Your $.02

Wondering if you have some advice out there.

I have a friend. We'll call him...Tito. Let's say Tito lost his whole season to a...oh, I dunno...how 'bout a knee injury. As good a reason as any. He DNC'd two races which broke his freaking heart. Fell into a deep and miserable depression and gained 40 pounds. Okay, he didn't fall into a depression and didn't gain 40 pounds, but he felt like it. Plus he was busy with extraordinary things because he's...let's say he's a zookeeper. And he had to move all the polar bears from one part of the zoo to another part of the zoo and it as a major project and took months and months. And Tito's wife is pregnant, so that created a whole new level of crazy. Let's just say that.

Okay, so Tito finally went to the doctor in July, and he was given a prescription for all the right things, and was told to keep his training to sprint distance triathlon and not to exceed that. And Tito has a sprint race coming up on September 15th that's been the sole objective for his training so far this shortened season. Let's say that.

Now - suppose Tito just became aware of ANOTHER race he could do the week before his otherwise scheduled race. And let's say he could, if he wanted to, sign up for an Olympic Distance. And even though his doctor told him in July to keep it to Sprint distance or shorter, he's already run 14 miles on a whim one Saturday, and his high mileage on the bike is around 30 miles. So it's not like he feels incapable of it or something. And, his knee has been 100% for several weeks. And let's say Tito's an Ironman so he irrationally thinks he's capable of damn near anything. Let's say.

Do you:

A: Hell yes sign up for the Oly, and do the Sprint the next week, even if performance at the Sprint suffers just a shade, because life is short dammit and the game is too good to be away from it all summer long.

B: Sign up for just the sprint distance of the one race, and follow it up the next week with the already scheduled Sprint, and treat the first one as a dress rehearsal and really take the second one as seriously as originally planned.

C: Don't be signing up for no damn races all the sudden like that, just stay the course and stick with the original plan, which was one race on the 15th. Yes, this is the nancy drew way to go, but no sense tempting the injury gods.

Oh, and Tito hasn't even asked his wife about the race yet, because she has ultimate veto power, seeing how she's great with child and all. So she could smite the whole budding plan right out of existence.

I gots to go swimming now, but Tito sure would appreciate knowing what the infinite triathlete brain trust had to say on this strictly hypothetical matter...