So What’s Next

With an incredibly successful triathlon season behind me, I’m already looking at the 2018 season.  And it’s once again time to go big or go home. (No, I’m not doing a 140.6.  I am a retired marathoner.)

That’s right, in 2018, I’m headed back to the half distance and have registered for IM 70.3 Chattanooga!

I am really excited about this.  While I obviously had a great year this year racing olympic/international distance races, I found myself missing the pomp and circumstance of the 70.3.  I missed doing long bike rides.  While metric centuries are HARD, I still miss that distance.

The main reason I didn’t do a 70.3 this year was scheduling.  I couldn’t find one that fit in with my already planned schedule of life and work and vacation.  And that was starting to look like an issue for 2018 as well.  I’ve got a long planned trip to Europe in August, and I certainly don’t want to be worrying about training then, which meant I needed something earlier in the year.  I didn’t want to do a 70.3 in July because it’s stupidly hot.

I asked my Coeur teammates for advice on good 70.3 races earlier in the year, and there were a few recommendations, but Chattanooga kept popping up again and again, and even better, a number of my teammates are planning to race it!  I also have a number of friends who have done this race and enjoyed it, so things very quickly started to fall into place.  I asked my coach, who basically said “DOOOOO IT!” So that was an easy sell.

70.3 Chattanooga is on May 20, which is early, but not terribly so.  There will be plenty of open water opportunities in April and May.  I would like to get a triathlon in before the race, because I always joke that my first race of the year is mostly about remembering how to triathlete, so once 2018 schedules come out, I will be figuring that out (and will also accept recommendations).

This is going to mean a lot of winter training, and a lot of time on the trainer.  I think this should fit in well with the half marathons that I already have planned through the winter and spring.  Thankfully, I really like riding on the trainer, so this can only bring about good things.

And it also means that I can still race a bunch of Olympics next summer if I feel up to it.  Best of both worlds!

(We’ll see how I feel about this decision in a few months.)

 

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