2012 Goals & Races

Yes, I'm late jumping on the bandwagon.  I've had my thumb up my butt been refining the list for several weeks now to be sure I want to put that out there.  I've also been planning the races, some I want to do again and some new ones to try.  The 2012 Races gadget on the left will always have an up to date race list with the ones that are definitely on the schedule.

Goals:
1. Time Goals:

• 5k under 20 minutes
• 10k under 42 minutes
• 13.1 under 1:40
• 26.2 under 3:30
• Oly under 2:15
• 70.3 under 5:30

2. Qualifiers

• USAT Age Group Nationals Short Course Qualify
• Race is in Burlington Vermont on August 18.  Qualifiers should be announced mid-January.  This one is qualify and race, which will likely take a sub-2:15 oly to make the cut.
• USAT Long Course National Championship Qualify Only.  The race is in Oklahoma City OK, and I have no desire to race there.

3. Places

• Top 3 age group in a triathlon
• Top 3 age group in a running event
• Top 3 age group in an open water swim
• Race in a new market, preferably Washington DC

I would love an overall win/place, but living in Raleigh and working in Washington, DC this year means I'll be in two very competitive markets.   I've seen others take an overall win with a 22 minute 5k time.  Around here you've got to be in the 15:xx or 16:xx time frame to get an overall win.  A good friend posted a 17:30 at my last 5k and still came in 4th overall. 

4. Join a sponsored triathlon team.  I joined the Delta Team last year just to get discounts at my local tri store and discounted race registrations.  I got nothing else out of it, never made it to any of the group runs or rides, only went to one social event.  I did make some new friends who were also on the team, but I don't think I'll be signing up for that one again.   There has been an application already submitted for the EvoTri team, but they had a fair number of applicants so it's going to be pretty competitive.  There are some other teams out there, but I'm not going to make any predictions yet.  I just hope I end up on the right team with good people.

5. Yoga - Going along with this years themes of speed and dealing with other people, I'm seriously considering starting an Ashtanga Yoga practice.  Ashtanga has very specific guidelines for a practice, namely "get on the mat" six days a week.  There's a lot more to it than that, and I'll be posting more about it as I learn and start my practice.  It takes at least 5 years of 6 days a week to be called a "beginner", so this is a long term thing.  There's also an intermediate and two series of advanced poses.

This year's commitment is for 300 days of yoga.  In Ashtanga, you are supposed to rest every saturday, and every new moon and full moon (and for women, rest during the "monthly women's holiday" as they call it).  Last night I finished reading 21 Things to Know Before Starting an Ashtanga Yoga Practice, and will be writing a review soon.

300 days of yoga.  Flexibility = speed, yoga also gives me an inner peace that is otherwise hard to find.

6. Professional - Learn mobile development.  I'm getting into some more sales and leadership roles at work, and might soon be managing product development on a mobile platform.  I need to learn how to code iPhone and Droid apps and have some emulation platforms setup to be able to do this.  I haven't set a career goal in a long time so this is a biggie.

Race List:

• 5k's - In Raleigh, there is the Second Empire Grand Prix series of races.  To earn series points, you just have to compete in 6 of the 10 races listed.  I already have date conflicts with some of them, but I really want to run as many as I can in the series and see if I can win an age group series award.  I'm already signed up for the Run For Young and the NC State Torch Run.  There will be many more.  Well, at least four more.
• Marathons - All of the marathons for this year are coming up.  Kelley and I are both going to try and qualify for the Marathon Maniacs by running the Charleston Marathon in January, Myrtle Beach full marathon in February, and the Tobacco Road Marathon in March.  I can't believe Charleston is only 8 days away.  I'm going to attempt to go under 3:30 in Charleston, and I'm feeling strong for it.  If I make it easy enough, I may try to BQ at Myrtle Beach (3:10 for my age group), but it's highly unlikely that I would actually make it.  The local one here in Raleigh I'll just do for fun.  Maybe break four hours, but just get out there and enjoy the environment.
• Triathlons
• Battle at Buckhorn - last year if I hadn't missed the turnaround I would have come in 6th place overall.  Loved this race, can't wait to do it again.
• Spring oly qualifier - USAT hasn't announced the races for the age group nationals yet, but I will run at least one of these in the spring.  Last year the Lake Logan international was also a special qualifier, and I missed qualifying by 2 minutes.  I wouldn't mind doing lake logan again anyway.  And the Nations Triathlon in Washington DC has been a qualifier in the past as well.
• Kure Beach Double Sprint - this one is in June, it's a new format for me and it's supposed to be a fantastic race.  Really looking forward to this one.
• Spring half?  The White Lake Half has been a USAT regional long course qualifier for the last few years.  If it makes the list again I will certainly run it this year.  Got a lot of friends doing this one too.
• Fall half?  I would love to do either the Patriots Half again, or the OBX half again.  Patriot's has been a long course qualifier in previous years.  I could also be talked into doing the Rev3 half in Anderson SC since it is basically a hometown race and I'll get to hang with plenty of people on the Rev3 team!
• Open Water Swims - I really want to do the Jordan Lake Open Water Challenge again, as well as either the Big Duece or the Little Uno, depending on what kind of distance shape I'm feeling come registration time.  There are two other races in the series that I would love to jump into if the dates don't conflict, and they've added a championship race that you have to qualify for, so that's also an option for September.
• Aquathons - I'm already signed up for the Old School Aquathon Series again.  These were fantastic races last year, really hard to run in, and very competitive.  They are just swim/run races, local to Raleigh, on wednesday nights, just swim, run, and eat. 

Nothing out of the ordinary here.  Keep an eye on the race list in the left nav on the blog, and come on out to any of the races I end up doing!  I'm really screwed until the USAT announces the regional championships and special qualifiers race list.   I'm going to end up doing a ton of races this year.  No Ironman.  Just speed, flexibility, and teamwork.  Come on out and join me!  I'd love to see you out there.