July 8, 2008

Racing

So its already July and it's getting awful close to football season...AND the fall race series! The Florida State Championship Series in the fall is the main focus of my annual training and racing plan. The schedule for this year's series has changed somehwat, with a few new additons and one key race missing for me, Hanna Park here in Jacksonville. There are also a few races that I want to do before the series starts in September. Its hard to plan to do a lot of these races so most of the time I will do them if they fit into my schedule just right. After doing the bike leg of this Saturday's sprint triathlon in Ponte Vedra, the next race that I would like to do is either the Trail to Trail (mtn bike-road bike-mtn bike) race on August 3rd at Loyce Harp Park in Lakeland or the the Georgia Series XC race in Macon, Ga. From there I will do the Jacksonville Cycling Classic the weekend of August 9th, which is a downtown criterium on Saturday and a road race on Sunday. I may hit the next Trail to Trail race the following weekend at Santos Trails in Ocala, Aug 17. My last race before the the fall series will be the 8 Hours of Labor endurance race on 08/31 at San Felasco in Gainesville. I look forward to that race to see where my endurance is at and to kick start some fitness for the fall. I have done a couple of 6 hour races in the last few years and even though I totally suffer, I have experienced a decent bit of personal success.

The fall series, which I plan to do the whole thing for the 3rd year in a row, looks like this:
#1 09/14 Gainesville, FL (Haile's Trails)
#2 09/28 Fernandina Beach, FL (Ft. Clinch St Park)
#3 10/12 Tallahassee, FL (Tom Brown Park)
#4 10/26 Lithia, FL (Alafia River St Park)
#5 11/02 N. Miami, FL (Oleta River St Park)
#6 11/16 Alva, FL (Caloosahatchee Park)
#7 11/30 Alachua, FL (San Felasco Trails)
#8 12/14 Ocala, FL (Santos Trails)

Char and I also have a trip planned for the XTERRA National Championship on October 5th in Lake Tahoe. We plan to ride the course the 1st day, her race and then me ride the 2nd day, and then we are going to stay for a few days and hit more trails between there and Reno, which is where we will most likely stay.

So I have a full plate coming up but I hope to find that this year's hard training and the addition of coaching will soon pay off. If, for some reason, I don't fare better than last year's final standings (10th overall in expert), I may have to re-evaluate my focus and start looking into doing (possibly) some sprint triathlons, XTERRA off-road triathlons, and even some running (5K's, 10K's, marathon?)...

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