With so many races out there it is getting harder for athletes to pick where to go and tough for races to survive. Here is why I signed up for the Gulf Coast Triathlon on May 9, 2015.

Before you think, oh that editor guy just got a free entry and now he is bragging about it, I actually have no connection to that race in any shape or form other than having raced there before, and I registered for the event via Active.com as all other age groupers do.

Clearly there are plenty of Ironman or Challenge branded races that I would like to do, but sometimes it is important to think outside of the box. I have done the Gulf Coast Triathlon several times up until 2007 and it has been my enemy of sorts. I basically always struggled through the ocean swim, hammered the bike and got mad with big packs of drafters and then had a sad performance on the run. I believe my fastest race there was in the 5:12 range, and I never ran quicker than 2-hours at Panama City Beach on that hot 13.1 mile course. I had bike splits as low as 2:24 but all of that does not matter if you are death marching after that glorious ride.

Since 2007 I have been busy with a new job, getting married, moving to another state and being a parent to twin boys, and that meant new priorities. Plus I got injured every time I started to focus on a longer race, or simply injured because I am getting older, and thus I have only done a few shorter races each year since then.

But I am turning 50 in April and I have a few goals on my mind for next season and one of these is to go sub-5 at 50 - and Gulf Coast Triathlon seemed to be an appropriate choice. But why there and not anywhere else?

With more and more events popping up Gulf Coast Triathlon actually has very much lost its luster these days. Back in the late 90s and early 2000s it was the go-to race for many East Coast based athletes and people even traveled to this race from the West Coast. Over 1,600 athletes finished there during that time, but it has been a bit more quiet there recently and last year they had closer to 700 finishers. Currently less than 90 have registered for the 2015 edition and I expect the numbers of folks at the start to be in the 500 range.

Challenge Knoxville is the weekend after and so is the newly announced Ironman 70.3 Chattanooga. Ironman 70.3 Raleigh at the end of May gives folks in that mid Southeast region another option that time of the year, plus there are various other Half distance races to do in almost every state that Gulf Coast Triathlon used to draw from.

But the smaller field size is appealing to me as I always struggled with drafting packs in that race. And a smaller field size means less traffic plus I have unfinished business there.

Shortly after I signed up for the Gulf Coast Triathlon I learned about the new Ironman 70.3 Chattanooga and man that one really made me rethink my original plan. I even had purchased the race registration insurance and thus punting the event would have been easy. I really know the Scenic City well, would have lots of support, a shorter distance to travel to get to the race (6 hours versus 12 by car) and have many friends I could stay with during that time versus paying for an expensive hotel. Plus the fast downriver swim would clearly benefit me in my quest to set a PR. But if I can only beat the 5-hour mark because of a swim with a fast current, there would always be an asterisk next to that result in my mind. Plus the field size in Chattanooga is likely going to be quite large. And that may be a selling feature for the local tourism office, but it is not one for me, and I thus decided to stay with the original plan.

And after all, I do want to beat the ghosts of the past and they reside in Panama City Beach.


[The author below during the 2007 edition of the Gulf Coast Triathlon]