So by now it has been a few weeks since the Ironman. Now I have to come up with a plan for what to do from here. The fact that I didn't hate the race, or fall completely apart, or hurt myself too badly, probably means that I will end up doing that distance again at some point. I pretty much take each personal record to be a number to beat... I'm not sure at what point that will stop.
I don't think I will jump into doing another Ironman next year... although I am considering signing up for the Kona lottery. Since I finished IMAZ, I probably might as well do that (because I'd already meet the requirement of doing that distance within a year of Kona). If I get lucky, it will change my year of training/racing dramatically.
One thing I'm thinking about now is to do a straight marathon. I know I can do better than 6:38... and for whatever reason I don't like seeing that as my personal best (even though it is). There are a few races early in the year in AZ that I could do, Rock and Roll in Phoenix, Lost Dutchman in Phoenix, the Sedona marathon. I'll have to look more closely at these and see if I want to put in the time that soon.
My next thought is to get back to Olympic distance. And again... my motivation here is to blow my personal records away. I've only done 2, and those were both last year, and pretty slow. After thinking about this and looking at some races I came back across the Triple Crown Challenge. This is 3 Olympic distance races in Arizona in something like 5 weeks. Sounds like that could be fun. I would be able to try to break my bests for a single race, and stack myself up against others doing all 3.
No matter what I end up doing, I plan to start strength training quite soon (if my recent neck problems willl allow it). I could then add on a lot of running to go for one of those early marathons, and then get into full tri training mode for the triple crown races starting in May. I still need to figure out just how much time I'm willing to spend on training now. I've accomplished the biggest goal I set for myself, but now I'm still left with a bunch of neverending goals to get faster/fitter at a bunch of different distances. I need to balance working toward these goals with everything else (time with Fox, work, side projects, new activities).
