The racing year is coming to a close…… so now we look at 2010

So the 2009 season of triathlon has pretty much come to an end as the waters get colder and the weather gets less enjoyable (if there is such a thing in the UK). So I am sat here thinking how do we begin to think about what races to do in 2010. Here is some hopefully useful advice that I have picked up from my experiences over the years. If you are a newcomer to the sport or a seasoned age-grouper these points are always worth considering.

1. REST…… if you have enjoyed a season of training and racing then it is now time to sit back, give yourself a pat on the back and enjoy some down time. Regardless of whether you have just completed your 1st sprint distance race or have just qualified to represent Great Britain at the World Championships, you need to allow your body some time to recover from the excesses of your exercise. Rest and recovery are just as crucial a part of your training regime as the actual hard intensity sessions that might make you feel a bit ill. So plan on spending a bit more time with your family and friends, go out for those drinks that you maybe sacrificed because a morning training session with a hangover is never clever and just generally enjoy more time without worrying about feeling guiltty if you missed some training. This period does not necessarily mean that you stop exercising altogether, just drop the volume and intensity of your sessions and take the odd day off. When you do get around to some workouts try to do them without any specific goals, no heart rate targets, no aiming for personal best’s and definitely no competition between you and team mates.
2. EVALUATE…… as you take more rest time to let your body recover you should let your mind become a bit more involved. Look back at the races that you did in 2009 and write down what was good about them, what was bad about them, what races did you enjoy most, what races did you enjoy least, what were your strengths, what were your weaknesses, where do you feel you can make the biggest improvement for next year, where did you place in your age group in races, was your training adequate, how could you train differently, etc….. What you are trying to do is look at as many different areas as possible that you can manage in order to plan for 2010. When you have all of these questions answered you can actually begin thinking about how you will target next year and what you will aim to achieve. Try to be as constructive as possible with your comments, it’s not worth just being hard on yourself because you think you should be racing harder and faster. You must try to look at the positives as well, because there will definitely be some. The fact that you actually choose to test yourself and challenge yourself physically is a huge positive that you should never forget.
3. GOAL SETTING……… once you have completed the evaluation stage then you have to get on with setting yourself your challenges for 2010. Goal setting does not mean just picking what races you want to do, it has to be a little more detailed than that. Try to set specific goals that might include time targets at certain races, it might be to improve your bike time by 10%, it might be to improve your strength in the water, it might be to place higher up in your age group, it might even be to try and qualify for the Great Britain Age Group team and go to the World Championships. Whatever your goals are they should follow the SMART principle. If you are not familiar with this SMART goal setting means that your goals must be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic & Timed. Without going into too much detail here and losing your attention (if I have not already), get in touch if you need help with this. The key point in goal setting is that your goals must have detail, setting vague and loose goals allows for an athlete to become vague and loose as well.
4. PLAN……… so now comes the final stage of this process, and it is time to put all of the mental work into practice and plan your year ahead. When you begin to plan your training you have to be realistic to yourself as to how much time you can/want to commit. How much of your life do you want to give to over to the pursuit of your goals? I always say that ‘an organised athlete is a successful athlete’ and this applies to every single workout that you do. Each session should be structured and then you go into the session knowing what you are going to do, this leaves less chance for you to just muddle your way through a workout which will be less productive. On a larger scale the planning process should include you planning what races/challenges you want to aim for in 2010, to do this you have to research the dates of races, the location, the distances and pick the ones that tick all of the boxes for you. A word of advice would be that as triathlon becomes a more popular sport the race calendar becomes a lot bigger, however all races do seem to fill up quite quickly these days. So try to find out when a race is open to entry and get in as soon as possible, it can be really disheartening to find that the one race you really want to do is full up.

I hope that you find the above info of some help. If you have any questions on any of this please do get in touch. Reply to dermott.hayes@rgactive.com

Good luck with your training through the winter and your planning for 2010. At RG Active we hope to see you at training and races throughout the year.

Happy Training

Dermott