Quantity v. Quality?

When you are training for ironman, it's hard to know which is best- quantity of workouts or quality. It feels like you do a lot of workouts for the sheer quantity to make your body used to enduring extreme circumstances. The last few workouts I have done, I have felt like I was doing them for "quantity". I cycled yesterday for about an hour and 15 minutes and felt like I was doing it because I had to. (which is true since that is what my training program called for) This morning I was a bit late for the pool and swam about 2300 m again just because i had to. With my swimming, I feel Like i am wasting all the technique work I did all winter and spring but I guess that is normal- I can work on technique again next winter. Today I am going to run for a little over an hour.

It was interesting checking out the times of some friends who did Lake Placid ironman this past weekend. It is always interesting to see how different people define success. One of my friends had a very fast time so obviously he was "successful". Another one did it in a slower time of almost 15 hours but described it on his blog as his "most successful ironman experience." It could have been successful because he may have finished under advserse circumstances. I am trying to decide if I will do an ironman next year and, if so, which one. I really like Lake Placid and the fact that you can drive there. There maybe some people from PEI doing Wisconsin so I may cinsider that one.