Forced Selectivity...aka Sanity

I will admit it -- I am addicted to racing.  I usually forget how many races I've signed up for until I look at them in retrospect.  I think two years ago I did about 26 races that year, which averaged to a race every other weekend.  My name is Amanda, and I am a race-aholic.

This year, I have to be VERY careful about what races I do.  Each race has to have a purpose, otherwise it (1) sacrifices an opportunity to do a more important Ironman training workout, or (2) presents the opportunity for undue injury.  Example:  Tough Mudder is a no-go for this year, along with any other mud runs before Ironman.

That said, I'm finding it very challenging to sit on my hands and NOT submit every race registration that I find in the mailbox.  There are definitely benefits to racing, but they have to be at the right times and for the right reasons.  So casual 5Ks are gone in favor of training weekends and more sporadic tune-up races.

What is a tune-up race?  It's a race that helps you prepare for your BIG race by allowing you to test distances, pacing, nutrition, etc.  It's basically a run-through for your race.  This year, I'm using Ironman Syracuse 70.3 (a half-Iron distance race) in June as my tune-up race.  It's about a month before Ironman Lake Placid, so it will be a good opportunity to test my training and make any final tweaks before the big day.

So far, my race calendar looks like this:

• March - Shamrock Shuffle 5-miler (I allowed this for myself because it's 5 miles....so it's longer than a 5K).
• May - Charlton 5K, which is allowed because the next day is.....
• June - Tour de Cure 100-mile bike ride in the same weekend as the Charlton 5K.  (BTW, if you want to donate to my Tour de Cure effort, hint hint, wink wink, nudge nudge, you can do so at http://main.diabetes.org/goto/abarone).  And then later in the month, Ironman Syracuse 70.3.
• July - IRONMAN!

The other issue I'm facing is trying to NOT sign up for crazy difficult races right AFTER Ironman.  So I'm only allowing fun races that are shorter and won't wreck me if I'm not fully recovered.  Some of these are the Crystal Lake triathlon in August and the Lake George Olympic (NOT half-Iron) triathlon Labor Day weekend.

It is hard, but I am going to be smart this season and ask myself, "how does this help me for Ironman?" every time I consider an event.