2011 Races

I meant to put this up right after my goals post but forgot about it for a while.


2011 Races

I'm pretty sure that I over did it last year when I raced 6 out of 8 weeks and did two training camps around that time as well.  This year I'm going to back off on all the racing and focus a little more again.
No surprise here but my A race is Ironman Wisconsin once again and I WILL finally have a good run on that course.

Building up to Wisconsin, I'm planning to do Muncie 70.3 and Oceanside 70.3.  Muncie will be a B race and Oceanside is just a test to see how I do with an early season race and pretty much indoor only training.

Other than those, I'll probably just do the normal shorter and local races that I enjoy each year.  I'm also considering doing some swim meets or open water swims to push myself even more in the water.



Lifetime Fitness Indoor Triathlon

I decided earlier this week to once again do the indoor triathlon at a local Lifetime Fitness to kick off my early season races.  I did my normal week of training leading up to it included a long ride on Saturday and just did the race instead of my normal Sunday training.

Swim: I went 50M further this year and felt great.  This got me 2nd on the swim (26.5 laps to 27 laps).  The best part is I was very steady, held 1:30 per 100 M exactly the entire swim, and finished feeling good and not winded at all.  Masters is paying off.

Bike: My legs just didn't have it today.  Maybe it was the fatigue from the longer rides this week, or maybe I just suck at spinning at an extremely high cadence on a spin bike.  I felt like I was barely working but I just couldn't get my legs to spin any faster.  I ended up going 1.5 miles less than last year and was 10th on the bike.

Run: The run felt great.  I started conservatively as I didn't know what I could do, but by 5 minutes in I was holding a 5:27 per mile pace and felt great.  I ended up speeding up for the last few minutes and cover 3.66 miles in the 20 minutes to average 5:27 for the full run.  I'm pleased with the improvement over last years 3.53 miles.  This was good enough to get me the fastest run of the day.

In the overall standings I ended up tying for first... I guess that sort of counts as defending my win from last year.

Eitherway, I did this race just for fun and to see where I'm at.  I'm very pleased that both my swim and run are better than last year.   I know my FTP is higher than last year a this time, even though I didn't have a good bike ride in me today.

Up next is Oceanside 70.3 in just over a month.  So far I can count the times I have run outside since Jan 1st on one hand and I haven't been on a bike outside since Hawaii.  I'm hoping we get a week of decent weather in before I have to pack up my bike and send it to Oceanside.

2011 Goals

While reviewing how 2010 and previous years went I noticed a few patterns:

• My best performances of the year are during training or early season races that I don't taper for
• When I try to taper it doesn't go well. I either add more workouts in or show up to the race feeling de-trained and like I just took a month off
• I gain the most "fitness" during the out season and then see very little gains in the actual season
• I have yet to run well in an Ironman
• I can't do this just for fun, as for me the fun part is setting a goal and achieving it
• I tend to have higher goals for myself then I share

After a ton of thought and many discussion with friends and mentors I've decided to make two changes this year.

The easy one: I have written down all of my goals including the ones I usually wouldn't share and the long term ones.  Now I have one set of goals and there is no hiding or changing things.

The hard one: To meet my goals, I will be starting with a one on one coach.

I know most people are thinking what's so hard about starting with a coach; well for a control freak like me it is pretty hard.  It took me a long time to be able to commit to this as I have enjoyed coaching myself and working with Endurance Nation for training plans and advice. However I feel in many ways I have become my own biggest limiter.  I'll share more on about this soon, but in the meantime here are my goals.

2011 Goals:

• Taper well and peak at the right times (i.e. PR in key races not training or C events)
• Run well off the bike with an IM run IF of at least 0.78. I have yet to go over 0.75.
• Follow my plan/coach and do not overachieve in training when I'm feeling strong
• Continue to improve my swim and do a 1000 M TT in under 15:00
• Qualify for a USAT Elite Card
• Qualify for a Age Group Kona Slot

Long Term Goals:

• Race as an Elite triathlete
• 9:00 Ironman
• 4:00 70.3
• 2:30 Marathon
• 1:10 Half Marathon