As it’s coming up to April and with all races cancelled due to Corona Virus, it seems fitting to make some short term goals for the next month and see what May may bring if I achieve them.
Obviously with everything going on, no swimming goals will be made as it’s the start of complete lock down and I have no where to swim. So that’s easy!
I’m looking at this as a positive as my swimming compared to my bike and run is pretty strong. Even though it’s still sub par to how I was last summer. But there isn’t much I can do about that like 99% of the worlds triathlon population. So let’s concentrate on bike and run and trying to improve that.
The week before the lockdown came into effect I did a FTP test and a 5k run time trial.
To be honest I didn’t perform too well on either of these tests, to be honest it was a really hectic week with everything going on and my head wasn’t in the right frame of mind to be performing my best, however it wasn’t a complete disaster and it did give me a bench mark for something I can improve on throughout April.
I’ll start with the FTP test. My 20 min power was 208w. By far not my best performance and not even close to my all time best of 260w from about 18 months ago. So I’ve set myself a target of 250w by early May. A 42w improvement over the test a couple of weeks ago. This does seem a massive jump but to be honest I don’t think I gave it a good go last time so it’s probably 20 or 30w better than I currently am I think. Big task, but all green sessions, specifically the long bike and adding in a 3rd bike session each week due to the lock down, I think I’ll have a good chance to improve.
5k running time trial I managed 27:27 and 8:50 min/mile. To be honest this was the fastest I’ve done of of 2020. But don’t be fooled, I’ve been in base phase and injury prevention so nothing to shout about.
So my all time best PB is 23:54 and 7:42 per mile which I did 20th July 2019. To think I’ll manage that in a month is probably pretty unrealistic. But I’m going to aim for a sub 25 min 5km. Still pretty slow, but it is in a positive direction and will be a positive start to the summer if I achieve it.
Another goal I’m adding is weight loss, I’m currently a huge 83.9kg. Not far off the heaviest I’ve ever been! And a massive 7kg heavier than my lightest of 2 years ago! Big changes need to happen if I even want to fit in my tri suit for a race latter in the year. So I’m setting a goal of 1kg per week weight loss and a month goal of under 80kg.
– Mike Catton
Mike is training for some triathlons and half Ironman in 2020. Check in next Monday for his next article about his training journey.
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