What to do for the rest of 2014
Many of you are aware that 2014 has been an unmitigated disaster for me from a health and racing standpoint. DNS'd this, DNF'd that, yadda, yadda, yadda. The whole year culminated in the Mont-Tremblant elevator fiasco last week. 
I'm certainly not in the clear from a health standpoint and my cardiologist is certainly going to want to further evaluate things once he hears the elevator story but assuming I get a healthy stamp of approval I need to do something this year. I need to complete something. The 0 for 5 just isn't sitting well with me.
I'm already registered for the Philly Marathon so that's option #1. I have never ran a standalone marathon so the challenge intrigues me as well as the glimmering thought I could BQ if I set my mind to it. Only 12 weeks to gear up for that.
Option #2 is to sign up for a 70.3 or two. The Austin 70.3 is in late-Oct but that race really sucks and I vowed to never do it again. Oilman is the week after that (first Sunday in November). It's a somewhat popular local HIM that shares part of the IMTX bike course. I've never done it because I have always done IMFL or IMAZ.
Option #3 is to not do anything and say F**k It for this year and plan to comeback with a vengeance in 2015 when I get to age up to 45-49. No IM's though as I'm done with those for at least a few years. I've trained for eight of them in the last five years and I can't take anymore five hour bike rides (especially in the warmer months) or 3000m swims.
Comments
BQ in your first marathon or PBs may not be good goals. Starting and finishing a fun race may be the best way to finish the year on a positive note.
I don't have any limitations. I have a follow-up with him on Tuesday but from what I know my heart is functioning 100% normally. Nevertheless, the blood pressure drops are occurring. I need to figure out what is causing this issue. The hot tub was certainly the trigger that caused the issue in Mont-Tremblant. I have no doubt about that. Spending 45 minutes in a hot tub given my situation was a dopey move. That stated, I have a hot tub in my backyard and spend that kind of time in it all the time and it's never been an issue.
I'm definitely more intrigued by the marathon. Different challenge. Something new in a different place. Brother and sister both doing it as well. BQ standard is 3:15 for M40-44. It's 3:25 for M45-49 but I don't turn 45 until a month after the Boston Marathon. If I'm reading the rules properly I can defer until 2016 and use the 3:25 standard for qualifying for 2016.
The problem with setting the marathon as you goals is that you might get sidelined with more medical issues. If that would be too hard to deal with mentally then don't risk it. On the other hand, 12 weeks is plenty of time to train for a marathon if you are still in pretty decent shape overall, and my experience doing focused run-only last year was really great. I think the gains in my run endured well into the 2014 tri season despite doing zero running for 8 weeks Jan-March. Although getting back on the bike was painful on October, I managed to rebuild my FTP right back to where I was before I stopped biking in June.
As for BQ being too aggressive a goal, who knows what's possible until you try. That said, one indicator is your current VDOT. Before I started training my VDOT suggested a marathon goal time. I took the approach that the marathon training wasn't to increase my VDOT but rather to facilitate running that VDOT at the marathon distance. In fact my VDOT went up by around 1 point during the training, but essentially what I expected was what happened...I trained myself to run my VDOT all the way up to the marathon distance (btw 5 weeks after the marathon I ran an identical VDOT in an open half-marathon so I am truly convinced the marathon training was all about putting "far" on top of "fast", EN-style). I did a very detailed post on training for my first marathon in the marathon forum so feel free to check it out.
Cheers,
Matt
Dude nice to finally shake your hand in Mont Tremblant. As for yourself moving forward, finalize your medical issues be aware, and put them in your rear view mirror. Time to take on new adventures you are. Marathoning is a differ ball game than IM'ing. My only advice pick the right marathon to fit your best running abilities.I use this website to figure out my marathons that fit me best ! See you in Boston one day !
http://www.findmymarathon.com/marathon-time-conversion.php
Matt, just read your marathon post from last year. Awesome! I downloaded the picture of the weekly volume and will go from there.
My Vdot is somewhere in the 45-47 range. Maybe a couple ticks lower right now as I haven't done any training since IMC while I sort out these medical issues. That puts my right at a BQ time assuming I can hold that Vdot for an entire marathon.
@ Robin, I've been eying that race actually. Not for this year but maybe 2016. Next year I want to finish a full ironman for the first time. But after that I want to try some new and different and really challenging things. The Leadman tri is one of those on the list. So is running an ultra. And maybe one day Norseman......................................