I’ve been undecided for ages about my race schedule for the year. 2011 was a massive year, with races and challenges throughout the year – two Ironman races, Lands End to John O’Groats cycling, a cycling holiday in Ireland, a marathon. This year I have two races in the diary – Ironman Mallorca 70.3 in May and my main race, Challenge Roth, on 8th July. Both fantastic races, which I’m really looking forward to, but I wanted to put more into the diary and make it a more ‘exciting’ year.
I considered a lot of races:
Ironman Lanzarote is only a week after Ironman Mallorca 70.3. It is probably a bit too close to race properly. Still tempting though. The deciding factor on this was my current run ability, or lack of, so that ruled Lanzarote out.
Ironman Regensburg is in June, about 4 weeks before Roth. Given that Roth is my A race, I thought this race might be too close. A good early season Ironman though – something to think about in future years?
Ironman UK was two weeks after Roth. I really enjoyed UK last year and want to do it again. Was it really possible to do both events? Probably not, so I ruled that one out. Had it been a week later I might have been more tempted.
I did Ironman Wales last year, and whilst being the toughest race I have ever done, it was strangely enjoyable (in hindsight!). Last year the gap between the two (UK & Wales) was 6 weeks – not short enough between the two to continue to rest after UK, but not long enough to really build up training and fitness. This year it would be 10 weeks after Roth. Much better and pretty tempting.
I also looked at Challenge Henley. The 2011 race had some good reviews. Similar timescales between Roth & IM Wales so ideal for building fitness between races.
I then considered doing Olympic distance events after Roth. Try out the shorter races and see if I was more suited to them. Maybe finish the season with the Liverpool Marathon?
And then there were the races abroad. Being mid-September, both Wales and Henley were run in less than ideal weather conditions in 2011. Ideally, I’d like to race somewhere a little warmer.
I looked at Ironman Louisville at the end of August and Ironman Cozumel at the end of November. Both with spaces and both very tempting.
I then looked at Challenge Barcelona at the end of September. It is 12 weeks after Challenge Roth so should enable me to recover properly from that race, have a little downtime and then pick the training back up for a second Ironman. The course is flat. It should be warm. It is very close and easy to get to. For a race abroad, costs should be quite low. It pretty much ticked all the boxes for me.
Once Lynn was on board - didn’t really take much convincing - I entered the race. Challenge Barcelona here we come!
2012 just got very interesting!
