It's on!

I've done a lot more learning in the past 24 hours about the Club national Championship race, and I'm really excited to say I made a hotel reservation yesterday.

The race itself is kind of interesting in how it works. As with state and regional club championships, anyone can sign up to do the race as if there were nothing special going on at the race. if you happen to be a member of a team, and register with your team information, your team gets participation points for you being involved. Then if you get on a podium (or in this case are in the top ten for your age group), you are given additional points for doing well.

Because the nationals are held in different locations each year, the local clubs have an advantage in that they can bring a boatload of team members, rack up a bunch of participation points, and win without necessarily doing well in the actual race. To counteract that, USA Triathlon came up with the idea of distance points. That way, member clubs from further away who send smaller delegations have a way of evening the playing field.

For example, based on the fact that my flight will be approximately 723 miles, I fall within the category that receives 40 distance points. That, plus my 1 participation point means I can do no worse than 41 points. Of course local clubs with just 5 or 6 members competing who manage to place can easily do better than that. But it is kind of an interesting way of approaching competition and finding a way to be fair to all teams, especially those that have to travel a good distance to participate in this already expensive sport.

And that's not my only excitement. I've decided on mountain biking instead of cyclocross, at least for this year. Theres a very short local race in a little over a weeks time. It's only a 6 mile ride, and it's at the campground where Rach and I stayed the weekend we came to pick out our apartment. It's got some climbing, but I'm told it's not overly technical, and according to the race promoter I should be able to walk or run over any obstacles I can't handle riding over. He said for someone who's done an half-ironman it shouldn't be too much of a workout. I told him you should see who they let finish HIM's these days. (*rimshot*) I'm not the worlds fastest or stongest climber, but I think this should be pretty fun. Maybe I'll be terrible, but it looks like something I'd enjoy trying and a fall/winter/spring of this kind of riding has to be good for my climbing.

Now I just have to get a bike. I've got one I'm looking at off Craigslist, and if it fits me, it's probably the best deal for the money I'll find. I'm hopeful that adding in some challenging cross training that's still on a bike will help me to get stronger from a cardio standpoint which will help me immensely with climbing in races, and just being stronger, lighter, and faster.

Speaking of getting lighter, my weight is now only about 5 pounds more than race day. I'm eating better, and went for my first short run yesterday. I jumped into the C25K program at week 3, and am using an app on my phone to track progress. it doesn't measure distance, just time. So it will be interesting to see how I progress in this manner. It was an 18 minute workout, and it only calls for you to run half the time. Based on where I am in recovery it feels like the right amount of work, and it grows in strenuousness each week.

Notes:

- I've updated my results for the year to include all of the races. I got a little lazy on updating the details. I still need to add a few folks to readers who write, so I'll be doing that this weekend.

- Tomorrow, there will be a reader poll, somehow, I think. I need your guidance in deciding something, and it is well beyond time I use the sounding board you're becoming to help me make a decision you folks will wind up reading about.

- Last but certainly not least, I heard back from WTC yesterday. I am told to expect my Timberman finishers medal in the mail in the next 2-3 weeks. It takes them a couple weeks to make them and get them sent out.