Race goals for 2009

23 Mar Race goals for 2009

There. Now it’s in words. I’m making goals for 2009:

• Sub 2:10 Olympic triathlon. This won’t be easy as I’ve never done a triathlon yet and just starting to teach myself how to swim competently in November.
• Sub 2:50 marathon. Came close in 2008
• Sub 35 minute 10k. I think I just missed it in 2008 on a supposedly long course

I’ll mix these up with bike road races, time trials, duathlons, 5k running races, trail running, and adventure races, so might be spread thin.

I’ll be very happy to break at least 2 of the 3.

There. It’s in writing. Bring it.

Update: Today, April 19, I did accomplish #3, running a 34:48 in the Vancouver Sun Run 10k. I thought it was fairly hilly for a 10k, but that means downhills too which is good for me. The first km was downhill, and people flew off the line. I started easy and must have passed nearly 50 runners from 1km mark to the end, passed only by 1. It’s an incredibly deep event, with 80 runners faster than me (and, well, about 59,920 slower). This bodes well for a distance I really enjoy and is new to me. I’ve only been running 40-60km a week these days, balanced with all my cycling and swimming and skiing. I think with 100km+ weeks and later in the season, I could make a run at 33:xx.

Update: I did my first triathlon, a sprint distance (so about half an Olympic), today, the Delta Triathlon. So I can finally call myself a triathlete?! It was early season so the swim was in a 25m pool (not open water thankfully), but it was still plenty hectic with people piling up at points, getting punched and kicked, and missing breaths. That was a fair first swim for me! Bike was strong, but it was windy and the faster guys seemed to all have plenty more aero gear than me! Run started tough, but picked it up and finished the 5k in 17:42. Total time was 1:02, which got me 7th overall, 3rd in my age group, and which should make a sub 2:10 Olympic very realistic for me this year… well that is if I can find an exact, standardized Olympic tri! They seem to love half Ironmans only here in BC.

Update May 3: I didn’t mention I also wanted to break 1:20 in a half marathon. For some reason that seemed a longshot, but thanks to a lovely morning today at the Vancouver Half Marathon and despite the ominous Prospect Point hill in Stanley Park, in the second half of the course, I was able to negative split the course and run a 1:17:37! I’m thinking that there’s more speed there — I went out conservatively for the first half as I haven’t done many runs this year over 21km, but had lots of legs in the second half. I also hooked up with a fast fellow from Seattle who had lots of speed coming down the hill.