?” is ubiquitous. Omnipotent. And if pressed, I’d have to say that my own “why?” has been around since before I even learned to speak.

It’s the “why?” that set me on this path, that always gives me the desire to swim just one extra stroke. To kick just a bit harder on that final 400 at the track, or to push the wattage up and over my targets… If only for a split-second. Others can see it; when I lock eyes with them while out training in the middle of the dark winter days – they, in the warmth of their cars, I alone on the roads, grinding out a tempo – they identify immediately. Up and over the earth’s most magnificent features while on the bike, when the lone local comes driving around that bend - they see it. The “why?” is there, yet nebulous and indescribable. All that needs to be known about it, in fact, is that it’s there and it calls the heart it’s home.

I have my answers to “why?” just like so many others have theirs. And this post is my “good luck” and “congratulations” to all those who are doing Ironman this week for their causes; their own answers to “why?” The beauty of this event is the confluence of all our lives, and the resolution of all our trials in getting to this point. And to finally see if our “why?” is strong enough to push through 140.6 miles. My bet, is that it is.

Thanks for reading.