I figured I would be making my swim target most weeks, but would be scrounging round for biking and running miles. As it happens I am between 30% and 50% over my mileage targets for all three.
So here comes all the dry numbery bit:
2013 Annual Targets are:
Swim 75 miles and learn to tumble turn.
Bike 1612 miles.
Run 520 miles.
Do 250 sessions.
Do a Half Ironman (August).
Run a running race.
Keep weight over 73kg and aim for 80kg.
That means a quarter of the way through the year I should have done somewhere in the region of:
Swim 19 (or 16*) miles and be doing some turns.
Bike 403 miles.
Run 130 miles.
Maybe run a running race.
Keep weight over 73kg.
*My original idea was to only swim 1 mile a week in Q1 and then, once I started swimming outdoors, I would aim for that second session to put me up to about 2 miles a week. So really at this point I should only be at around 16 miles. Instead I have come straight in at doing 2 swims most weeks and averaging over 1.5 miles a week during Q1.
And the actuals to date are:
Swum 21 miles and trying to do some turns.
Biked 601 miles.
Run 184 miles.
Run a running race - North District Cross-Country League at Forres.
Kept my weight over 76kg.
The annual targets were always slightly unbalanced as they were built on what I did last year, rather than trying to build a proper racing or training plan. The ratios of 1:20:7 that I originally planned are accidentally close to standard triathlon distance ratios 1:26:7.
For a half ironman the distances are 1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike, 13.1 mile run, the ratio here is much more bike-heavy 1:47:11. The balances on what I have done both in terms of average weekly distance (1.6 swim, 48 bike, and 14 run miles) and ratio 1:30:9 are still closer to the balance for a standard.
Changes to targets
So what changes to make at this point?
Run a running race is done. That target was originally set more as a recovery from my breakdown rather than as a sporting target. I don't feel the need to replace it with another target at the minute.
Swim target overall is fine, and on schedule. I could add one about doing so many miles outdoors but that is too weather dependent. I could add a time one for a 750m race swim, but they are generally too dependent on which lane you get drawn in. So basically not going to change anything here.
Bike target was set based on just doing the same as last year. But I did put in the following note: "This is a bit of a lazy target, and I might look at shifting it to 1820 or 2080 depending on what the numbers look like by mid-year".
Only a quarter of the year gone so it is still a bit early to be making major changes to this target. Race season will start to have an impact from now and I have had no missed time for injuries, and minimal missed miles for weather so far. Keeping the same averages I would bike about 2400 miles, so moving my target up to 2080 miles looks easily do-able from here. But in light of race season I am only going to change up to 1820 miles for now. That means averaging 35 miles a week for the whole year, but since I am already way ahead of schedule, just means averaging the original 31 miles a week from here to the end of the year.
Run target I originally set at 520 miles, just because 10 miles a week is a nice round number that was about double my 2012 total. Even as a sprinter, and picking up injuries, my lowest training year up to 2011 was 650 miles. Purely on the numbers so far, getting back up to that 650 looks like a comfortable target for this year as, 700 or 750 even look like reasonable numbers to aim for but I am not going to change it from 520 until half way through the year. I am still much too reliant on other people, or on the treadmill.
I do need to start doing longer sessions though. I still haven't done any of the three sections of my ironman in a one-er yet (not counting monday night stop-start swims). So by end of Q2 I want to have at least a couple of rides over 60 and runs over 15 (race is 56 and 13). I also want to be getting at least a couple of brick sessions up over 3 hours.
I have 5 races on my plan for Q2, three of which I have done before (Knockburn duathlon, Turriff and Forres triathlons). Times are all a bit weather and opposition dependent, but two of those courses I know I can go quicker whatever the conditions so will add fastest times in 2 of 3 races as a new target.
Swum 21 miles and trying to do some turns.
Biked 601 miles.
Run 184 miles.
Run a running race - North District Cross-Country League at Forres.
Kept my weight over 76kg.
The annual targets were always slightly unbalanced as they were built on what I did last year, rather than trying to build a proper racing or training plan. The ratios of 1:20:7 that I originally planned are accidentally close to standard triathlon distance ratios 1:26:7.
For a half ironman the distances are 1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike, 13.1 mile run, the ratio here is much more bike-heavy 1:47:11. The balances on what I have done both in terms of average weekly distance (1.6 swim, 48 bike, and 14 run miles) and ratio 1:30:9 are still closer to the balance for a standard.
Changes to targets
So what changes to make at this point?
Run a running race is done. That target was originally set more as a recovery from my breakdown rather than as a sporting target. I don't feel the need to replace it with another target at the minute.
Swim target overall is fine, and on schedule. I could add one about doing so many miles outdoors but that is too weather dependent. I could add a time one for a 750m race swim, but they are generally too dependent on which lane you get drawn in. So basically not going to change anything here.
Bike target was set based on just doing the same as last year. But I did put in the following note: "This is a bit of a lazy target, and I might look at shifting it to 1820 or 2080 depending on what the numbers look like by mid-year".
Only a quarter of the year gone so it is still a bit early to be making major changes to this target. Race season will start to have an impact from now and I have had no missed time for injuries, and minimal missed miles for weather so far. Keeping the same averages I would bike about 2400 miles, so moving my target up to 2080 miles looks easily do-able from here. But in light of race season I am only going to change up to 1820 miles for now. That means averaging 35 miles a week for the whole year, but since I am already way ahead of schedule, just means averaging the original 31 miles a week from here to the end of the year.
Run target I originally set at 520 miles, just because 10 miles a week is a nice round number that was about double my 2012 total. Even as a sprinter, and picking up injuries, my lowest training year up to 2011 was 650 miles. Purely on the numbers so far, getting back up to that 650 looks like a comfortable target for this year as, 700 or 750 even look like reasonable numbers to aim for but I am not going to change it from 520 until half way through the year. I am still much too reliant on other people, or on the treadmill.
I do need to start doing longer sessions though. I still haven't done any of the three sections of my ironman in a one-er yet (not counting monday night stop-start swims). So by end of Q2 I want to have at least a couple of rides over 60 and runs over 15 (race is 56 and 13). I also want to be getting at least a couple of brick sessions up over 3 hours.
I have 5 races on my plan for Q2, three of which I have done before (Knockburn duathlon, Turriff and Forres triathlons). Times are all a bit weather and opposition dependent, but two of those courses I know I can go quicker whatever the conditions so will add fastest times in 2 of 3 races as a new target.
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