Peak Training weeks

To start off I'd like to congratulate all my friends who competed at Ironman Wisconsin today:
Kristin (#103), Becca(#1899), Riley(#87), Blake(#10), Paul(#335), Mike(#211), and Christina (#230)-I'm sorry if I'm leaving anyone out...I swear I didn't know...so please comment below to inform me of how it went.

With 5 weeks to go until my Ironman, I'm preparing myself for a week and a half of ass-kicking training. This peak period is very important to any endurance athlete. It's the time of the year to see what your body can handle and to get in those last few key workouts before the taper hits. The peak is the culmination of your fitness. To this point the training has been hard, it has gone well on occasion and bad on others, but the peak is when everything should go right. It's the time to put into use all of the lessons that you have learned throughout the season of training because if you don't nail it during peak training, you won't nail it during Ironman.

My peak starts off in top gear: a 1.5hr run and 4500m swimming tomorrow, then right into a 6hr ride and a 3000 swim on Tuesday. Wednesday I use to recover and prepare for the rest of the week by spinning easy on the bike. Thursday I hit my longest training run at 2hrs and another 4500 in the pool. Friday is another recovery day (swimming) before another 6hr ride with a 30min transition run on Saturday...it's a big week and by the end of it I will have logged about 24 hours worth of training.

For the first time in about a month I'm really excited for training; this past week of recovery was needed so very badly. The end of Ironman training is in sight...Hawaii is almost here.