27 T-Shirts to Ironman

So... its be a while. In fact, its been a whole year since I last wrote a blog about my journey about becoming an Ironman. For those of you who don't know, it didn't happen as planned. Last year, about 3 weeks before I was scheduled to compete in the 2011 Ironman Canada, an unfortunate injury resulted in me having to postpone my race for a year. As it would turn out, I got a stress fracture in my right tibia, near the ball of my Ankle. The injury was painful enough that I could not run even a mile, which made the marathon portion of the race an unrealizable task.

12 months later, and I believe I have made a full recovery, both physical and physiological. Missing my goal last year was probably harder on me emotionally than it was on my bones. This was the first race I had missed in my 4 year triathlon journey, and it was the biggest race I had planed to be in. A visit from my dad during the 2 weeks I had scheduled to take off for the race for a much needed vacation put me back in perspective. Him showing up helped me more than I ever realized until just a few weeks ago, and is probably one of the only reasons I have been able to train as hard as I have this past year to get back to where I was. This is something that I will never be able to thank him enough for. If you are a Dad or planning to be one, take notes. If your my dad and reading this. Thank you for everything, you truly are the best.

Last year however isn't what this post is about. This post is about this year, and the next 27 days. Over the last 4 years, I have competed in 27 races that have all been in someway training for what is about to happen on August 26th, and I am about to relive each and every one of them on this blog. Some of the races have only been raced once, and one of them raced for 5 years straight. Each one has a separate story and learning experience that has helped me improve my performance and mental strength, to help me complete 140.6 miles of endurance racing. Oh, and each one comes with a t-shirt too.* So for the next 27 days, I will wear the accompanied swag to each race and write about it, reflecting on my experience while sharing it with you at the same time. If all goes to plan, on the 28th day, I will be sharing a new race story with you as well.

Links:

Ironman Canada website: www.ironman.ca
Stress Fractures: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stress_fracture

Footnotes:

*All races but 1 had t-shirts, and the one that didn't had socks.