Today (I am writing this on Monday night) is the day that most people will be starting their 30-week training plan for Ironman Coeur d'Alene. I, on the other hand, am still taking a little time to recover from Ironman Arizona, which apparently involves running a half marathon in Las Vegas. Anywho, I'm currently going through the process of figuring out what I want to accomplish for this next Ironman race.
I have a few goals on the table that I need to filter through in order to decide what my game plan is going to be. First off, my overall goal will be to finish Ironman CdA. Since I've never raced this course before, I won't really know what to expect, so just finishing it will be a successful day. The next step up would be setting a new PR. And while I had a phenomenal day at Ironman Arizona last week, there is still plenty of room for improvement. The question is, how high do I set the bar? Do I go for an even 11:30, or go big and say sub-11? Lastly, there is a rivalry goal that I must consider. Well, two of them actually.
The first rivalry goal is that I have to decide if I think I'm capable of finishing first out of the group of people I will be racing with. Realistically, this doesn't matter. But, it's one of those things that just exists. We are all going to be thinking that finishing first out of the group would be awesome, but of course, no one is really going to come out and say it. The other rivalry this has much more pressure added to it is my rivalry with The Captain. Now, we don't really have a rivalry, because we are good friends and we do a lot of our training together. But the way that our racing has played out is that he had beaten me in 2 previous Ironman Arizona races, and I finally beat him last week. Well, he is going to be doing Ironman Arizona again next year, with the goal of beating my current IMAZ PR of 11:39:49. So my rivalry goal for IM CdA is to set a new PR that The Captain will be unable to beat at IMAZ. I do think that this is wishful thinking.
I'm not saying that I'm actually going to include all of these goals into my training planning. I'm just saying that these are some of the goals that I have to consider so I can figure out what my real goals and expectations are for this race.
I'm hoping to have the basic outline of a training plan within the next few days, and I'll post it once I do. Until then, I'll just be doing some easy training to allow my body to continue to recover before I get going again.
Thanks for reading!
Good Old Fashion Athletic Competition is great, when kept in proper perspective. Competitors actually help each other improve by providing a motivational element which can have very positive results for everyone involved.
ReplyDeletePlus, it's just plain fun to egg your competition on.
In regard to Coeur d' Alene goals, this will be interesting. The course generally brings slower times, however the one thing to keep in mind here is, " YOU are a IRONMAN"