2013 Tentative Race Schedule (Part 1)

Well I did this last year and only hit up one race before I deployed, so I hope that my batting average improves this year a little bit.  So I will break this down into a few parts, so I can see how it goes with my time this year, so without further ado, I present Part 1:

16 MARCH 2013 - The 35th Annual St. Patty's Day run in Aggieville (Manhattan, KS).  Wanted to do this one last year, but wanted to spend more time with my loving wife, so victory to the wife!  But this is a nice 10K that starts and ends in Aggieville, which is the area near K-State in Manhattan, so this will be a nice fun run I think.  Not going to do too much on this one, just get some fast miles in, and for $22 bucks, not too bad at all.  Just praying for a little nice weather, but not like I haven't run in cold, nasty weather (See Topeka to Auburn Half-Marathon from last year!)  So a sub 48-ish will be good for me, considering it looks a little hilly.

24 MARCH 2013 - The Dallas Rock n' Roll Half Marathon.  This will be a nice vacation race for me, guess they have some serious nice swag, plus I'll get a shot at PRing here, since it's my second half, it's flatter than T2A, and I doubt it will be as cold, so all these are in my favor to break 1:46:00, so hope so.  This year I am looking at racing while on vacation, only if the wife allows it, but I think it will be a good way to see Dallas while I'm at it, so hey, I'm a sucker for nice point-to-point races.  Pricing is a bit steep ($105), but I am making a last minute call to enter or not, but I think I'll have a nice base of miles for this, so we shall see!

13 APRIL 2013 - The Eisenhower Marathon in Abilene, KS.  Was going to run the marathon on this one, but I really wimped out big time, but going to run the Half-Marathon this year, and build to a marathon sometime next year.  I heard about this race when I visited "Ike's" boyhood home and museum early last year, so I thought that this would be a cool race to run, looks pretty flat (for Kansas) and will be a nice race, since I like the small town feel of the race.  And at $50 bones, you can't go wrong.  So this is going to be a must do, and depending on how fast I run the Dallas race, we'll see about how fast this one will be.

4 MAY 2013 - The CGSC / Fort Leavenworth / Leavenworth Sprint Triathlon.  Oh yeah, last time I did this, it was on a mountain bike, no swim training, and ok running, so it is time for a little payback to this race.  This time I'll be ready!  But this is the start to my tri season, going to make it a get away race as the wife and I will take a vacation to KC area for the weekend, race this on Saturday, and relax.  But going to debut my new helmet (not the boxy one I raced with last two years), my nice new 2XU trisuit (if it doesn't bug me in practice, but for 30 bucks, if I only use it once, then that's ok) and going to be in better shape this time!  Oh and I will be in a new AG, moved up to the 40-44 this year, which between 35-39, are the two most competitive AG, in my opinion.  But I am sure I'll do a ton better this year than my first go at this race.

19 MAY 2013 - The Kansas 5i50 triathlon in Lawrence, KS.  Going to give the longer Olympic distance a go too, in hopes to qualify for the Hyvee US Championships in Iowa later in the year.  But as this will only be my 2nd or 3rd (depends on who you ask) Oly, this will be good for me as I bridge towards longer races this year.  My Achilles heal is still swimming, but I am going to hit the pool and get some distance in as soon as I get back from the 'Stan, so I don't lose too much time in the water.  Like a bunch of folks say "You can win a triathlon in the water, but you can sure lose it", so going to work on not digging a huge hole during the swim this year.  But this race will also determine if I race the Tin Man as an Oly or a sprint, so we shall see!

9 JUNE 2013 - The Ironman Kansas 70.3 in Lawrence, KS.  Oh boy, this is going to be a big one for me.  This race is dependent on how well my swim is by then, because I would hate to waste 300 bucks just to have a crappy swim, and have to push the bike and run to make it respectable, so, this falls into the "we will see", but would like to do it for the experience alone, but that price is a bit steep, so we shall see.  Am thinking of doing the REV3 Branson in September, so that my be the way I'm going, but we'll see!

15 JUNE 2013 - The Topeka Tinman Long and short course (Sprint).  Well this will be my second Tinman (did the Tinman in Hawaii a few years back, bet the water is warmer there!), so again, this will depend on the 5i50 race, if I do ok and feel good for a Oly (long) course race, so this is a good one from what I hear from everyone, so I think this is a must do, even if I don't do the Ironman the week prior.  Crap I might not recover by the 15th!  But we will have to see.

Well this is my tentative schedule for the first "half" of the season for tris and other races.  I might jump into a few cycling races this year, but it will be all time dependent, since I don't have my USAC license, and I'll have to buy my USAT one once I get back, so always comes down to cold, hard cash!  But this year looks like I might be a busy guy, if I want to, and I've been itching to race for a while, so the races I did here don't count, since I start at the back and race to the front for practice.  But I'll be back with the 2nd half shortly.  If anyone has any suggestions on races I missed and should do, let me know, I'm game!

See ya'll later!

Well took me a year!

Well it took me almost an entire year to figure out how to post from over here in Afghanistan.  Yeah, because of being over here, the blogger site puts all the text into Dari, the native language (and Pashto too) over here, but figured it out, so I guess I will continue my "stories" and my trials and tribulations of training on here.

Well I didn't exactly slack off over here on the training thing, had my good months and had my bad ones, like a 100+ mile running month, followed by a 30 mile month, but as of late, I have been a man on a mission.  That mission is to pick up where I left off, and improve my times, the bad part, I couldn't work on my worse event, swimming over here.  But the secret weapon over here is that I have been training at altitude for the year.  Not sure if that will help over the year, but running at 4900 feet HAS to do something for me.

But in the next few days, I am going to lay out my race schedule, a'la last year, and since I raced more over here in Afghanistan than in the states, might do a quick recap of those races (some were kinda fun!)

And since I have been here too, I have logged ONE mile on a treadmill, and it drove me nuts!  So despite the dust, heat, mud, snow and rain, I choose to run outside, much nicer that way.  I mean, we have mountains all around us, it truly is beautiful as all get out here, but I do have to ride indoors, mainly because I don't have a bike here, but only get to about 15 miles before I go insane!  Can't wait to hit the wide open roads in Kansas soon!

But it's good to be back, and now that I have this whole language thing figured out, I'll be better at blogging here now!

Laters peeps!