Race update

I really appreciate everyone's input to the race questions I had from my earlier post! After much thought, and a look at my race budget (which is pretty much non existant), I've decided this won't be a triathlon year.  Neither was last year, mind you last year I grew a baby, so it couldn't really be full of triathlons too.  Triathlons are much more expensive, both in race fees and training (dropping into pools, bike maintenance etc.), so they aren't conducive to paying a $350 race fee for NYC.  Yes, NYC.  I would really like to do it.  I would love to take a family vacation there, have a little fun, run a marathon (hopefully with my sister), and cross it off the bucket list I didn't know I had.

In order to achieve that goal,  I will have to really think about my races and my training.  When I was training for the 70.3, I remember saying that 6 months was a LONG time to train for something.  I couldn't stay motivated.  Thinking about that, I have decided that I won't train for the Calgary Marathon in May.  I don't think I could do a bunch of long runs now, and stay motivated to keep doing them throughout the summer and be ready for NYC.  I will train for the half, maybe a little harder than I would normally with a few longer runs, and then once that is all done, I can focus on the real distance runs over the summer (urg) and be ready for a marathon November.

I also have decided not to do a bunch of races "for fun" since they all cost money.  The Glencoe Icebreaker is an awesome race; small, local (the finish line is .5 km from my house!) and the brunch afterwards is AMAZING.  But, 57$ for a fun 10 km isn't really in the cards when I have to pay 347$ for a marathon.  I decided that the Mother's Day 10 km would be a great 10 km to do instead since I'm a new mum, have never raced it before, and I can help motivate another new mum friend get back into shape by training with her.  It's also not very expensive and local.

The Calgary Half is another one I haven't done, but I definitely think I need a half in the spring to keep me motivated and running all winter.  I normally do the Police Half in April, but frankly, I'm sick of terrible weather and race conditions for that run (last year I slipped and fell while pregnant on that race! oops!) and I'm ready for a change.

So I think that about does it.  I may or may not do the Canmore race in September, which would be the 4th consecutive year participating in that event.  It would be fun, but we will just have to see if it's in the cards financially.  We'll keep that on the back burner.

What do you think?  Do I make sense?  (For links to the races, see the side bar on the left!)

I totally forgot to mention that I am going to be helping out with the Tech Shop's running clinics on Tuesdays and maybe Thursdays.  There is a learn to run 10 km, an intermediate 10 km and a half marathon group going and I think I'll be running with either 10 km group.  If anyone wants to drop in on thursdays at 6:30, it's free! If you'd like to join the groups and run tuesdays AND thursdays, they start next week and I think they're about 60$.  I'm really excited to help out!