Scheduled Races

Monument Avenue 10K, 3/28/09

Rumpass in Bumpass, 4/19/09

Kinetic Half Ironman, 5/9/09

The big race is the Half Ironman, held at Lake Anna State Park. That's a 1.2 mile swim, a 56 mile bike ride, and a 13.1 mile run. I expect it will take me about 6 and a half hours (it will take the winners less than 4).
I've never done a triathlon this long before - the longest I've done to date is an International (Olympic) distance, which was a 1500 meter swim, a 27 mile bike, and a 6.2 mile run - considerably shorter, though still plenty challenging for me! I trained all last summer for the Patriot's Half Ironman, scheduled in Jamestown for the first weekend in September, and a damn hurricane washed it out!

The Rumpass in Bumpass (based from a private campground on Lake Anna) is what's known as a "sprint" triathlon - a 750 meter swim, 12 mile bike, and a 3.1 mile run. This will be a good warm-up event for me, to get my confidence up and practice my transitions, especially with a wetsuit. I've done 6 sprint triathlons over the past 4 years, but only used a wetsuit once.

I'm doing the Monument Avenue 10K just because running with 35,000 people is too much fun to pass up. I also hope it will encourage me to do more running as part of my training plan. Running is my weakest event - my big body pounding on my frail knees and ankles causes me much pain, and I can't run more than once a week or so without risking injury. I don't like to run nearly as much as I like to bike. I like being a runner; I like having run; but in the moment I tend to dwell on all sorts of miserable thoughts. I guess that doesn't really make me much of a runner. That's why I took up triathlon in the first place.