I have officially started the journey that I hope will find me hearing Mike Reilly call my name in Penticton, BC informing me that I've just become an ironman.  It has been a long circuitous road thus far: one fraught with many changes and challenges.  I'll get into those more some time down the road.  Right now it's about learning to trust my body again after numerous letdowns, the most recent being surgery on my right knee this past April to repair a torn miniscus.  My goals have evolved from dreams of qualifying for Kona to the reality that just finishing will be a victory for me...in fact getting to the starting line at all will be a victory.   You see I was supposed to do Ironman Wisconsin this year, that was of course until my right knee decided that I had other more pressing issues to attend to.  So nearly a year's worth of base building went straight down the tubes when we finally figured out I had a torn miniscus.  So far the knee is holding up and with the help of a village, I just might become an Ironman yet.