Multiple goals in one season

Capt_Apollo

hey all, it occurs to me that i tend to have a lot of goals in one race season. this year i wanted to come in under two hours on a half-marathon, under 2:30 on an olympic distance tri, and under 1:10 on a sprint.

i'm wondering if i'm trying to do too much. my races aren't really super stacked on top of each other, but they can seem like that.

at the moment, i've been trying to build volume in the pre-season. in a few weeks i start doing more shorter, speed building, race specific workouts.

DangerJim71

I don't think that's too much as long as the events are scheduled in a way that makes it manageable. I have also set three race goals for this season involving a sprint, half iron and half marathon. I have them scheduled in a way that should help build toward accomplishing them with my half marathon goal in the fall when tri season is over and I've been able to do a run focus.

scott091501

I don't think it's too much either. As long as you can lay out a logical plan that builds towards multiple goals you should be fine. You should also mentally prioritize goals so that if one needs to be sacrificed because of injury or a life event it doesn't become a major stressor.

EnduranceGirl2

Multiple goals make the training more worthwhile. I set 10K and olympic tri PR's last year while training for Louisville. My half-marathon goal is still eluding me so I've signed up for one about 5 weeks after IM Choo Choo. By then, I should be recovered and ready for the half even if I take a couple of weeks off after IM.

glevinso

My races are laid out as A, B and C level races. I might have two A-races a year, spaced well apart, with some "I want to do well" B-level races thrown in there and some "I am just here for fun" C-level races.

Sometimes it is easier to prioritize your goals in a similar way - which do you want to really concentrate on? Which are still important but you don't want to sacrifice attaining the other for? Which are just there if you can grab them?

FWIW - since a sprint tri is not a standardized distance it is hard to place any time goal on a "generic" sprint tri.

daj150

I had to go look through all of my logs and journals to see if I ever had less than 3 goals in a given race season. I found that almost every season I had an average of 4 goals. But as others mentioned, they were designed to build on one another so it made training a lot more enjoyable, and the races that much more rewarding.

ShawnTX

I don't believe you can train as efficiently when trying to push endurance and speed goals at the same time. It is like training in Z3-Z4, a gray zone. Sure you will get results, but not as good. I planned this season with a HIM on the front end (4/26) and all sprint/Oly's for the remainder of the year as I really want to focus on increasing speed this year. I worked on increasing endurance over the winter. This has been wildly successful for me. I just think that you are likely to have a lot less efficient training if you are training for endurance one month and speed the next. I would love to see if there is an optimum cycle for shifts in these types of training focus. I have been through a lot of literature and can't seem to find an answer to that. Seem like it would fall somewhere in the 8-16 week range though. i.e. 10 weeks of speed focus while just doing enough to maintain endurance levels, then flip flop and focus on endurance. Would love to hear more from others on this subject.

scott091501

Actually periodization works great. Generally programming out in 3-6 week blocks. Base blocks last longer than speed focused ones because they take less of a toll on the body. It really just depends on the individual athlete as to how you cobble blocks of training together. You have to take strengths/weaknesses/ability to recover/how injury prone one is/etc into account when writing a schedule out. You also have to be flexible enough to change course if you test and the previous block of training didn't yield the results expected or if you've slipped in an area that was once a strength.

Capt_Apollo

geez, i have to remember to check the groups more often. forgot i asked about this.
thanks for the tips and info guys.

yes, @ShawnTX and @scott091501 i know you can't generally push endurance and speed. this winter was all about building volume. now that my tri club workouts are starting again next week, i'll be doing a lot more speed work, and just maintaining my endurance base. the next six weeks will be about building speed for my upcoming half marathon.

ShawnTX

Thanks for posting that @scott011501. Makes sense. Longer blocks for endurance and shorter for speed. I know I have to be very careful when working speed as it is by far the most likely time for me to develop a nagging injury. Knock on wood I have always known better and scaled back to allow some healing to take place.

@Capt_Apollo, sounds like we are going to have very similar seasons and focus. Good luck on this season!

scott091501

Just as an example template a 20 week 70.3 or 140.6 template might look like this:

Weeks 1-4: Base 1
Week 5: Testing
Weeks 6-9: Base 2
Week 10-12: Power Endurance (Hill Repeats, Low Cadence intervals, etc)
Week 13: Testing
Week 14-16: Speed Endurance (distance repeats up to 5k, tempo intervals, etc.)
Week 17-18: Race Specifics
Weeks 19-20: Taper & Race

Again every athlete is different. You'll see athletes with a ton of aerobic base get long blocks of speed at the front end of their plans (yes this increases injury risk and is only used with very seasoned athletes) and short periods of base towards the back end of their plan. You'll see "ADD athletes" with short 2 week blocks of speed or power thrown into the middle of a base block to keep their attention. IMO this is why "boxed" plans aren't optimal for most athletes, but I'm also a USAT coach so take that for what it's worth.