Hey everyone and Happy New Year!
Some people don’t love the “new year resolutions”, but I thought it’d be a great idea to start a 2020 Training and/or Racing goals thread.
What are your upcoming goals? Any specific things you’re looking forward to (or not)?
I’m going to talk about this week’s podcast. Here are my notes.
Race cat 1 and finish mid pack. Maybe a podium finish for my age group, but that’s reaching with where my fitness is at.
I’m focusing on endurance and sustainable power for my 312 full course effort at the end of April 2020. I’d like to get it done in under 12 hours.
Be nice to place well in the handful of early season crits I’m doing but, for the first time, they’re not my priority. Seems almost alien to me.
Keep Jonathan Lee in sight for more than 1 lap at Nationals. Also lots of volume in preparation for BC Bike Race in 2021.
Sub 70 minute Mt. Washington, stretch goal sub 65.
Top 10 finish in our local hillclimb (BUMPS) series.
Podium a hillclimb.
Win the Crank the Kanc TTT (with @Bthoffma).
Everest
Good luck he’s basically a working-man nino
My goal is simple - fix my current injury and avoid another one.
I had a whole series of goals last year centred round TTing. I even wrote a blog post around it. I came back to evaluate it today, and I achieved 2 out of the 10 process goals, and 1 of the 3 performance goals. 
I discovered CX this year, so as well as hopefully doing some TTing, I want to try a gravel ride or 2 and race CX in 2020. I also want to ride my recumbent trike a bit! I don’t think I want to get any more specific than that until I’m healthy.
Race Cat1 XC
Race at least one proper endurance MTB event
Try two gravel races
Improve my training consistency
Incorporate proper strength training
Ride a trail bike with no power meter at least a few times a month
Do more outside TR workouts
Technically these aren’t New Years goals since the operation has begun already, but new season goals include:
Strategies to reach these goals include
The list is not exhaustive, but these are the most important ones I think.
Get my FTP over 250 (will need a 40W increase)
Race a couple more crits and hill climbs
Go bike packing
Improve mental health - I need to recognise I am not my FTP or weight or bike or bike kit
A range of physical, event and mental goals.
2020 will be my first full year with TR, goals as follows:
-Purchase & dial in Orbea Oiz M10 TR
-Focus on adequate, high quality nutrition to fuel me through winter/early spring HV
plans
-Complete upcoming build, base, build, base blocks til end of May
-Drop to MV or possibly LV plans as outside riding options return to New England
-Race EFTA 6hr Marathon Series 40+ class with consistent , strong efforts paying
attention to fueling.
-Head to VA in early September for Shenandoah Mountain 100. Goal is to build on
EFTA 6hr efforts, dial in race plan & finish sub 10 hours, knocking 1:20 minutes off my
2019 time
Mental goals: more life/bike balance
Racing goals: more road races (which I’m more suited to) instead of crits.
Self care goals: more core work, more quality sleep.
Not a lot of goals well thought out at the moment, anyone want to make up goals for me? Lol
Cat 4 turning 40 in Jan, ftp currently 295 (once I focus on losing 10lbs of weight I can be 4.2w/kg). I generally always want to get better at making myself suffer over threshold and dig deeper.
I haven’t done a lot of road races so I never have any clue what kind of goals to set and for CX I need to get a lot better with skills to maximize my potential there from a middle of the pack type to someone more competitive.
Official 2020 Goals:
Major Goal:
Finish in the Top-10 of the 35-39 AG at USAT Nationals. Depending on conditions, I’ll probably need around a 2:10 to 2:15 to achieve this. I got a 2:14 this year on a course that was maybe short 100m on the swim and 1km on the bike. So extrapolating that all out, it would have been around a 2:18. I believe I can take 1-2min off the swim by really focusing on it this winter, possibly working with a swim coach to analyze my stroke. I also know my FTP has gone up a bit on the bike, and assuming I purchase a proper TT bike this year, I’m thinking there too I can shave off 1-2min. Finally on the run, I think I have a good 3min I can shave off if I really work on my speed. So, if I get all that, I should be in the 2:10 to 2:13 range on a fair course.
Minor Goals:
Improve top-end running speed: 18:00 open 5k, and 38:30 open 10k. My 5k PR is 19:30 off latent marathon training, and my run PR is 42:09 but that’s during an Olympic. I think I can hit those really focusing on speed this spring.
Hit 4W/kg FTP. Right now I’m sitting at 3.5W/kg (315W and 89kg). I’m trying to lose some weight to get down to around 84kg, which would get me to 3.75, and getting my FTP up to around 340 would satisfy the power side of that. Working with the bike on TrainerRoad and I think I have some good gains to be made there.
This year: 635 hours on the bike, 35 hours of rowing and hiking, 40 strength workouts (had a rib cage strain that knocked me out of the gym from May-July). Was top 3 in the one race I did – sick in Feb-March, which ruined the spring season.
2020 goals:
700 hours on the bike, 100 gym sessions. Especially the last one – at 53, I need to maintain lifting.
Top 5 in the races that matter to me
see if I can up FTP to 360. Best was 353 this year. Probably not a lot of room left for improvement at my age, and with 35 years of this junk in my legs, but you never know.
2020 goals
My main goals:
Secondary goals: