Happy New Year, everyone. 🙂

I could keep my goals for 2013 to myself, but encouragement/abuse from my mates is part of the plan!

I’m going to stick with sprint distance triathlon for 2013. Looking back over last year my best swim/bike/run times mean I guess I’d currently be looking at, best case, 68+ minutes for a canonical sprint distance (750m/20km/5km) like Nottingham Triathlon. I’m going to make it my ‘A’ race in June. To be competitive I’m going to have to save a big chunk of time.

Focus

By the middle of the year I want to be able to beat my current best 5k run time (18:45) even at the end of a tri, but the main focus has got to be on improving my bike speed. My current 34 km/h means 35+ minutes on a measured 20 km course, which just isn’t competitive.

Races

I’ve got every event that caught my eye in my calendar, so there are way too many. As I decided in my 2012 year-in-review I’m going to aim for about one a month, enough to break up the training into blocks and give me transition and race day practice but not so many that it disrupts things. So, here’s the probable selection for the next six months!

2 Feb 2013 – Eton Dorney Duathlon Series, Race 1 (5km/20km/5km) – first marker vs. last year
17 Mar 2013 – Winchester Duathlon (5km/20km/5km) – a new local du
7 Apr 2013 – Eton Dorney Duathlon Series, Race 3 (5km/20km/5km) – second marker
25 Apr 2013 – Eastleigh Aquathlon (750m/5km) – to race an open-water swim, cf. last year
11 May 2013 – All Nations Triathlon (400m/20km/5km) – ‘test’ race
18 May 2013 – Emsworth-Basingstoke Relay – fun, cf. last year
1 Jun 2013 – Nottingham Triathlon (750m/20km/5km) – ‘A’ race
23 Jun 2013 – Bristol Harbourside Triathlon (750m/20km/5km) – second chance

Training

According to my training log, 2012 looked like this.

Bike: 84 hours (40%) split equally between turbo at the start of the year and the road later on
Run: 32 hours (15%) on road, cross-country and treadmill
Swim: 12 hours (6%) in pool and open water
Bricks: 21 hours (10%) if I include brick sessions and actual du/tri/aquathlon!
Gym: 35 hours (17%) in two blocks in the spring and at the end of the autumn
Other: 27 hours (13%), mostly the rowing when I was just getting going at beginning of the year

I’m at a different point now. Some of that is going to work for 2013, some of it isn’t. The rowing and low intensity steady-state turbos last spring improved my base fitness, but wouldn’t do much for me now I think. This coming year’s first block of training is going to be power work in the gym, power work on the turbo, all designed to make me go faster on the bike, and just a small amount of running to avoid losing run speed. I’m not playing with very many hours a week… I’ll see where I’ve got to in February, maybe get a bike fit check-up at Athlete Service, and revisit the plan for the next few months with Nic.

Let’s see how it goes!