2009 Goals

Most years I have a list of goals but this year there are only two: qualify for the Ironman World Championship and help Bob complete his first triathlon which happens to be Ironman Florida.

When I competed at Ironman CdA, I was more concerned with finishing than going fast. When the gun went off, I waited on the beach until the crowd had started the swim. On the bike, I tried to be steady and well within my limits. On the run I stopped a few times to say hi to friends and didn't push myself. At the end, while I didn't feel fresh, I didn't feel trashed either.

This year it's going to be different. To improve upon CdA, there are three areas I'll focus on. The first is transition. At CdA, the first transition was around 10 minutes and the second around 6. I have enough experience to know those can both be safely dropped to around 2 - 3 minutes each.

Over the last three years, I've improved my cycling a lot. I've went to holding 19 mph on the rolling Harvest Moon half-iron course to holding 23. I am going to train to be able to hold 23 for the Ironman distance while still having enough in reserve to have a strong run. This will be my biggest challenge, to ride faster and longer while being more efficient and saving more energy for the run.

Compared to the bike, the run should be easy. Last year at Harvest Moon, I held back on the run and finished in 1:38. As long as I don't go too hard on the bike, I should be able to complete the run in 3:15.

Helping Bob may be the bigger challenge this year. Bob is aerobically one of the fittest people I know. The challenge is that he doesn't know how to swim and he signed up for Ironman. If I can get him to finish the swim under the cutoff time, he should be able to finish without any problems. His cycling needs a little work since he mostly uses the bike to cross-train for running and his run needs no work at all.

Just two goals this year but I think both will be very challenging for completely different reasons.