Being out of work for all of Q2 has pretty much ruined any sense of this against my original plan, but I am going to stick with the review format I have used before, and then try and allow for the extra time I have had in the target resetting.
Original 2015 Annual Targets are:
Swim 92.6 miles.
Bike 2,268 miles.
Run 688 miles.
Swim race 400m under 6 mins.
Swim race 750m under 12 mins 30.
Swim race 1500m under 26 mins.
Optional - Swim race 5k under 1 hour 35mins.
Bike race - Any time trial.
Bike race - Any sportive.
Run race - 5k under 21:30 or 10k under 44 or Half Marathon under 1hr 48.
Run another race - 5k under 21:30 or 10k under 44 or Half Marathon under 1hr 48.
Optional - Run a championship race.
Bike 2,268 miles.
Run 688 miles.
Swim race 400m under 6 mins.
Swim race 750m under 12 mins 30.
Swim race 1500m under 26 mins.
Optional - Swim race 5k under 1 hour 35mins.
Bike race - Any time trial.
Bike race - Any sportive.
Run race - 5k under 21:30 or 10k under 44 or Half Marathon under 1hr 48.
Run another race - 5k under 21:30 or 10k under 44 or Half Marathon under 1hr 48.
Optional - Run a championship race.
But because I have S-curved the training plan for the year it is not quite as simple as halving the totals this year. Instead I have a more specific set of targets that should be complete by the end of June:
Swim 45.1 miles.
Bike 1149.3 miles.
Run 346.6 miles.
Green are complete or ahead of target. Red are still outstanding.
Green are complete or ahead of target. Red are still outstanding.
Actual miles to date are:
Swum 50.1 miles.
Biked 1341.4 miles.
Run 434.7 miles.
All ridiculously far ahead of target to this point.
All ridiculously far ahead of target to this point.
On the racing targets,
My 400m target is 6mins and at Forres Triathlon I managed a really disappointing 6:40. I still have a second chance at Alford in September. I may have to go and find another race or do a solo against the clock somewhere late in the year. This was always going to be a very tough target but I still think it is possible.
I nearly hit my 750m swim target at Peterhead without even noticing, so I have no doubt that I can take it soon. Unfortunately I miss my next opportunity to race 750m as I am at a wedding instead of Huntly Sprint, so Inverurie is my next chance, then Westhill.
On my first swim at Knockburn this year I got within a minute of my 1500m target in freezing cold water in an easy training session, and I have been knocking on the door of 26 minutes for two laps regularly since then. (Written before they changed the swim direction at Knockburn which is costing me 1min per lap somehow). So that could go as soon as I get into a race as well. First up is Knockburn Standard at the start of August, then Huntly Standard in September.
I may try a solo 5k at Knockburn or in the pool at some point but it is still just an optional.
On the bike I have done a few Time Trials already with more to come, next year that target will come with a time attached.
I haven't really done a Sportive yet this year.
I did Elgin 10k in 42:17 so well inside the 44 minute target and then I did the North of Scotland 5k champs in 19:37, almost 2 minutes inside the 21:30 target, clearing off both times and the optional target of running a championship race.
Analysis
So now comes the long rambling bit while I try to make sense of all of those numbers. Basically this year they don't make any real sense since I have had 4 months off work and plenty of time to train right over the top of them. The colours make it look like everything is going really well but I am not swimming fast enough, but they are misleading because I set the swim times to be really tough and then I haven't done many races to chase them yet.
Swimming
Swimming is definitely going well. I am going further than last year, which is not a huge surprise, I had planned for a big record swimming year, but I am also going much further than that plan, over 5 miles (~10%) ahead of the target I set for this point in the year.
More importantly, I am going clearly faster than last year, but still not quite as fast I had aimed at, yet. The longer swim also seems to suit me better now which is a good sign that my technique is cleaner, and I am just missing some sprinting muscles. The tumble turns are now going well enough that I can use them all the time in training. That doesn't always translate to the slightly faster conditions of racing but is improving. I am also going much more quickly for longer swims without needing to push myself as hard aerobically. If swimming continues to improve through the second half of the year I am going to end up close to 100 miles for the year.
Cycling
Biking I am even further ahead of my big targets, by almost 200 miles (~17%), and getting in to the Tuesday night TT races and Thursday night group rides has made a big difference both to miles and pace. And I am over on miles without doing any regular 'long' rides. Just a lot of rides in the 25-40 mile range.
