So many ideas out there

Every time I post here I think to myself "next time I will post something quicker" but it has been almost a week since my last addition. Oh well.  Today was the last day of classes for the first semester and so we are officially halfway through the school year.  Today is also six months until the big Ironman Lake Placid (some call it "Ironman USA") race.  This is both exciting and scary; it seems very close and far at the same time- lots of training to do (which seems endless) and yet I keep feeling like there isn't enough time to get it all done.  Here is a graph of the last month of training that I have done.

I have been following the same routine: Monday- easy bike, Tuesday- easy run and a swim, Wednesday- bike intervals and a swim, Thursday- run intervals, Friday- rest day, Saturday- long bike, and Sunday- long run...repeat with a little more mileage.

Lately I have been getting sucked into reading and listening to different philosophies on how to train for an Ironman.  Many people follow the "far then fast" rule in which you build endurance until a couple of months before the race and then start speed work to gain speed.  Many people follow this and it works well.

However, there is another camp of thought from Endurance Nation that follows a  "fast then far" idea; they have their athletes do speed work in the winter which keeps their workouts short but with high intensity.  When spring rolls around they hit the roads to build their mileage up to the necessary length for the iron distance.  They make a pretty convincing argument with seemingly sound logic.

Where does this leave me? I am trying a little of both- I am staying at a respectable distance for this time of year but I am also keeping some speed work in my routine so that I can train at a decent speed and hopefully carry this momentum into the race.  Then again, so much depends on race execution but that is another story. Off to put the kids to bed...