Race season planning

This is my 15th season of participating in endurance events.  I started when my daughters were 7, 8, and 12, and now they're all in their 20s.  So yes I used to have to plan my race around spring breaks, etc.  I planned specific races every year, usually an 'A' race and some training races.

Some years I didn't get hardly any racing in, maybe 2 or 3, spending my time mostly training.  I've also been doing full IMs every year since 2006, sometimes twice a year.  You have to plan those well in advance.

Last year I decided to do a "race a month" to celebrate turning 50, and I had a blast doing it so I'm doing it again this year.  You can see all my races at http://www.athlinks.com/athletes/13335926 so you can see the big difference in # of races I've done recently. 

I love to run, like to bike, and well swimming and I get along well enough. So I do put a lot of running events into my schedule and that's OK by me. I also like to travel so I have several destination races planned.

So far my registered races for 2016 are:

1/23 Rain Run Half marathon - Completed in 1:54:48

2/28 Rock & Roll Marathon New Orleans, LA (first time visit)
3/13 Shamrock Run 15K Challenge, Portland with my daughter
3/20 Mercer Island Half Marathon (like the 5th time I've done this)
4/2 Go Long 10K to celebrate opening the new 520 bridge
4/9 Race 13.1 Memphis, TN (first time visit)
6/4 Ironman 70.3 Hawaii (on the big island, first time visit)
10/30 Ironman 70.3 Austin (first time racing there)
11/6 New York City Marathon (lottery, I hope I get in)

In recent years, I train 5-6 hours a week early season, up to 12-14 for "peak week" IM training.  Even my "most serious training" year I wouldn't go past about 16 hours a week.  My best IM was 11:53, most of my IMs are around 13 hours plus or minus a bit.  13:45 my last one, Boulder 2015. 

My best tri season came after a serious run at Boston qualifying (pun intended!), so this year I plan to focus early season on running with some cycling and swimming. I'd like to find an April or May triathlon before the 70.3 in June. I'll mostly likely have to travel for that since the triathlon season in Seattle area starts in very late May or early June.

It's my opinion that cutting out the overhead of training ends up making training so much easier. I have a bike trainer and treadmill at home, and my office is half a mile from where I swim.  So I can be very time efficient with regard to training. An hour run in the morning has about zero overhead if it's on my treadmill.  Drive to the gym, swim, shower, drive to work has the same near zero overhead.

I average about four triathlons per year.  Usually the same local races, so I plan my year around those.  The tri's are pretty well spread out in April, July, September and October.  My "A" race is also my first race of the year in April (St. Anthony's). I've got a twelve-week plan from here on BT that I'll be starting in the next week or so to prep for it.  

This year is the first time in about five years that I haven't done an off-season half marathon.  I've had some nagging injuries that have kept me from doing any long run training, so decided to just do some minimal running volume this winter and rest my legs and back a bit.

I've also fallen in love with swimming again and plan to do at least four masters swim meets during the year.  For a variety of reasons, these days I see myself transitioning from being just a triathlete, to a swimmer who does triathlons.

I should also mention that I'm a 62-year-old empty-nester with a spouse who has disparate interests, so I don't really have too many constraints on my time outside of work.  That being said, I'm a 'morning person' and do most of my training early so that also helps to minimize potential conflicts with work or family.

Mark

I plan to be in Austin.