THE LAST POST REGARDING IRONMAN LOUISVILLE 2020 

R.I.P. LOUISVILLE IRONMAN 2020

It really didn’t take me too long to get over having the race I was training for come to an end.  I guess I had been expecting it to end for quite a while, but I just kept moving forward (a tried and true Ironman motto) in my training until the final word was announced.  So after having a week to think it over, here’s what I will most likely do going forward.

I will opt to take the automatic transfer to Ironman Chattanooga in 2021.  There is really no way the other three Fall 2020 transfer options are going to happen in my mind.  Three of us Gunner teammates were already signed up for Louisville, and two and maybe a third had not signed up.  So if we decide as a group to head back to Chatty in 2021 all I need to do is make the transfer official and start training next year.  If we for some reason want to do a different race then I will have no problem paying the transfer fee and do that race with the group.  But Ironman has some pretty specific rules on transferring, so I will have to take that into consideration.  We’ll have to talk that over.  I remember us talking about not wanting to do Chatty again, but I think that was the dreadful heat of the 2019 race influencing that decision.  It was an okay location, we enjoyed ourselves and I would go back.  But before I get too confident with all that, I have to realize that this is all conjecture.  There’s talk that this Covid-19 crap may stick around into 2021 and screw everybody’s race season up again.  So there’s that…

I will keep training, that really isn’t a big surprise.  I actually enjoy the weekly stuff, the long Saturday ride, and running is just part of who I am.  I can’t imagine not running.  Swimming on the other hand…  well, let’s just say that I do enjoy a cannonball splashdown after a long run or ride.  But I doubt I will do much swim training for the rest of the year.  The training won’t be anything too overwhelming, but enough to keep me fit and doing what I love.  I may join some local group rides now that it won’t interfere with me following my training plan.  I may also text a local friend to see if he wants to do some riding again.  We stopped riding together when my training became too specific and he just wanted to ride.  

I was kicking around the idea of doing an Ironman of my own making either at home or in Wisconsin at my lakehome and inviting my buddies to do it, but I’m not so hot on the idea now.  That would require us to keep training and following the plan and with the weather heating up and the fact we’ve had our bubble burst with Louisville, I don’t think any of us would want to do it.  I may, however, do a half-iron distance day of my own just because I already have the fitness to do that and could pull it off pretty easily.  I think the training plan has a 70.3 training day built into it coming up in a few weeks, so I may still do that.  I need to sleep on that a little.

Lastly, I have one more hope left of having an opportunity to race this year and that race is the Big Hill Bonk Last Runner Standing elimination ultramarathon.  This race was supposed to occur in April but got postponed to October.  I received an email last week stating that as of right now the race is a go until the race director finds out otherwise.  He gave us a drop dead date of September 15th, so we’ll know by then if he has to cancel it.  So since that tells me that the race is iffy at best, I’m not going to do any special ultramarathon type distance training and if the race happens I will just go up to Beloit and run 4.166-mile loops every hour until I can’t take it anymore.  And that’s all predicated on whether I feel comfortable around other athletes and doing the Covid-19 dance around each other.  If I don’t feel safe in that environment or it’s too big of a hassle I will opt out.

So there you have it.  I’m going forward with my daily workouts for fun instead of for a specific reason and we’ll see what happens.  So long, Ironman Louisville 2020.  Hello, Ironman Chattanooga 2021.