The speed compared to previous years is certainly noticeable. With the Thursday night sessions and the Time Trials I am treating it almost as a completely different sport to how I have trained in previous years. Sitting on the bike for hours at a time is still in sometimes, but much less often, and working hard on the bike for shorter blocks is definitely doing much more to help my riding.
Running
Swimming
Swimming is definitely going well. I am going further than last year, which is not a huge surprise, I had planned for a big record swimming year, but I am also going much further than that plan, over 5 miles (~10%) ahead of the target I set for this point in the year.
More importantly, I am going clearly faster than last year, but still not quite as fast I had aimed at, yet. The longer swim also seems to suit me better now which is a good sign that my technique is cleaner, and I am just missing some sprinting muscles. The tumble turns are now going well enough that I can use them all the time in training. That doesn't always translate to the slightly faster conditions of racing but is improving. I am also going much more quickly for longer swims without needing to push myself as hard aerobically. If swimming continues to improve through the second half of the year I am going to end up close to 100 miles for the year.
Cycling
Biking I am even further ahead of my big targets, by almost 200 miles (~17%), and getting in to the Tuesday night TT races and Thursday night group rides has made a big difference both to miles and pace. And I am over on miles without doing any regular 'long' rides. Just a lot of rides in the 25-40 mile range.
The speed compared to previous years is certainly noticeable. With the Thursday night sessions and the Time Trials I am treating it almost as a completely different sport to how I have trained in previous years. Sitting on the bike for hours at a time is still in sometimes, but much less often, and working hard on the bike for shorter blocks is definitely doing much more to help my riding.
Running
Running is even further ahead than biking, almost 2 months (~25%) ahead of target, and well on course for my highest run total ever. Even if I do get a job soon I am probably going to break 800 miles in a year for the first time ever. The only year I have run further by mid-year was 2011 when I had been prepping for a marathon and doing minimal swimming and biking. And the second half of 2011 was post marathon and post breakdown and was the only time on record that I have failed to break 100 miles in 6 months.
Also I am being a bit smarter about the sessions. Not as smart as I should be, there is still room to improve, but the reps sessions, the fast runs and the Kenyan progression sessions are all adding some speed to just the sheer weight of doing lots of miles.
Also I am being a bit smarter about the sessions. Not as smart as I should be, there is still room to improve, but the reps sessions, the fast runs and the Kenyan progression sessions are all adding some speed to just the sheer weight of doing lots of miles.
Changes to targets
So what changes to make with 6 months gone?
This is actually quite a hard question. At the end of Q1 I glossed over it as I expected to be back in work fairly quickly so I couldn't just up the targets in case I ended up with no time to chase them.
Four months, and a lots of miles, further on and I am still hoping to get a job rather than continue battering the training numbers. So what I have decided to do is keep my original plan for each week. I am going to take all the bonus miles that I have clocked and just use them to move my baseline point from today. Basically what that means is that I am going to take my first half-year actuals and my second half-year plan, and merge them together to create one new set of targets.
This gives me new end of year targets of swimming 97.7 miles, biking 2,476.6 miles and running 772.7 miles. Again slightly complicated by the S-curves I have fitted over this years training plan. This would be record swim and bike milages, neither of which is a surprise as the original plans were both for record numbers and the revised targets are higher still. The revised run target is only 8 miles short of a record for run miles as well.
Also they are all very close to nice round numbers, and I am still out of work so I will certainly be ahead of those in the short term. In all likelihood if I am on target towards the end of the year I will really be looking to get 100, 2500 and 800.
Four months, and a lots of miles, further on and I am still hoping to get a job rather than continue battering the training numbers. So what I have decided to do is keep my original plan for each week. I am going to take all the bonus miles that I have clocked and just use them to move my baseline point from today. Basically what that means is that I am going to take my first half-year actuals and my second half-year plan, and merge them together to create one new set of targets.
This gives me new end of year targets of swimming 97.7 miles, biking 2,476.6 miles and running 772.7 miles. Again slightly complicated by the S-curves I have fitted over this years training plan. This would be record swim and bike milages, neither of which is a surprise as the original plans were both for record numbers and the revised targets are higher still. The revised run target is only 8 miles short of a record for run miles as well.
Also they are all very close to nice round numbers, and I am still out of work so I will certainly be ahead of those in the short term. In all likelihood if I am on target towards the end of the year I will really be looking to get 100, 2500 and 800.
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