After missing qualifying by 4 minutes or one slot, I am preparing , along with my coach, race plan for next year. The goal is either eagleman or lubbock as a warm up race than lake placid again. lake placid mainly because I know the course and hills are good (uphills) for me. For a split second, I thought maybe I should enter florida in a few months. We debated a bit, it boils down to a busy schedule coming up at work and all that, so I am mostly against it. Any thoughts on this? I looked up the times for florida last year, much faster than placid but apparently it’s normal. Goal is to shave 20 minutes on the bike, 10 min on the run and go sub 11…
IM Florida 04 is a BAD idea. Remember that Lubbock is very hot, can you handle the heat well?
It’s hard to pick a race to qualify at. There are so many variables that it would be very hard to predict. I would pick a race based on your schedule. When do you think you would be most ready to perform at YOUR best. That is the only thing you can control. You can have the greatest race of your life, but if every shooter in your age group shows up and wants a slot, you are out of luck. Then again, you can go to a race just to prepare or have fun, and no one (relatively speaking) is there, or already have their slots, it could roll down to you. I friend of mine got a spot at IMUSA, the top 5 in his age group, and 7 of the top 10 didn’t take the slots.
efernand makes a great point. I just finished a race in which I had placed last year. This year, I was faster, but I placed fourth. You can’t predict who will show up at a given race, just train smart and run your race. good luck.
Yeah, I am ok in the heat… thinking eagleman maybe and then Placid. I feel comfortable with lake Placid. the problem is that I JUST had the race of my life, that’s good, but it makes it hard to duplicate a perfect ironman. I am going for it tough:)
Marisol, Marisol, Marisol. (Can you tell I like your name?) Here’s the real deal…Seriously…race whatever qualifier fits into the training year that you wish to do Kona…because you’re going to get in! SO, you’d better be prepared to do another Irondistance race following that qualifier…and be prepared for the expense of Kona!
Remember, you heard that advice here first! If you need a mechanic/scutwork-doer/laundry-washer/massage therapist/errand boy, I’d be glad to apply for the job when you go!
I prefer your real name, marisol sounds way too corny, LOL…
ANYWAY, you need to be careful with your next race, you went into IMLP with no expectations and did well, but this time you’ll feel a bit of self-pressure. So before the race and actually racing you’ll have to go back to this years feelings. But I digress… I asked that because Lubbock seems to me a tough race, where if you are good on the heat and mentally tough you have an advantage over everyone else, Eagleman is more of a “go fast” race. And I agree with the others, it’s very hard to cherry pick qualifyers, you just have to be in form at the most convenient race and go for it.
First year races have a history of relatively soft qualifying times. I have seen this at Ironman California, IM Lake Placid, & IM CDA. You can compare the last qualifier’s time and find differences of up to an hour (depending on age group) from the 1st year to the 2nd. If I were looking for a place to qualify in 2005 I would go to Ironman AZ without question. I believe there are still community fund slots available.
Gary Mc
If hills are your thing then LP makes sense. Some folks who climb well are not great on the flats. If you are one of those people, then IM FL doesn’t make as much sense. Also, LP is paradise compared to Panama City Beach, which must be the ugliest beach town on the planet.
-Robert
I agree with everything that has been said. Look at Brazil. Some hills, fast, lower numbers
Why would you do Eagleman as a warm-up race for LP? It’s flat, windy, hot and fast. It seems like Tupper Lake or Tinman would be a better fit given the hills of LP. You can get hot and windy in a lot of places.
Lots of good ideas here… Does lower numbers at brazil mean less slots? Is there a place to see how many slots in my age group for Brazil? I was thinking about that… Arizona is tempting but cincinnati in the winter isn’t arizona for training… It is fun to plan the next year!!! By the way, my name is Marisol Sophie, us french do things backwards, I am sophie and my middle name is Marisol:-)
Brazil does have a web site that is very good. I have some friends who qualified there.
Being French I have one more suggestion on where you could go!! ; )
IMO, IMLP offers you the best chance to qualify:
1-you’ve already proven that you can perform well on that course
2-IMLP has 100 slots vs 80 at the others
3-Since IMLP is late in the year, the slots tend to rolldown a lot further b/c many of the top finishers will already have their slot secured for Kona.
(FWIW, in 02 IMMOO I missed by one slot and :06 secs, continued training the same, went to 03 IMLP and qual’d w/o even needing to rely on the rolldown - just use your “near miss” as a motivator and you’ll do fine at IMLP next year)
LOL… I bet that if you knew she was french you wouldn’t be so nice! How’s summer school treating you? 