As expected, after I finished Ironman North Carolina I was feeling quite restless and antsy to take on a new challenge. I've definitely been enjoying the slower pace of life now that I'm no longer in hardcore training mode, but as much as I longed for these days back in the summer when I was spending 6 hours of my Saturday on my bike, I always knew I wouldn't hang it up after the big race was over. (And then, you know, the big race ended up being only 5/6 of what it was supposed to be, so the Universe didn't give me much of a choice but to keep going). When I still thought it was going to go on as planned I really hadn't decided one way or another when or if I would do another one, but as soon as I found out about losing out on 56 miles of the bike course, I immediately started looking at options for next year. Ultimately I landed on Ironman Louisville, but October is a long way away - though it will surely come faster than it seems, if this past year was any indication - so there are a lot of races, stepping stones, and goals I've been tossing around in my head that will get me from here to IM Lou.
I signed up for IMNC in December last year and the race wasn't until October, so I am essentially on the same timeline for Round 2 as I was for the first one. At the time I was training for the Big Sur Marathon in April, but then I got injured in March and didn't run again until May, and I kept up cycling (or tried to) because I had my first century ride scheduled for May, but I ended up only being like half trained for that, and I didn't really swim very much until my official Ironman training started in June...and basically the whole thing felt very sporadic and lacking in any kind of linear path or direction.
It felt that way because it was that way, for about 50 different reasons, but it is my sincerest hope that a lot of the chaos I experienced in all aspects of life this past year will stabilize in a lot in the coming year, and that I will be able to focus on those 140.6 miles waiting me in October. And to that end, because ten months is a long time to be focused on one singular goal, I have tentatively planned a pretty full race calendar for the next year. I have lots of races planned throughout the year and a few different goals that I hope to be able to juggle, but I always want to keep Louisville in the back of my mind and know that everything I do this year goes into the IM Lou race day bank.
This is really just semantics that probably doesn't even make sense to anyone but me, but for the first part of last year IMNC seemed SO far away that it made me hesitant to call anything before my official 20-week training plan "Ironman training." And, honestly, it was really hard for me to get into Ironman training at first and to accept that this was a thing I was actually doing, so I still felt weird saying I was training for an Ironman. Looking back, I can see how that mindset really hurt me - I think I was just so afraid of the enormity of it all and to admit to even myself that yes, I was really tackling this huge thing - so this year, you know what, it's all Ironman training. From the 10 degree runs to the 100 degree bike rides. All of it. I just want to show up on race day being able to tell myself that I put everything I had this year into being my very best self on that day, and that I had goals all along the way and I tackled them and I can tackle the Ironman as well. This year, everything I do, I do it for IM Lou.
With that being said...as is the case every year, my winter and spring races and goals are definitely more running-oriented while my summer and fall races are more tri-oriented, and I'm okay with that. My plan is to keep up with swimming and biking as much as I can, but without putting a ton of pressure on myself. I know from last year's experience that I don't want to completely slack off on swimming and biking, but I also know from last year's experience that I don't have to train for them at Ironman level for the entire year. I have time, I just need to pace myself. Plus, I have some running goals I'm really itching to hit this spring, and that's where I want to shift the majority of my focus for the first few months of the year.
I knew shortly after finishing IMNC that I wanted to take a crack at a spring marathon, but I couldn't decide which one to run. I knew I could always run Shamrock again, but I also wanted to explore the idea of running a marathon in another state since I've run one in 3 states now and will be adding at least one more state in 2017 when I do IM Louisville. I looked at races all up and down the east coast before settling on the New Jersey Marathon in late April. The idea of Shamrock was still nagging at me, though, especially since I have a friend who is part of my group doing Louisville who has the same marathon PR as me and the same time goal as me. Since I can't say no to running moral support, I decided to do both. I now have two big races planned for the spring: the Shamrock Marathon in March and the New Jersey Marathon in April, but I have some others in the first few months of the year before I add in a lot more swimming and biking for Ironman training.
January and February
Even though I'm not local anymore, I plan on participating in a series of runs put on by a running club in Virginia Beach. There are 3 total, with each one increasing in distance as tune-up/training runs for both the Shamrock half and full. They're not exactly races, but they are timed, so they're effectively competitive training runs. I've completed the full series for the past two year, and they're a nice change of pace to train with a few hundred of my closest running friends. I'm not going to be able to make it down for the first one, the 10-miler, but I will be there for the 15-miler in late January and the 20-miler in late February! The 15-miler was one of my favorite runs all last year - it was somewhere I'd never run before (and didn't even know existed, honestly) and at first I thought I would get bored doing 3 5-mile loops, but with a gorgeous day and half of that time spent overlooking the ocean, I never seemed to have that problem!
March
The week before I run the Shamrock Marathon in March, I'm running the Rock n Roll DC Half Marathon. I ran this race in 2015 and, honestly, it wasn't the best introduction to the RnR series or to DC running. It was cold and rainy with very little shelter afterward and a long, bone-chilling wait for an Uber to get back to the hotel. I'm hoping for a much better experience this year, especially since I have convinced my cousin, who will be visiting from Charleston, and my co-worker to sign up for it as their first and second halfs, respectively.
Then it will be Shamrock weekend! Shamrock has been the race around which my calendar revolves ever since I ran it as my first half in 2012. Last year was my 5th consecutive year running it, and that was a big deal, but for some reason thinking that FIVE whole years will have passed in between this year and the first time I ran it seems even bigger. It's hard for me to believe this, but prior to IMNC it had been over 18 months since I had last run a full marathon, which was the longest gap I've had since I ran my first marathon. By the time Shamrock rolls around this year, it will have been two years since I last ran the full and, therefore, two years since I last ran a standalone marathon. I know there is a faster marathon in me somewhere, and sometimes I think a sub-4 marathon is totally attainable, but other times I look at my PR and think...woof, that's a lot of time to take off. It's been a long time since I've trained for a time-specific goal, though, so I'm kind of excited about that. This will be my 5th marathon (if you count the marathon at IMNC, which hello, you should) and my 3rd take on the Shamrock full!
April
George Washington Parkway Classic 10-Miler - April 22
New Jersey Marathon - April 30
May
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