This may come as no surprise, but for several reasons I WON’T be racing in the Bluewater Tri this weekend.

Yep, I’m flaking out.

It’s actually unfortunate because of all the races I’d signed up for, this was the one I most wanted to do: it’s in Parker, AZ, it’s in the placid and downstream-flowing Colorado River, it’s in a climate and place I’m fond of and used to and familiar with.

The biggest culprit, I’m afraid, was financial. I had some unexpected expenses come in and some planned-on income fall through. When balancing things out, I could no longer justify the $400.00 or so for the trip, hotel, food, etc. at this point in time.

There is also a personal matter that came up between Eusebio and I. No more details, just know it was a biggie…

But I suppose in the end it was easy for me to slough it off because of my noncommittal feelings about racing at the moment. I AM needing to rethink, not to say get back into my training regimen. Now that I can consider myself officially “off season”, I can regroup and get back in the gym, actually GET that swim coaching I need and take a longer-term approach to building up for next year. It was probably the right thing to do, regardless. If nothing else, I won’t have a two-week trip to Russia thrown in the middle of my training peak to break my stride.

So, unfortunately there will be no additional race photos for this year, no fun stories or interesting anecdotes from the racecourse, no pats on the back for surviving another one. I’ll be back though: I’ve already registered for next April’s Desert Triathlon for a repeat.

I’ll be back…