Goals

In a previous post, I discussed my training plan. Part and parcel with that are my goals or to put it another way, what I expect to get out of my training plan. They are, likewise, not stringent. Some may even be too far out of reach. Perhaps I’ll get a lesson in that as I start tracking my progress toward them.

Between now and the middle of March, my only goals are to complete my scheduled workouts and stay more less inside my first heart rate zone (Z1) which is 60% - 75% of my max. Workouts are based on time rather than distance and I’m focused on just increasing distance slowly without concern for pace. So far, it seems to be working. I’m actually swimming faster than I expected (nearly 50 ypm) and I’m managing longer and longer rides and runs.

Since I think it served me so well last year, I’ve set up a goals tracking section on my master plan/log that I’ll begin actively tracking on March 12 (the first day of my 70.3 plan).

Here’s an example of my swim pace goal from last year:

Those spikes, by the way, are the result of what I think was a short course for the Aquaman aquathalon series. Their 1500 meters seemed to be much shorter than other versions.

For the coming year, I’ve set up a new goal based about where I am now and anticipating a gradual increase:

I’ve done likewise with the bike and run and then, again like last year, I’ve also got a track for total time:

This one is hard to predict because so many things can change.

By way of example, here’s last year’s track of the same metric:

Pretty close but also not 100% true-to plan.

Some time in April I’ll post an update to show how I’m progressing against what I hope to do. That will also be when I start to see if the results are showing up in races.