As far as my racing plans go, Saturday is a serious race to see how close I can get to qualifying for Team GB and Sunday is just to see what a draft-legal race is like and to see if that style of racing suits me better.
One of several complications of the different styles of race means I also have to take two different bikes with me, but they don't easily fit in the car. In order to make them fit my best solution seems to be to take both frames but a single wheel set. Which is fine, as long as I pick the right set of wheels for the course that I don't know, and the weather which is currently forecast to be right on the limit for my use of the aero wheels.
I am going to travel on the Friday so that I can recce the bike course on the Friday night and try and get a decent nights sleep before the early registration on the Saturday morning.
Targets - Saturday
My super-stretch target is to definitively book a Team GB place. For simplicity that means placing in the top-4 (out of 74) Veterans in the race.
My stretch target is to book a Team GB place directly but not know about it for a week. For complexity, that means I have to finish in the top-4 of the 40-45 year olds, in a race which is actually 40-50 year olds because Triathlon Scotland and British Triathlon can't agree on a single rule set for age-group athletes. Then once British Triathlon validate and split out the results if I am in the top-4, (of the 10 registered 40-45s) then I am in. Much more realistic, but still tough.
And my final stretch target is to get a Team GB place by the last route, 'rolldown'. For that I have to nominally get within 120% of the fastest person in my age group and then hope that enough of the people in the top-4 from this race, and the two other qualifying races, who are faster than me, turn down their places. At the minute there are 37 registered athletes trying to qualify in my age-group, and 20 places available. And with one race completed in the series it looks like something in the 110% range will be the cut off for a safe roll down place.
And any of those three would fulfil my stretch target for the year.
On the flip-side of all that complex nonsense, all I have to do is finish the race to fulfil my basic target of competing in a qualifying race this year.
Targets - Sunday
One of several complications of the different styles of race means I also have to take two different bikes with me, but they don't easily fit in the car. In order to make them fit my best solution seems to be to take both frames but a single wheel set. Which is fine, as long as I pick the right set of wheels for the course that I don't know, and the weather which is currently forecast to be right on the limit for my use of the aero wheels.
I am going to travel on the Friday so that I can recce the bike course on the Friday night and try and get a decent nights sleep before the early registration on the Saturday morning.
Targets - Saturday
My super-stretch target is to definitively book a Team GB place. For simplicity that means placing in the top-4 (out of 74) Veterans in the race.
My stretch target is to book a Team GB place directly but not know about it for a week. For complexity, that means I have to finish in the top-4 of the 40-45 year olds, in a race which is actually 40-50 year olds because Triathlon Scotland and British Triathlon can't agree on a single rule set for age-group athletes. Then once British Triathlon validate and split out the results if I am in the top-4, (of the 10 registered 40-45s) then I am in. Much more realistic, but still tough.
And my final stretch target is to get a Team GB place by the last route, 'rolldown'. For that I have to nominally get within 120% of the fastest person in my age group and then hope that enough of the people in the top-4 from this race, and the two other qualifying races, who are faster than me, turn down their places. At the minute there are 37 registered athletes trying to qualify in my age-group, and 20 places available. And with one race completed in the series it looks like something in the 110% range will be the cut off for a safe roll down place.
And any of those three would fulfil my stretch target for the year.
On the flip-side of all that complex nonsense, all I have to do is finish the race to fulfil my basic target of competing in a qualifying race this year.
Targets - Sunday
Have a decent swim, get in a cycling group, and have fun.
I could have written a similar list to the one above but unfortunately the Cozumel race is too soon after my wedding and I have been told that I am not allowed to go even if I was able to get a qualifying place.
I could have written a similar list to the one above but unfortunately the Cozumel race is too soon after my wedding and I have been told that I am not allowed to go even if I was able to get a qualifying place.
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