The up and coming
As I came out of my Tucson camp haze I was also starting to look at my upcoming race schedule, and one thing stood out in my thoughts: I didn’t want to wait until June to race! While I’m not feeling SUPER fit right now, I’m feeling fit enough - and perhaps more importantly, my mind is in a good place to toe the line. The schedule is a little complicated because I am heading to Noosa next week to crew for my TeamHPB athlete Briana in Ultraman…..but, I’m no stranger to traveling. I’ll pack the NUUN and my sleep mask, make sure some travel arrangements are easy when possible….and hopefully I come out of the zillion hours of travel unscathed :)
So, it will be a bit of a game time decision (#perk of being a pro) but as of right now I am planning to race Chattanooga 70.3 in a few weeks! If travel back from OZ ends up being a disaster, then I won’t head down south. But, it’s a good course for me and I know that when the itch to race happens, the best thing to do can be to scratch and see where you’re at.
After that, it’s back to the regularly scheduled programming that I had been planning: Eagleman 70.3, IM Copenhagen, IM Wisconsin, and the Big Savage Challenge at Savageman. I am also contemplating a trip to the southern hemisphere in July for Ecuador 70.3 - more as a bucket list race than anything else - but I might make that call after Chattanooga. We’ll see.
But yes - the stars have most definitely aligned and I will be racing my TWO FAVORITE IRONMAN COURSES in the same season!! Knowing I’ll be heading back to Copenhagen and Madison has me super pumped and ready to take on the long summer days in the humidity to get myself ready.
I'm also excited to tackle a "double" again this year - I think doing IM Wisconsin and the Big Savage Weekend (swim/run Friday, Olympic Saturday, 70.3 Sunday) will be quite tough but I have always loved to race Savageman and I'm excited to go back this year and race the 3 days for the prize money!
I also have already committed to my late season race for the season: I’ll be racing a 6-day stage race in November, the Trans-Pecos Ultra in Texas. This race looks like a once in a lifetime opportunity for sure, and with the ability to earn my last 6 UTMB points for the lottery*, I didn’t want to pass this up. This also conveniently frees my end of September through October for some trail adventures :)
For now it's keeping the blinders on and letting the process work itself out as I continue to find fitness!
* - UTMB changed their lottery policy and turns out I only need 10 points now instead of 15!! After racing the 110km in Spain and the Marin 50 miler, I will have 9…..ah! So, basically I could have skipped the entire thing racing Marin 2 weeks after Spain…sigh. But then I wouldn’t have had a great weekend with friends, running trails in a beautiful place, so, not really a loss at all.