Seven seems like a lot to me, esp. if you really want to nail the ones you do. I did all of 4 tris last year (2IM, 1 1/2 IM and 1 Oly) and found that to be just about right. I tried to squeeze in a late season marathon, 5 weeks after my last IM, and while it was still an "okay" race (I PR'd though not by much) I could tell that my body had definitely had enough for the year. Of course, if you are doing shorter distance races, 7 could be perfectly acceptable physically but again, I think you'd stack the odds better in your favor by doing one or two less and doing slightly better in each. FWIW...

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"To give less than your best is to sacrifice the gift." - Pre

MattMizenko.com

One year (1986) I did 28 races including Ironman Hawaii and had pretty good races all season long. It was pretty much all I did then and I had a low-stress, part time job. that was living! The older I get, the better I was. this year maybe I'll do 5-10 races.

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Tom Demerly
The Tri Shop.com

For me, not all races are the same priority. I only have 2-3 "A" races per year (10-day taper), a bunch of "B" races (couple days taper), and a slew of "C" races (no taper, race-to-train, have fun.) The important factor for me is mixing up the disciplines to prevent burnout.

How many reaces? It really depends on what your goals are and what type of traner you are. It sounds like you have a drive to improve and that you are looking to get an edge somehow.

Don't forget racing is often the best kind of "training" that you can do. However, once into the race season you have to be careful with the overall load and level of intensity of the training if you are racing frequently. As Tom D pointed out years ago we used to race almost every weekend, with maybe one or two hard mid-week work outs. All other training was easy maitnenace stuff. This was of course, after a 3 - 4 month base/intensity build up.

Howeber, now I would say that it would be safe to race an Olympic distnce race every other weekend and one 1/2 Ironman a month. This over a 2 - 4 month stretch of time.

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

You didn't mention what length your races are. I'm quite an old guy by comparision and plan to run about seven sprint/Olympic tris this season from May to September. If it was IM's then I'd probably be running no more than two races a year. Being older, my motivation is probably different from younger tri-geeks. I view tri mostly as an excuse to get me off the couch and stay and shape. I'm happy just to be able to be a participant and hope that my interest in health will rub off on my kids.

With going off to college, your interests and priorities could easily change. My daughter started college this year and I've noticed a dramatic change in what she considered important from when she was in high school. Triathlon will still be very important to you, but you could find yourself having to balance it with the new friends and interests you'll make at college so developing time management skills could become important.

It does sound like you may have over trained a bit. Be careful about that because tri is too much fun to allow yourself to get burned out. Consider which events for next season will be the important ones and concentrate on those. Just my $.02

This is purely personal as our club has the No. 1 female masters in the SMW region. She is 47 years old and she did the most races in our club, 13. She did Powerman Alabama, Gulf Coast 1/2 IM, and IMFL last year. This year she will do Powerman Alabama, GC 1/2, IMLP and IMFL amoung others. I'm 65 and only do sprints and Olys but I did 9 races last year and was looking for more. I seem to get better towards the back end of the season.

Bob Sigerson

Sprint races shouldn't take much out of you if you are in very good shape, which it sounds like you are. Once you get into Half-IM distance though, scale waaay back.

If you're like me (youngish, dumb, likes to race into shape) try a few running races or open water swims in the middle of things for variety. I found my race performance only dropped if I did three races on consecutive weekends or back to back olys. Raced sprint-sprint-oly-oly and had a horrible race on the fourth week. Took me 46.5 km to get warmed up and it wasn't until the last 5k of the run that I woke up.

Seeing as how you are off to college next year, relish this year of competition because years from now you will finish tales of this season with "...and then somebody handed me a beer." You'll have more fun, but it'll hurt more.

