A change in plans.

After my race in Miami, and looking forward the next few months, I was honest with my coach that I just don't have it in my to train for Eagleman. When it comes down to it, it's all about finding a balance. I enjoy triathlon. I love coaching and being part of the team I feel so lucky to have found in NYC. But I am not interested in the big weeks, the all-day weekend brick sessions and the 5am wake up calls.

From about mid June to late August, I will happily be spending more time in South Africa than NYC. I think for me, to train and focus on a few more short course races until that point is the best decision. So I have added two possible OLY races in June: Rev3 and the DC Tri. Rev3 is a challenging, hilly, team race, and DC is a hometown race where I can stay with my parents, perhaps race Elite and go all-in.

Depending when my work travel calms down, I will look to race a late season 70.3, most likely the new race in the Poconos. While in South Africa I can work on my swim and run base, and use September to get the biking in.

So that's the new plan.

I still do triathlons (sort of)

Last night I swam 2900. It was the longest swim since Clearwater and I was pleasantly surprised I was able to mentally stick through a killer race-pace set. I think running fitness really translates to my swim coming back faster than I think.

On that note, I am still a triathlete. While work travel will limit my race schedule the second half of 2011 ,I still have a few big items on the horizon.

• In a few weeks I will head to camp with the team, where I will do these things:

-Run 20 miles on a red dirt road
-Race a sprint and watch my super-star roommate tear it up in a draft-legal race.
-Swim lots of miles in a sweet pool.
-Ride 100 miles.

• Then I will run a marathon. Note, I said 'run' as I haven't yet decided if this will be a 'race.'
  

• Two weeks later, pending my recovery from marathon, I will attempt a HUGE OLY PR (10+ minutes - I'm aiming high ha) at the Nautica South Beach race in April. Then I will drink my face off and sit on the beach with 30 teammates for two days.

• Then I will be all in for Eagleman. This race took the wind out of my sails last year and was a nasty intro to 70.3 racing, but I have learned a lot, and am committed to not letting the race break me this year.

2011.

I'm still deep in off-season mode. And enjoying every second of it.

Looking ahead to 2011, I am not sure what the first half of the year will hold work travel-wise, other than: A LOT. I need to do research on getting myself a bike and a group to train with in Johannesburg. In the absence of all that being finalized, one think I know I can do in South Africa is run (on a treadmill).

So today, I entered the Cherry Blossom 10 Mile lottery. If I get in the lottery, and I am in town on April 3rd, I am super excited to make this an 'A' race for the spring, working on my fitness and my speed.


Then on Easter is a race that is on my bucket-list.
I was signed up for the half-marathon option when I hurt my hip in 2007/2008, and had to sit on the sidelines and cheer (which was an amazing experience). But is a good chance I will need to be in South Africa the week before/after this race this year.

The decision becomes, do I make the half-marathon an 'A' race for the spring (it's a super crowded course), or do I dream bigger and work on developing a real (injury free) base and run the course that this race is known (and named) for, all 56k of it. I would 100% run the ultra for experience, as I would not have a 'qualifying' time from a marathon in the past year and would thus, be seeded in the back of the crowd.