Don't call it a COMEBACK but...

'Tis the season for triathletes to lay out their training and racing plans for the new year. It's a time of optimism, where we all feel overly confident that we'll drop 15 pounds, improve our speed and shave an unrealistic amount of minutes off of our race times. Our inboxes are flooded with "registration NOW OPEN"messages from our favorite races. Like Black Friday shopping, this time of year often leads to impulse buys and exclamations of "yeah, this will be my best year ever!"

Back in early December, I received an intriguing email from the Cherry Blossom 10 Mile road race in Washington DC. I have not run this race in almost a decade, but an email popped up saying, "enter the lottery for the 2019 Cherry Blossom 10 mile." This has always been a popular race but over the last decade, it has become so popular that you can only enter via a winning lottery ticket or some super human fast previous race time. Somewhat on a whim, knowing that I will be in DC that weekend, I decided to enter the lottery. It's only a $50 race entry fee and I was like, if I win a slot, it will be kismet that i should give running another chance. A week later the result was in: I had won a lottery entry. OK  - let's do this. Off to the running store, get fitted for new shoes and inserts and I was literally off and running.

University of Denver has a luxurious break between Christmas and New Year, which leaves one with plenty of time to research races, dream a bit about what is possible and yes, probably make some overly ambitious racing decisions. Shortly after the New Year, I received the email from Boulder Ironman 70.3 saying, "Tier 2 pricing coming close to sell out." Approximately six months ago, you may or may not recall my declaration of "retirement" from the Ironman 70.3 racing distance. "I'm already running a 10 mile so what's another 3 miles in the half for a 70.3?" I say to myself. "I can just race Boulder, " "train on the course," "it will be great!" Well, it didn't take much for me to register...

Remind me of this optimism as I get closer to race day.

And with that, we begin the pre-season training, with a little more focus on the run this winter. Here's my tentative race schedule:

• Jan. 27 - Lifetime Indoor Tri - more of a time trial but you get a cool mug and I'm all about the swag.
• Apr. 7 - Cherry Blossom 10 Miler, Washington DC
• Jun 1 - Colorado Triathlon (olympic), Boulder, CO
• June 23 - Trip the Boat (half iron aquabike), Steamboat [tentative]
• Jul 21 - TriBoulder (half iron aqua bike), Boulder, CO
• Aug. 3 - Ironman 70.3 Boulder

Stay tuned!