William's "I'm now purposeless" thread...

William Jenks

Rich-

I just raced KS 70.3 and had a very, very good day.  10 minute PR for the course (4th time racing it), had a best time on every leg, and went 4:56.  (It's a relatively but not extraordinarily slow course...sort of like IMWI.)  But it wasn't good enough for the LV slot that I had hoped for.  There were a ton of legit super-fast dudes.  C'est la vie.  Honorable defeat.

My son Chris qualified for Boston a few weeks ago, and I am working with Patrick to get ready for Grandma's marathon on June 22 in Duluth to try to do the same, so we can run together next Spring... this is a definite "B" race for me, except for the big emotional-cool-family factor, which means it becomes an absolute priority for me to do it.

So where I am now is that I've blown a giant hole in the back end of my season.  6 months ago, my backup plan was to race Racine or Muncie to try again for a LV slot.  I am guessing that June 22 to July 21 for marathon to HIM to expect another A-level performance.  Looking at the old results, I think I could be competitive for a LV slot in Racine, but I'd have to have a very good day.

So this leaves me "purposeless" for the second half of the season with no goal races.  I'd hate to just be done in June.

When do you think is a reasonable calendar date for another race?  Steelhead is Aug 4, but that's a terrible weekend for my family.  It looks like that's the last IM branded 70.3 in the midwest for the year.  Branson is in September, which would be fine, and of course there are any number of "off-brand" races I could probably find.

Any thoughts you could give me would be more than welcome.

 

 

Paul Hough

Rev 3 Branson is the "wrong" brand if you want to go to Worlds, so I recommend Austin 70.3 in October. That will give you lots of time to recover from your marathon and train right for a shot at the IMMT 70.3 championship in 2014. I hear the roads are rough in Austin but the calendar works right for you if you go all out at Duluth.

William Jenks

I see there's a garbled sentence in there. I meant to say that June 22 to July 21 is probably too short of a gap between a marathon and an HIM to expect another A-level performance in the HIM.

William Jenks

@Paul - I'm aware that Rev3 is the wrong brand... Austin is a 14 hour drive. Realistically that means a flight...which I try to minimize to my absolute most important events. But I agree that the timing would be great.

Coach Rich

Are all of these races open? How late could you register? Considering that you're talking about a marathon in less than 2wks, I don't think that what you do/don't do, tri-wise, between now and the marathon will make much of a difference. I think you can wait until after the marathon to make the "what's next" call? If you do BQ in the marathon then, depending on if the Jenks vs Jenks Boston Death Match happens in '14 or '15, then I imagine you'll have another set of budget questions to consider?

Short answer, sit tight, run the marathon, see how that goes, then we can circle back to this. 

William Jenks

Rich-

Of course, during this two weeks, the whole game is recovery...has nothing to do with triathlons that would happen afterwards. The budget issue is 2014 (or 15...not sure what's up with Boston this year), but I can surely afford to go to a drivable race this year. I just don't like to drop the extra traveling coin for "routine" races. I make a decent living, but the vacation/play budget is finite.

Unlike the 50 yard swim race against the younger boy last year (whom I no longer could beat either), I'll concede the Boston Death Match to Chris...the more interesting thing would be if we could get a proper handicapping system. :-)

I guess the whole question comes up just because of the immediate reaction to racing and the results from yesterday. But I'm ok with putting the decision off until after the marathon. Makes sense. Thanks.

William Jenks

Hey Rich-

It's now 4 weeks post marathon, and I pretty much have my legs back, though I've lost some fitness. (Well, duh.) I've been keeping active mostly through swimming, though I have done some easy bike/running.

I am tentatively planning to do Boston in April 2014 and MtTrem 70.3 in late June. (The wife wants to go there, and the gap between that in late June and Boston in April seems doable.) I am guessing that qualifying for 70.3 championships in MT will be virtually impossible, given that Superman Cronk placed 6th there in 50-54 AG with a 4:50 this year and my PR is 4:48 on a flat course and 4:56 at KS.

Thus, I'll plan on another Fall event. Haven't decided yet whether to jump on IMOO again or another late season midwest half.


Given this plan, I'm now thinking that I'll spend the rest of my Fall just doing local sprints and Oly's, and probably a half marathon in Oct/Nov. Fairly low hassle and overhead, and maybe a chance to actually learn how to bike fast. I'd get to do a few races for fun and maybe not beat myself up too hard for what might be an aggressive first year in the 50-54 AG.

What do you think? Is this a reasonable plan for going into 2104? My other reasonable option for 2013 is to do Branson in late Sept or Austin in Late October...but the latter is a 13 hour drive or a flight...and that is a little less appealing.

Coach Rich

Yes, that sounds reasonable and doesn't really change if you decide to do IMWI. That is, this year I was putting the IMWI folks in the IM plan on June 17th, so you figure you could do your Boston --> June HIM thing and then drop into the IM plan in early July. You'll have plenty of time to then transition your HIM shape to IM shape.

That said, if you do decide to do IMWI, you're looking at a long '14, from a headspace perspective, given that you'll be training for and running Boston in April...but you already knew that :-)

William Jenks

Thanks.