Did it rip off one of the jockey wheels too?
I’ve got a friend who just earned his USAT Elite license this past December after winning Challenge Daytona as an amateur. That allows him to register with IM as a professional.
He’s regularly been at top 5 OA amateur for the past several years at IM 70.3 races, usually behind the same “professional age groupers” at each race. At IM 70.3 WC last fall, he was top 10 in AG (~50th OA).
This year he competed at Augusta and was 18th our 29 pros (caveat of still regaining some run fitness after hip surgery this past winter). With the fact that he’d need finish top 5 to top 10 pro to earn anything from racing, I don’t think he has any ambitions of making money off the venture.
All of that to give you some baseline for a similar athlete who took the AG to Pro jump and how he is and how he might compare to you. From your 2022 results, you’re faster triathlete than my friend for sure. How much faster can you get and be competitive in the pro ranks? That’s TBD. Fighting for top 10’s certainly sounds reasonable and maybe top 5s at smaller races.
From what I can tell from the outside, there are 3 reasons to go from FOP AG to MOP/BOP Pro:
- It makes you feel good to say you’re a pro triathlete.
- You race a lot of IM branded events and can save money on race entry fees by paying for the pro license.
- You want to race Roth and not deal with the lottery. My friend emailed and asked and they said sure, you’re in. Ironically, he was put on the pro waitlist for Challenge Daytona this year.
You’re not going to be making much money from it though. Cody Beals put out his financial numbers for the first couple of years he was a pro that are worth a read.
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Interesting. And his fifth year budget is a bit more motivating 
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It is. All it took was winning 2 IMs and 3 70.3’s. He’s in that second tier of pros who are actually making something resembling a living wage off of the sport, but it’s still half of what an engineer would make in the US.
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Yeah! Oops.
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Yea I have two friends that are female pros. Of course they were dominating as amateurs, but are struggling to get decent results as pros. They both have full time jobs.
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Cheers @matthewgreer, really useful information. Honestly, if my hobby could at least pay for itself that would be great that would be a massive step. To scared to add up what I spent on entries this year 
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Suppose Lucy is the best example of any AG athlete going Pro & making a significant impact. But she had already been a pro swimmer. Can’t think of many more, maybe put Ruth Astle but that might be somewhat Brit biased.
My coach was (is?) a pro competing on shorter distances.
She was very good. She won several Olympic and sprint events. Problem was she was in college (studying physical therapy), married and wanting to have kids (have 2 now).
I asked her why she didn’t continue the path of becoming a pro at at least 70.3 distance. She said the amount of time it takes to be a money making pro was more that she was willing to put. So she now coaches, have a successful PT practice and runs local races, and beats most people. She is happy about her life decisions.
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So with IMAZ and Cozumel done, does that wrap up our thread for the year? @JoeX care to do the honors in creating 2023?
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Not quite yet - we start the new thread on Jan 1st decided by popular opinion last year…so Christmas training still happens here 
Boring explanation
Two reasons; as we have Northern and southern hemisphere contributors, we don’t really have a defined season so someone is always nearing their race day. And the calendar year is as good an arbitrary date as any
I also changed the title/nature slightly to “training” instead of racing so as long as you’re training for long course and the thread is for the current year, it’s legit posting for a race in 23 or even 24.
I’m in sort of pre-base for Frankfurt 23 now, my swim marathon plans messed up by real life unfortunately.
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2022 isn’t over until I get drunk and watch everyone else race Busselton 
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Long time thread stalker here. Have been really looking forward to the 2023 thread so I can join in. Had been doing some pre-training training until post Covid complications have resulted in an enforced rest. Am now hoping I’m back in action for 1st January.
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Welcome Wayne, I’ll start up dating the list over the holiday break
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Awesome. Don’t have to have a race in 2022 to participate. 
At least I hope not. Otherwise 2020 and 2021 I was breaking a lot of rules as I just did short course those years.
So what race(s) are you doing next year?
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@Michael_Tate thanks!
I’m in Nottingham in the UK and for next year have entered:
Outlaw half (70.3) - 21 May
Outlaw Holkham (70.3) - 9 July
Outlaw full distance - 30 July
By way of background i’m a 55 yo life time cyclist racing mainly on the track in the last few years. Did Outlaw X (70.3) for a challenge in 2020 when i got fed up of most of my events being cancelled or postponed due to covid. I did that on 7 weeks’ running and swimming prep including having to learn to do front crawl. Clearly when you’ve done a half you’ve got to do a full distance!
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I’m also interested in some of the UK races folks here have entered?
I’m personally leaning towards 1 x 70.3 as my A race and then multiple independent / non-branded Olympic distance races, especially Windsor Tri.
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Punchy!
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@JoeX - very valid point. I have been wondering about the wisdom of this. Initially I had only entered the half on 21 May and full on 30 July.
Then they announced the 9 July event is the national half distance champs and I couldn’t resist.
Is this too ambitious? I have convinced myself I want to race the half distance events and just “enjoy” the full, although that may just be me trying to do a Jedi mind trick on myself 
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You’ll finish both I’m sure but it does make choosing your A race more important.
I’ve done it both ways paced a 70.3 at IM pace and balls out, and just rock up to the longer event and get what’s left. I do find it much harder to hold back and pace a 70.3 though.
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