US Age Group National Championship?

I logged on to USAT's website today to renew my membership and got a nice little surprise...

Obviously I hadn't logged in for a while since I qualified at IMLP (over 6 months ago!). This race is very tempting, so I haven't made up my mind one way or another yet. On one hand, it's cool to qualify for and race a national event of this caliber. It's also an olympic distance race, which is what I said wanted to improve this year. It's in August, which is a good time to race for me because I have the summer to train. And lastly, it's not very expensive (~$150+travel+lodging), nothing compared to an IM...

But on the other hand, it's a little far (Burglington, VT), and I wasn't planning on any "big" races this year. Also, I think I'll be able to qualify again, I'll be working and taking classes this summer as well, and while it isn't expensive, it's still not cheap. Plus I should really be saving all my pennies for the wedding. Lastly, there are going to be A LOT of fast guys there... REALLY fast guys, so I won't do very well in my AG anyway... I know that might sound kind of odd to some people, but I don't really want to drive 10hours, pay for a hotel and all that jazz to compete in a race where I think my best day will land me ~15/90 in my AG and ~80th overall... (I think I could do 2:05 on a pretty good day, and compared to the 2011 results that is where I would land). Meanwhile I could do a race at the Jersey shore or somewhere in PA that same weekend (that I could wake up and drive to) for less money, and I might get on a podium with a sub 2:10 performance.

So the wheels are turning, but I'm leaning toward not doing the race this year. The decision hasn't been set in stone yet, maybe if I get some serious bday money I'll treat myself...vamos a ver! I still don't have any tris on the calendar for 2012, and I think I will sign up for one as a birthday present to myself within the next couple days.

Two posts in one day, crazy right? Well I have about 120 pages of Gabriela Mistral poetry to read for tomorrow night's class, and I'm procrastinating... I also wrote out a nice program I'm going to try to follow over the next couple weeks into my April Fool's Day half marathon. I'll post that some time later.