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thanks alot for the input. i will be doing mostly oly's, and i might throw in a 1/2 at the end of the year, i havent decided. I am just starting to plot out my year now. You are right though, i am afraid to overtrain because I dont want to lose interest as i go off to college. If I did, I would never forgive myself when I get older.

i think youre asking a very personalized question. Based on fitness level, motivation, spacing everyone differs. I did 13 tris last year (2 1/2 IM's, 4 oly's, 7 sprints) and i had a good year. As my year went on, my USAT points got better and better. So if you felt good with your races then that works for you. Its not about how many we did last yr, but how many you did and whether you thought you could do more or should do less.

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Another thought on the race schedule and type of racing..... If you are going to college, do they have a swim, cross-country or track team? You might consider mixing up the types of racing and moving into the competitive aspect of a single-sport discipline while you are school. I ran cross-country and track all through high school and university without any thought of doing a tri (they were still a fairly new thing back then) until my final year when some tri-geeks started coming to run with us to improve their running. They got me interested and addicted 13 years ago. Your experience with the cross-training might help out greatly in a school's running program.

ps. I think that if you are just getting ready to go to college (unless you are a 25 year old who has been travelling around the world since high school and have decided to go back into the academic world) that you should skip the half and race only sprints and a few Olympic distance races. Work on your speed when you're young and leave the heavy distances for when you get older.

good point on skipping the half, I would have to change my training for it. As far as going to single sport, I am lucky, as long as I get into my first 2 choices. 1) is West Point, which has an awesome tri team and 2) is James Madison, in Virginia..... they have a team weather its good or not i have no clue. But the important thing is that I will have friends to train and race against. I don't know if I would ever be able to sit out a season...... I am far too addicted. Speaking of addicted, it would have probably been cheaper if I got addicted to drugs. haha..... glad I made the right choice....

I agree . Plan "A" "B""C" races. You can use the races in place of speed work . I raced 18 times 2001 I had fun and loved it. The only problem I had raced to hard all the time. This affected my late season races. Last year I raced 4 times ,Idid not enjoy my season as much. I love spending time with my tri friends, My wife who also races, my brother who races, the travel is alot of the fun.

Curiousity about USAT rankings......

Do you get ranked higher just by doing way more races than the next guy? If so, does this mean that someone who races 10-12 races and places 3rd-8th would get a higher ranking than someone who races 3 and wins them all?

If that is how the system works I wouldn't worry about the rankings. I'd just try and find races where some of the highly ranked racers will be at and then show up and try to kick their asses. Who cares if they are ranked higher if you know you can beat them when it counts. This might save you some cash (in entry fees and travel) that you'll need for college too :)

Quote: "Do you get ranked higher just by doing way more races than the next guy? If so, does this mean that someone who races 10-12 races and places 3rd-8th would get a higher ranking than someone who races 3 and wins them all?"



No USAT takes the top three USAT sanctioned races you do and averages them. They do give different points based on the race distance, amount of people there, whether its a a national qualifying race etc. you can check it out at usatriathlon.org

There is no advantage to doing a 1000 races (although its kind of like buying lottery tickets in that the more races you do the better chances you have of weaker athletes showing up and giving you a higher score---cause your individual race score is based on the finishing time of the fastest amateur racer.)

Top 10% of each AG gets all american status.

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I'm also in 1st year university (up here in canada.. thats what its called atleast). I joined our schools tri team, and while I love the people that i've met through it, i get better workouts with the swim team. I'm not (wasn't) good enough to join the swim team, but i did make the training team. Working with them, plus some work with the tri team has taken 30 sec of my 750 time, (in 3 months). I'm a huge advocate specilization, during the fall and winter.. and then start mixing it up a bit after the snow is gone. I know at our school, the triathletes who are ridiculasy good have joined the swim team, (we have 1 guy who races internationally in duathlons, and another who races nationally in triathlons, and another girl who races internationally in triathlon). Thats just my $0.02 however. As to the races, i've been told by many coaches to stick with shorter distances, sprint tri's, though i might try an olympic this summer. I'm planning on racing 4 or 5 times next year.. 1 or 2 prep races, provincials, nationals, and then a fun race after nationals. (That would be a 3 1/2 month compeditive season.) Good luck.

David