Planning my season

Having the wonderful opportunity to be a part of the wonderful teams that I am a part of comes with some great benefits.  But the cost of those benefits is usually a commitment on the athletes part.  And in my case, my commitment is to do a certain number of races during this race season, and represent these companies at my races.  And because the 2 marathons that I already ran this year took place before I was offered a position on any of these teams, I am in need of adding races to my calendar.

My goal race for the year is Ironman Arizona, taking place in November.  And since this is my goal race, I am going to be putting the majority of my focus on improving my Ironman performance.  Meaning my training will all be geared toward Ironman fitness, and ideally, so would any other races I do.  However, racing an Ironman comes with a pretty steep price tag.  And since I'm not a professional athlete, and I thinks it's a good idea to at least let me family eat twice a week, I probably shouldn't be spending an absurd amount of money on other races.

Another factor that comes into planning my race schedule is timing.  Since I don't work a Monday through Friday job, I don't have every weekend off.  In fact, because most races take place early in the morning, I can really only do races if they take place on my second day off.  So that limits my options quite drastically.

Fortunately for me, the teams that I am on are not very strict on the types of races I do.  They can be triathlons, 5k's, swimming events, cycling events, etc.  As long as they are considered "endurance" events, then it counts.  So at this point in time, I have a decently long list of races that both fit my schedule, and don't break bank.  The next step is to run it all by The Wife to make sure that there's no other scheduling conflicts.

To find my possible races, all I did was a simple Google search.  Maybe I missed something?  Let me know what races you have scheduled and maybe I'll add it to my list!  Once my schedule is finalized, I'll be posting it here, so you can find out where I'll be and you can track me down for some free samples!