2011 Race Schedule Explained

Here is what I have planned as of right now, with my 'A' or 'most important' races that I will focus the most of my training on being Ironman CDA and Hy-Vee Oly.  The other races really serve one of the following purposes:

- race simulation training
- fun
- experimenting in nutrition, strategy


Drake 1/2 Marathon - April 30th
Bluff Creek Olympic Tri - May 22nd
Dam to Dam 20K - June 4th
CDA Ironman - June 26th
Lifetime Fitness Oly Tri - July 9th (tentative)
RAGBRAI - July 23-26th - Iowa
Big Creek Oly Tri - August 14th
Pigman Half Ironman - August 21st
Hy-Vee Oly - September 4th
Des Moines Half/Full Marathon - Oct 16

I wanted to walk through the schedule a little more in-depth to explain why I chose these races, and the training changes that will occur over the season.

My 1st 'A' race of the season is Ironman Couer D' Alene, and has been the focus of my training over the past few months and will continue to ramp up until early mid June.  The Drake 1/2 will help gauge my current running training and allow me to open up a little bit and push the intensity as the majority of my runs have been in lower z2.  I will also test out running nutrition as far as water vs sports drink, gels, etc.   The next race, Bluff Creek Tri, will allow me the opportunity to dust off the cobwebs of triathlon racing, work on transitions, and reacquaint my body to the feeling of going from the swim -bike-running.   Finally Dam to Dam 20K race is something I've done about every year and will be more for fun and chalked up to a training day run.

Finally, IM CDA will be on the horizon which will mean no more racing and the taper will begin up until the June 26th race day!   Ironman racing usually requires 4-6 weeks of recovery for amateurs, depending on the individual which is why I have the Lifetime Fitness Tri as tentative.  This will probably be a 'week of the race' decision.  Less than 2 weeks off and then back to high intensity racing is a probably not a wise decision, but we'll see how recovery is going before completely putting off this race.

RAGBRAI is going to be more about fun and getting in some solid riding.  I am doing the 1st 3-4 days(which are the hilliest, and hardest) culminating with a century ride.  My primary focus is going to be Hy-Vee, but I need to maintain my higher volume running and swimming for Pigman.  I will also incorporate speed work during the week which should translate into positive results for the Olympic races.  The long rides in late July will pay dividends in bike fitness for the Pigman. 

I am not concerned about having Big Creek one week before the Pigman 1/2 because I'm confident I will be able to recover from that race pretty quickly and be ready for Pigman.  I'll have 2 weeks between the 1/2 and my 'A' race - Hy-Vee Oly which may be a little aggressive from a recovery standpoint.  I will have to take a look at my training/recovery data to see if doing Pigman is going to be an option this year.  I'm guessing with a high volume of training of swimming, biking, and running throughout the year that recovery should be fairly quick as long as I'm proactive about taking the right steps to a quick recovery.