Planning the Offseason

Officially in offseason mode now - haven't biked since the 1000 Islands race in order let my saddle sores heal up (TMI?), but I have been running (more on that later). In terms of swimming I'm mostly in rest/maintenance mode until January when I'll start training hard again, and it'll be the same for biking when I get going again. Fall is an awesome time to be riding out in the country.

I'm currently going back over this season to shed a little more light on how I should approach training for next season. Here are some stats on how I did in each of the 4 races this year in terms of how high up I finished compared to the rest of the field in each discipline.

You can see the huge disparity in Perth - being in the top 4% of bikers, but top 25% and 33% in the swim and run respectively (though the swim stats are skewed by all the Perth Stingrays who participated in the event), whereas by the end of the season in Brockville things are a little more even. No real surprises here, my run is consistently poor.

But this stat measures stand-alone performances - there are triathletes who are very good swimmers, for example, that finish way down in the standings. This table shows where I rank in each discipline, but not really how that might relate to the overall race.

So here's another table where I took an average of what the top 3 racers got in each leg of the race. I'm setting a goal next year of making the overall podium, so these are the performances I'll need to approach. I then took what your average podium finisher got and compared it what what I got, effectively showing how much time I was losing to the race leaders in each leg.

What's interesting is that the time I'm giving up is surprisingly even (and in Perth I put in a better bike split than the average top 3 finisher so actually gained time) especially in Smiths Falls and National Capital. But I am losing the most time in the run, as expected.

Which brings me to the offseason game-plan.

Swim
I'm a decent enough swimmer, and I know that without swimming with a masters group or getting some sort of coaching, and certainly with the limited swim volume I'm able to put in, I will likely plateau pretty soon if I haven't already. So be it. With two young kids at home and a demanding job (and living a considerable distance from a pool) I'll make do with what I have. Overall I've been happy with my swim, and over the offseason I expect to make minimal gains.

Bike
My strongest discipline, but certainly room for improvement. I'm especially wondering whether its possible that I overbiked the 1000 Islands course, which led to my implosion on the run. With only one solid year of bike training I know there are still gains to be made, and I know that improvements in bike fitness will help me to be fresher for the run. My plan is have a more structured training schedule this winter and a more exact approach to periodization, so my plan is to go the TrainerRoad route, and to get a power meter. The power meter will obviously be useful for training but also for pacing when it comes time to race.

Run
This is where I really need to improve, and I think where there's the most potential for gains. If I could have run a 50min 10K in Brockville I'd have made the top 5, and just under 45min would have put me in the top 3. 45 minutes is not a super fast 10K, and I'd like to think that with enough work I can get there for next season. Step 1 is to focus almost exclusively on the run until December. I'm going to target a road race sometime in October and at this point am looking at a 10K with the goal of trying to get to 45min. May not be all that realistic, but I've never done a stand-alone 10K (or even a 5K) so I don't have much of a baseline. Holding 4:30/km for 10K does seem attainable to me though.

I'm already excited about next Tri season, but that is a long way off, so it's nice to have shorter-term goals to keep me motivated.

Reflections on the season

Overall I'm happy with how my first real triathlon season went. As 2015 began I hoped to make an Age Group podium at some point in the season, and set that as a broad goal. 4 races later, and 4 AG wins has to count as a successful season. I'm still a little irked at getting passed in the last 100m at Smiths Falls to bump me out of the top 10 (that would put me in the top 10 in every race) but all of this would have been more than satisfying back in January when I started my training plan.

Melissa and I talked about this a few times, and this season really has been a team effort. I could not have done this without the love and support of my amazing wife Melissa, so any successes I've had belong to her as much as to me.

I also want to thank my daughters Lily and Nora for inspiring this season. Wanting to set a good example for them, and wanting to make sure that I'll be around to see them grow up and start families of their own is what motivated me to take this on.

A few other thanks yous:
- As expected, the bike was my strongest discipline, and thanks are due to Dan (RIP) for the mag-trainer which allowed me to have a productive winter suffering in the basement, and to Jesse at Bushtukah for the Retul fit and help getting a good price on the right fitting bike.
- I didn't expect to be consistently near the front in the swim, but I made great strides this season despite limited pool time and having not really swam since I was like 13. Thanks go to Bo Simpson out in Calgary for his mentorship and helping me get the most bang-for-buck in the pool.
- My run was terrible, but given where I started from the season is a success. I achieved my goals making it through the season without getting derailed by injury, and being able to race 10km. Getting a head start on the season with a treadmill was instrumental in that, and I owe mom and dad a thanks for lending me theirs.

Thoughts on the off-season and next year to come later.

Finishing up my first full tri season

So the National Capital Tri went well last weekend (race report is up). In any race there's positives and negatives, and this one was no exception.

The positives:

• Really happy with my 6:17 swim time
• Improved on my best overall position (got into 7th place)

The negatives:

• The plan it take it a little easier on the bike in an effort to improve my run failed
• I had a relatively slow bike time and my run was pretty much the same as last time
• Didn't seem to make any significant improvements on my run
• Overall time was considerably slower than previous best

Now, every course is different, and every field of competitors is different too. So improving my overall placing could just be a reflection of a weaker field, or my slower overall time could be a reflection of a slower course. Both could be true - the Olympic distance event would likely have drawn some of the stronger racers; the bike leg of the course was indeed slower (traffic, turnarounds, and longer from T-zone to mount line than Smiths Falls). Comparing times with people who raced in Smiths Falls, everyone was slower on the bike.

The run is what it is though. Disappointing that I didn't seem to fare much better in this race, given that I am feeling stronger in training and came in (relatively) injury free. The 10K at next weekend's Oly in Brockville will be interesting. If I put 22:30 down for my 5K time, the McMillan Running calculator seems to think I can do the 10K in 46:44. That's running 10sec/km slower, which doesn't seem like much of a change of pace. And I will be coming off 1.5km of swimming and 40km of bike riding, so we'll see. If I come in under 50min for the 10K I'll be happy.

I'll be back to a normal taper routine this week after the fiasco leading up to the National Capital event. Looking forward to getting to this last race of the season fit, rested, and ready to test myself at the Olympic distance.