A New Set of Goals for 2012

With my departure from road racing, I’ve had to scramble to come up with some new goals for my budding triathlon career (I use that term loosely).  Why am I posting them like this in a public forum?  Easy.  If I make them public, then I can’t hide from them later.  Now, when someone asks me if I am a 5:40 runner, I can’t say, “I’m really only shooting for 6:00”.  I have to be accountable about where I am.  This also has the added side effect of ensuring that *I* can’t fool myself into thinking that I’m hot stuff when I’m really not (or am hotter than expected)!

I’m going to take the same approach to goal setting on the road to triathlon and it all starts with my strengths and weaknesses.  With those written down, I can come up with race goals and training goals.  Race goals are pretty obvious, they are the races I want to do and how I want to do in them.  Training goals are a little less obvious, but are just as simple.  They are simply what I want to be able to get out of my training.  In my opinion, you can’t have one without the other.  How else can you say you want to win a triathlon when you don’t know how fast you will need to be to do it?

Unfortunately, I’ve had to shelter my goals for my first two races this year to merely top 10s.  Originally, I felt like I was going to be on track for podium positions at both, but I found out the other day that I am going to need surgery on my hand, which is going to keep me out of the water for a few weeks (my weakest sport).  Regardless, I’ll be back on track soon after, but, in the meantime, I’m going to be putting in some solid bike/run work.

Race Goals:

5430 Sprint Triathlon – June 17 – Top 10

Silverthorne Triathlon – July 29 – Top 10

Age Group Nationals – Aug 19th – Podium

Training Goals (by the end of the season):

LT Pace (Run): 5:40mi

LT Power (Bike): 320 watts

T-Pace (Swim): 1:30/100m

Now that I’ve divulged my goals for the season and have nothing to hide behind, what are yours?  Are you just looking to finish your first 5k, land a pro contract, something else? I want to hear about it!