2011 Season

The 2011 season has arrived and the race schedule has been set.  I've set some pretty ambitious goals for this year.  This year I'm planning for 3 duathlons, a time trial event, a half marathon, and my first triathlon.  I'm also going to do a 4 mile race with Holly in June.  Since this will be my first full year I will be able to get my official USAT Ranking at the end of the year.  I'm also moving up to the 30-34 AG.  I've been checking out the rankings and results from the 2010 season and I think that I will do pretty well.  There's some pretty stiff competition though.  I'll really have to work on my run.  The average pace from my age group seems to be around 6:45-7:00 min.  

2011-the year of the run.  I hope to average 7:30/mile over the course of my 3 duathlons and finish the year at Bronda's with an average run pace of 7:00 across all 4 miles.  In August of last year I started adding on the miles pretty quickly and was running 7-9 on a regular basis.  This year I will be increasing that so that by August, the Hottest Half Marathon, I will have built up to 20 miles.  My goal for the Hottest Half is to complete the 13.1 mile course within 2 hours.  That's only a 9:09 pace.  Seems doable.  

One week after the Hottest Half will be my first triathlon.  It is a 350m pool swim, 13 mile bike ride, followed by a 5k run.  Our apartment has a pretty decent pool for laps and I'm not too far away from the Frisco Aquatic Center.  I plan on going up there on my off days and getting in a good pool workout.  

I'm pretty excited about this season.  So far I have the 6 USAT events planned plus the race in June with Holly.  I'm going to keep my eyes open for a race in May and maybe September or October.  

2011 Race Schedule

February 20 - Texas Motor Speedway Duathlon (State Championship Race)

April 3 - Fast & Furious Duathlon, Joe Pool Lake

June 3 - Dam Bike Time Trial, Joe Pool Lake

August 14 - Hottest Half Marathon, White Rock Lake

August 21 - Take on the Heat Triathlon, Lewisville Lake

November 13 - Bonda's Duathlon, Texas Motor Speedway

off season: what shouldn't have been

After the race in November I already had my next race scheduled for February 20, the Texas Motor Speedway Du.  It's basically the same as my first race, just colder.  Same location, same distance, new age group.  The USAT race age is based on your age as of 12/31/11.  Since I'll be hitting the big 3-0, that means moving into a new age group, 30-34.  I immediately started looking at the stats from that group in my race and in the nation and it looks pretty competitive.  I'm going to have my hands full this year.  I should really train this winter.

Holly and I went to SETX for Thanksgiving.  I brought my workout gear and planned on running every day while I was down there.  I woke up on Thanksgiving day and went out for my own 10k Turkey Trot.  That was the only time I ran while down there.  I made a goal for December that I would run 50 mi over the entire month.  Not an unreachable goal by any means.  I started on December 1.  I went out again on December 5.  That was the last time I went out until after Christmas.  I was lucky that I even hit 15 miles over those runs.  Now it's 2011 and my next race is 44 days away.  I didn't plan on an off-season but it crept up on me without me even realizing it.  I've got 6 weeks and a lot of miles to go.