Thursday, October 9, 2008

Triathlon goals - shooting for average!

Okay, so here are my goals:
  • The big goal: Finish the sprint triathlon!
Secondary goals:
  • Finish the swim at a pace of 1 minute per 50 yards. If my calculations are correct, that would be about 18 minutes for half a mile.
  • Finish the bike with an average speed of 15 miles an hour. That would be about 45 minutes of biking for the ~12 mile course.
  • Finish the run with an average pace of 7:30 minutes per mile. That would be a little over 23 minutes for a 3.1 mile course.
If we add 5 minutes for transitions, that would put my overall time for the race at a little over 90 minutes. Of course, the overall time would be different if the race distances vary.

I really don't know my swimming speed or my biking speed, so I don't have any personal data to use as a basis for those goals. So, here's what I did: I found the results of a fairly large sprint triathlon and used the median result from my age group for each event. (You can see the race results I found here and here.)

The running goal is going to take some effort. Right now, my usual running course is a somewhat hilly 3.5 miles. If I push myself I can run it at a 7:45 min/mile pace. So, my goal for the triathlon is to beat that pace by a decent amount after swimming and biking. I think that is going to require a significant amount of training.

I am currently running 3 or 4 times a week. If I increase my workout frequency (not necessarily running) I think that will make a big difference in my running pace. I'm thinking about running 3 days a week and increasing my distance to about 5 or 6 miles, swimming 2 days a week and biking 1 day a week. It's just a thought right now, I'll let you know how it goes.

Wish me luck!

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