Goals for the coming year

“It’s not whether you have anything useful to say. It’s whether you find it useful to say it” – me about blogging to another new blogger

I’ve been thinking about my training and race goals for next year and thought I should put them down. Recording them somewhere, especially someplace public, makes them more real. There’s more of a feeling of commitment to them, rather like registering for a race. Feedback, suggestions, recommendations and criticisms are always welcome.

Training Goals for Fall ’07 - Fall ‘08
1. Swim 5 x/week - work on freestyle, esp. keeping head down when breathing and lengthening stroke. Emphasis on drills per Mike Ricci. (Should I be swimming more than 5 x/week? Less? My swim level with freestyle is basically ‘Beginner’)
2. Improve diet/nutrition - Moving towards Paleo Diet for Athletes and step by step cutting back worst parts of current diet. Begin with daily food log, then analyze and break down bad habits.
3. Register for a Fall ’08 IronMan. Current candidates are Wisconsin, Florida, Arizona (if it moves to November) and the Great Floridian.
4. Work up base building schedule with emphasis on OD pace using data from BCSM, Joe Friel’s Going Long and input from BTC and Triscoop
5. Complete 100% of all workouts - More OD training and emphasizing repeatability of workouts, fatigue due to overtraining should be less of a factor than with past training now that I know I’ve been training 1-2 zones too hard for 4 years.
6. Incorporate weight training 2-3 x/wk- Emphasis on high reps/low weight for repeatability; also emphasis on core strength.
7. Improve LT power by 25% (From 175 to 220 watts)

Racing Goals for 2008 Season
A. Complete an Ironman (Fall)
A. Break 4:00:00 at Flying Pig Marathon (May) (4:44:10 in ‘06)
B. Break 6:00:00 at 5430 Long Course (7:21:50 in ‘07)
B. Boulder Peak
C. Stroke & Strides break 40:00 on 750m/5k race, 1:00:00 on 1500m/5k race

I’ve been training ‘wrong’ for 4 years, I don’t know how much progress to expect once I start training ‘right’ but I’m really hoping to crack 4:00:00 at the Pig. I think that between knowing how to train better and knowing how to race smarter, that goal should be attainable.
Breaking 6:00:00 at the Long Course will be a challenge, but if it wasn’t, there wouldn’t be a point to doing it would there? I should have broken 7:00:00 this year but I got stupid and greedy and my attempt to save a few minutes ended up costing me easily 20-30 minutes.
If I can take 5 minutes off my swim (40:00), 20 minutes off my bike (3:10:00, a bump from my 16mph speed to 17.6, not a big reach) and reach my original goal of 2:00:00 on the run, that would leave me 10 minutes for Transitions and get me over the line in 6:00:00.