With the global Coronavirus pandemic finally having significant consequences here in America, it became obvious to me yesterday, that I needed to take action.

It’s now clear, that many of our sport’s early season races are going to be cancelled.  For Ironman races this means participants will either defer their race entry until the race is re-scheduled or they will transfer to races later in the year.  This second option, and the concern that a large scale transferring of participants would fill up races quickly, made me pull the trigger. I registered for all the races I plan to do this year.

If you have been following my blog, you will know that I had only registered for two significant races until yesterday; IM 70.3 Chattanooga (May) and SwimRun NC (October).  I was trying to stay flexible this year and was going to wait until after the Chattanooga race, to decide on my other races.  That all changed yesterday.

My big decision was, whether to do a full distance race this year, or just stick to the 70.3 distance.  I emailed my coach for advice and he helped a lot.  I talked to my wife, because the decision impacts her the most; summer training for a full Ironman is very time consuming, especially at weekends.  Finally, I talked to my son; he is a competitive weightlifter, who also has to carefully plan his year for competitions. 

Eventually, I made up my mind, opened up ironman.com and spent my money. So, excluding a few short distance races that I will also do, here is my 2020 schedule:

Ironman 70.3 Chattanooga  (May 17th)

Ironman 70.3 Musselman  (July 19th)

Ironman Chattanooga  (September 27th)

SwimRun NC  (October 25th)

I am really happy with my choices, especially given the fact that both Chattanooga races, are team races for my C26 triathlon team.  I now have my fingers crossed that the world recovers enough from the Coronavirus and all these races come to fruition.