Decisions, Decisions

Current training plans and racing goals have me doing either IM Florida or IM Wisconsin (henceforth referred to as IMMOO) in 2006. Karyn and I have been debating the relative merits of each race; here's how the debate stands:

In favor of IM Florida:

• It's later in the year so it'd have less effect on my summer 2006 racing calendar.
• The bike - universally described as flat, flatter and flattest - is much more to my liking.

In favor of IMMOO:

• Madison is 2 hours away, great for training opportunities and race-weekend travel.
• Karyn has other clients training for IMMOO; I'd have lots of company on those long rides.
• Even at its worst, Lake Monona is not known for big waves.
• I went to grad school in Madison; it's WAY cooler than Panama City.
• L'Etoile is in Madison. That alone is enough to make up my mind.

Karyn's opinion is that, with IMMOO on the schedule, I could still do other fun races (e.g. Steelhead) but would probably need to forgo most of the sprint races that I like so much. Their short, intense bursts of effort are the wrong kind of training, and they take up precious weekends when I'll be doing long rides or runs. I'd still do Galena, but no Optimist or Pardeeville and I probably would not be recovered sufficiently for 2006's Devil's Challenge.

I know from my Steelhead experience how useful it is to train on the course that you'll be racing. It helps with planning race-day strategy and boosts your confidence that, yes indeed, you CAN do the course because you've done it 5 times before.

Thus it's looking like we'll see y'all at IMMOO 2006. I'll use IM Florida as a fall-back position in case I don't get an IMMOO slot for some reason.