Thursday, December 31, 2015

2015 Recap & 2016 Plan


And this concludes Year 7 of training and racing!! Like most OCD, data-recording, Training Peaks-using, numbers-loving triathletes, no year would be complete without the year-end stats. I generally look at straight numbers, and I leave the in-depth performance analysis to Coach Jim.

The racing year included 19 races: 6 road races, 1 trail race, 11 triathlons, 1 Aquathalon. The full listing of races is included at bottom of this post.

It didn't take a giant amount of training volume to prepare. It was a total of 509 training sessions for 515 hours so roughly 10 sessions, 10 hours per week. (This is skewed a bit because there are a number of short runs in there in conjunction with a swim or gym session)







Things I did well:

My swim felt much more dialed in this year. I finally learned to swim with more awareness and more strategy and have come to enjoy it!

I am proud that I managed to stay healthy, miss very very few workouts, and race well. The focus this year was entirely on sprint and Olympic distances, and I trained consistently and brought my best to every workout and race despite my life feeling busier and more hectic then ever with two growing boys. I am pleased I could keep it together and do my best!!

Areas for Improvement:

I need to learn to be more aggressive on the bike, particularly in competitive technical sprint races with a lot of fast competitors on the course like Nationals and Worlds. I am strongest on straight open courses and am disadvantaged on crowded courses with a lot of turns.

I also need to get mentally tougher, physically stronger, and more confident on the run. My run did not feel good for most of the season as I felt more affected by the heat than ever before (I'll credit age for that, boo). My race runs often felt like damage control, and I would get so mad at myself - a previous Boston Marathoner - for feeling like a 10K was the longest run ever. With two 70.3's on the calendar I'll need to figure that out.

I am tightening up my nutrition this year (mainly veggies with lunch and dinner) and adding 15 minutes of flexibility work into my routine every night before bed. I also intend to spend less time in front of the computer!! I'm not calling these resolutions...just changes I am ready to make!



2016 Triathlon Race Schedule (Tentative)

 Each year I like to make a few little changes. This year I'm grouping my race season into two sections with a training block/break in between in July and early August. I'm doing two 70.3's this year for the first time ever, and my first ever IRONMAN branded races. So I'll have an April-June race block, and an August-October race block.

  • Belews Lake Intl - 4/9/16  OR Rumpass in Bumpass International - 4/30/16 
  • Smith Mtn Lake Sprint Tri - 5/7/16 
  • IM 70.3 Chattanooga - 5/22/16 
  • Off the Rails Sprint Tri - 6/11/16 
  • Bath County Triathlon - 6/18/15 
  • USAT Olympic Natls - 8/13/16 
  • USAT Sprint Natls - 8/14/16 
  • ITU Worlds Olympic Distance - 9/?/16 
  • IM 70.3 North Carolina - 10/22/16

2015 Racing Summary


Alrighty, 2016. I am ready for you! Let's get this party started!