The plan
Here's the list of race & events I plan to attend in 2011:
- January 16th-17th : Raid 28 (50 miles trail, team of 5 runners, with my spouse Valérie, race involves orienteering, mud, bad weather, night, tricks & fun)
- March 12th : BRM 200k in Noisiel (cycling brevet, 125 miles)
- March 26th : Ecotrail (50 miles trail)
- on a beautiful spring day : Barkley (100 miles, 60 000 feet elevation)
- April 10th : BRM 300k in Gif sur Yvette (cycling brevet, 190 miles)
- April 30th - May 1st: BRM 400k in Chartres (cycling brevet, 250 miles)
- May 14th-15th : BRM 600k in Beuvry (cycling brevet, 375 miles)
- June 30th - July 2nd : BRM 1000k in Longjumeau (cycling brevet, 620 miles, this one I'm not sure I'll do it, still hesitating)
- July 9th : Altriman (triathlon 2.4 miles / 120 miles / 26.2 miles)
- July 15th - July 17th : Andorra ultra-trail (trail 105 miles, 36 000 feet elevation)
- August 21st - 25th : Paris-Brest-Paris (745 miles, on a tandem)
- September 11th - 18th : Tor des Géants (trail 205 miles, 72 000 feet elevation)
Why this?
First step was to plan to do Paris-Brest-Paris, which remains my primary goal. The idea is to do it with Valérie, on our tandem (was a wedding gift). To do that, we also need to participate in various cycling brevets, first because it's mandatory, then because it's pretty darn useful to be prepared for such an event. That's a lot of bike.
But then, I'm a runner. And I needed to do something "serious" after the deca. So I signed up for the Barkley. The idea had been arround in my little head for years, but my estimation was I wasn't ready, and getting an entry slot ain't that easy anyway. But finally I applied. Finishing that might prove awfully hard, this race has a reputation of being one of the hardest in the world. Only 9 finishers in 25 years... Crazy elevation, faint trail, briars, changing weather. This will change me from the comfort of track races.
And well, since I was engaged in that trail, I decided to go trail for the whole year, so I signed up for Tor des Géants too, which represents, for me, the mix of very long races (6 days, deca...) with trail running. I expect great fun!
All this represents 3 major events with serious competition involved in the year, and at those I'll try and do my best. It's already a lot, IMHO the maximum, maybe I already exceeded it. This explains, among other things, why I won't go to Antibes this year, and why my triathlon season will be reduced to its bare minimum (one single race). Apart from these 3 major events (Barkley, PBP, TDG) the rest will be just for fun and in order to prepare the other races, I'm simply applying my principle that says it's better to go to a real race and not fight for the missing 5 minutes rather than trying to set up crazy solo training sessions, which are boring and somehow complicated to organize.