Events, Goals, and Plans

Not having a plan is a plan to fail.  My recent foot injury left me without goals, without time constrained challenges like races, and without a plan.  Without any of these motivating factors the hours I workout each week has fallen to 2 hours from 6 plus hours and my fitness has likely decreased.

It is time to end this pity party and unholy downward spiral.  First off was selecting events for the remainder of the calendar year and discarding the events from my old plan my injury prohibits. 

 

Badgerland Striders ½ marathon 27 Aug 2011

Lake Geneva Sprint Triathlon 10 Sep 2011

Chicago Men’s Health Urbanathlon 15 Oct 2011

Miami Beach Rock n Roll ½ marathon 11 Dec 2011

Second was setting reasonable goals that reflect my current fitness. 

 

Lake Geneva Sprint Triathlon:  Compete

Chicago Men’s Health Urbanathlon:  Sub 7:00 min/mi pace

Miami Beach Rock n Roll ½ marathon:  1:25:45

Third was creating a plan to pull it all off.  I have never been the greatest with this last part.  Most of my training decisions are day of based on the weather and biofeedback with weekly considerations for hours and mileage in mind.  I find this last part takes care of itself, but also understand this could make some heads explode.

I have never done a triathlon.  I have six weeks to get in tri shape for this 0.3 mile swim, 15 mile bike, 3.1 mile run sprint course.  My current fitness from my first Brick indicated highly competitive bike and run times.  When I combine these times with my current swim time of DNF the end result is ... DNF.  I have some work to do and committing to this event should be the kick in the ass I need to actually swim.

After the triathlon I will be going back to my first love, running.  There will be something close to 12 weeks for ½ marathon training for Miami.  The Urbanathlon will be an event I train through.  I did the Urbanathlon last year and it was a lot of fun.  I will be following an Interval, tempo, distance plan with cycling and swimming as my dominant forms of cross training.  Goal time is 1:25:45, because equivalent race performance tables tell me so based on 5k and 10k race times.