Professional - the speed bumps

So as I mentioned yesterday, whilst I have approval my a professional licence from Triathlon Australia, there has been some issues. I have to admit they are issues that it didn't even occur to me before. The problems themselves are quite minor, but frustrating all the same and may mean my debut as a pro is delayed by about a month.

The first speed bump came up on the weekend and it stems from the fact that you need a separate professional licence to race Ironman events. As I explained yesterday, that in itself isn't a big problem, but it does mean two separate approval processes. The Ironman process can officially take up to 45 days. That means that between accepting the TA licence and getting approved by Ironman, there is potentially 45 days where Tri Australia considers you professional but Ironman does not. The problem is that once you accept the Tri Australia licence you can't race as an age grouper anymore, whether you have an Ironman licence or not. That means 45 days of kind of being stuck in limbo. That is a problem for me because I have the Subic Bay 70.3 in a couple of weeks time which I entered as an Age Grouper a while ago. If I accept the Tri Australia Licence but don't have the Ironman Licence in time I won't be able to race.

To be honest Ironman has been really good and assured me that it typically takes a lot less than 45 days. So chances are it should be possible to get the Ironman licence in time to race at Subic Bay. Thing where all looking rosy until I hit speed bump two.

Speed bump two is the fact that the cut off for professional entry into Subic Bay 70.3 has already passed. I missed it by a couple of days. Nothing really that can be done about it, I had no way of knowing and by the time I did know there wasn't enough time to do anything about it. Ironman is looking into whether they can get me in, but to be honest these rules are there for a reason and so that isn't all that likely. So now I am faced with the situation of being able to get my licence in time for the race, but still being entered as an Age Grouper and not being able to change the entry. If I am unable to change my entry to Subic Bay then I only really have two choices, not race, or delay the acceptance of my licence until after Subic Bay. Of the two choices, the only real choice is racing as an Age Grouper. It isn't really a big deal, but it sure is frustrating.

So there are a couple of the issues that I never would have even thought of before. Sometimes things are more complicated than they seem. I will get there in the end though.

I know on Monday I said that I would spend the week writing about the process around a professional licence, but to be honest I have kind of run out of things to say. So unless I have any great brain waves in the next 24 hours or so the blog will be returning to normal programming (ie talking about training) tomorrow.

Hope you have found the last few days interesting.