Drafting – My 2008 Race Schedule

It is with great fanfare (ok, so perhaps no fanfare) that I present my 2008 schedule.  Well a draft of it anyway’s.  I started with a list of some 32 ‘potential events’.  Many of them collected from various sources over the past year, from expo’s to other blogger’s race reports.  All of them were ‘interesting’ enough to be kept in a big list I have – so we’re not just talking about a collection of every race I’ve ever heard of.  No sir, these are quality events.

I then prioritized them according to a set of semi-random parameters and requirements.  Like any true project management task, I decided against actually formalizing the requirements and instead pulled them out of my…uhm…air. This got rid of the vast majority of them.  For example, the National Half-Marathon conflicts with Oceanside: Oceanside wins.  The Seafair Tri was 7 days prior to Vineman (70.3): Vineman wins.  Some events didn’t justify the travel costs, and others just didn’t seem to fit into my overall Ironman training schedule.  Meaning, I couldn’t very well do a century ride on the same day as an Oly tri.

My schedule can basically be divided up into three chunks:

1. Season Warm-up: This includes Oceanside & Wildflower, and probably a few local running races in the DC area – such as the GW Parkway Classic (10 Miler).  It may also include an Olympic race down in Florida, which is also the Alcatraz qualifier. These races are both fun and meant to get early season kinks worked out.
2. Build and Ironman: This starts with directly after Wildflower and includes an Olympic Tri in Philly and then a 70.3 in Vineman, finally culminating in the pinnacle of the season with Ironman Canada.  There is a logical progression here with specific periodic cycles and build points.  These races are essentially a series of tune up and build races. I’m also planning on taking a short diversion from one of my usual Seattle trips up to Penticton to ride the Ironman Canada course on some weekend. It’s only a few hours drive from Seattle and seems like it would be worthwhile.  I’ll probably do this in late May.
3. Post-Ironman Fun: These races are a variety fall races that look/are fun – or keep the fun going into late fall.  This includes either the Pacific Groove Triathlon in Monterrey (which has an incredible looking course) or the Annapolis Tri.  It also includes the Nation’s Tri, the Army 10 Miler and from a running perspective culminates in the New York Marathon.  Because I know I’ll be dying to keep the tri season going that time of year, I’ve included the Treasure Island Tri out in San Fran mid-November.

I’m super-psyched about next year.  I think the combination of races I have lined up will be a blast.  I’m of course still fine tuning it and working out the kinks – so if you have any suggestions I’m way open to tweakage.  I’m also interested in any comments on Wildflower regarding either short or long course.  In some ways I think doing the short course will make the weekend more enjoyable (less stress) – but the long course may be better training wise.

Oh, and in case your wondering how on earth I can manage to spend money on this much travel…miles/points are your friends.  I travel a fair bit for work, so I’ve got a ton of miles and hotel points I can use – saving Mr. Dollar for the race fees (which would be no different if they were local races).

So, without further babbling, here’s the lineup. Some dates may be +/- a day if the exact 2008 date hasn’t been announced yet:

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