I got goals...

"I've got to swim more - need to get into the front pack"

"Lots of core work this season, need to get stronger"

"Top 10 in my AG at worlds"

"Kona"

Goals.  It's that time of year again and everyone is looking at the year ahead.  More people asking the question "what's your goal this year?

"Not sure really, maybe get a little better at transitions?" is not a suitable answer.  At any time of the year.  Goals need to be specific, they need to challenge you and they need to be a little scary.  Goals provide motivation, direction and (being honest) another reason to talk triathlon to strangers and friends alike.  Goals should be part of every triathletes early season thinking, and mid season thinking, and late season thinking.

And that is the problem, something I have been guilty of - too many goals set in January, without a real understanding of what they will take to achieve or (even worse) how to achieve them.  Sometimes they are simply forgotten as the season progresses and takes random twists and turns.  One of the great things about triathlon is that much of the learning and improvement can be done 'on the job' as it were.  Simply train a lot and you just might hit your goals.  Awesome.  Nailed it.  But you might easily miss by a mile and be left with the old classic "..but I always gave it my best!"

Not good enough for me, not good enough for you and certainly not good enough to get the Kona chasers to Hawaii.

So my take is that goals are good, but plans are better.

I spent most of the off season thinking at three levels.  I setout my vision for the year - the broad outline of what I want to achieve - after which I decide on specific goals based on this vision.  Finally I create a plan that will allow me to effect this vision and achieve those goals.  Incidentally I also apply this method of breaking down a season to a long term (2-3 years) and short term cycles (1-2 months build into a race).


Whats my vision for 2014? I have two:

1) A focus on middle distance racing - after a few years of short course I'm starting to build towards my long term vision for triathlon (more on that in a later post).  A major part of that is racing competitively at middle distance.  The transition from short course in terms of life impact and emotional endurance is manageable and there are plenty of small, medium and large scale events to keep me both humble and competitive.  This year my schedule includes five middle distance races.  Bedford, Fambridge and Aberfeldy will be training races.  70.3 Norway will be my main 'A' race of the season and the 70.3 World Champs (if I qualify) will be a chance to see family and friends in Canada and mark the official end of the season.

2) The bike.  I 'felt' (and the numbers back this up) that my bike was a relative weakness last year.  Not enough passing and too much being passed.  With a focus on middle distance in 2014, where biking ability is over represented as a percentage of race time/distance, I need to address this weakness as a priority.  Like all triathletes I started with the "First Rule of Athletic Improvement" and bought new toys.  Riding with power is a key part of my strategy for success at middle distance.  And if that isn't the most perfect purchase justification line in existence, I don't know what is... seriously though, I look forward to using power effectively this year, both in training and racing.

Based around the vision, my goals for 2014 are:

Racing:
- Qualify for 70.3 World Champs 
- sub 4.25 at 70.3 Norway
- Top 5 in AG at European Champs (Olympic)

Performance:
- Swim: sub 21min 1500m (SC pool)
- Bike: FTP of 300watts
- Run: sub 17.30 5km


It's worth noting that the racing goals are abstract at best.  There are too many uncontrollables in these to measure success directly.  As such it is important to have performance goals that can be directly measured to track progress.  A 1500m pool TT, a turbo based/TT based FTP test and a 5km road TT will form the basis of my testing throughout the season.

And the plan?  What training and racing do I actually need to do to achieve those goals?  At this stage the plan is set at a macro level and looks like this up to Norway 70.3:

The key to this plan is the far right column.  The numbers are minumum km's of swim/bike/run for that week.  Without going into too much detail here, this system has worked very well for me in the past.  It is the simplest way I know to ensure that consistency is at the core of your training plan.  And in my opinion consistency is the number one performance determinant for AG triathletes.  Bar none. 

Except for buying new kit of course.

Next post I'll go into more detail about how I structure the weekly cycle and apply the 70/20/10 rule to my training program.  I've also got some great images from the Laguna Phuket Triathlon, so I'll put a race report up soon.

Thanks for reading,


Rob



(That's Helle Frederiksen in the title image btw - and like me (snap!) she is focusing on middle distance this year.  Check out her Facebook page.  Total pro.)