Help me decide, or give me your thoughts/comments/opinions…

In my race schedule for this season, I had picked to do the Oxnard Splash-n-Dash on Sept. 13th. But I didn’t realize when I picked that (which I have not yet registered for) that it is a 1 hr 45 min drive from my house. Yikes. Such a long drive for a relatively short race. I was going to do the long course (1000 meter swim followed by the 4 mile run).

I looked for alternate events that have an ocean swim on a weekend between now and November when I’m not working or already doing another race. Kinda tough. Iron Man & Half Iron Man distances are too much for me right now!

But look at this: Mermaid Tri in Santa Cruz on Sept. 27th. Instead of Oxnard Splash-N-Dash Sept. 13th. Is it crazy to drive 5-6 hours on Saturday for a Sunday race? And then pretty much drive right back home? And if I drive that far, I’d want to do their Olympic Distance course, not the Sprint distance. Am I up for an Olympic Distance for my 3rd triathlon? What if we stay overnight on Sunday and drive back at the crack of dawn on Monday. My 7th grade daughter would miss school. That is wrong and bad. I shouldn’t take her out of a day of school for my race. Sigh. But I want to. Don’t want to drive right back on Sunday.

Also, my older daughter goes to UC Santa Cruz, so we would get to see her (if briefly) that weekend if we drive up. Hmmmmm.

So…

1. Which event? Oxnard Splash-n-Dash Sept 13th (“local” but pretty far) or Santa Cruz all women Mermaid Tri Sept 27th?
2. Am I nuts to do Olympic? I can already swim 1.5km and running a 10K is nothing. Just have to up my bike mileage which is pretty low right now (max dist of 15 miles).
3. Take my daughter out of school Monday or drive our butts right back on Sunday?

I should be able to make these kind of decisions myself… I guess I really just want to do Santa Cruz but driving 5.5 hours up and back Sat/Sun just seems like such a drag. Boo!