2020 Goals

You can see them at the top of my blog.

They are as follows:

1. Have fun training hard during the year
2. Have a good race at Kona
3. Get my Zwift Tron bike

Fun/Train hard

As I've recounted below, 2019 was a return to "normal" training wise after the struggles I've had physically since 2015.  I put in the most hours of training that I ever had in 2019 and really enjoyed it.  I stayed generally healthy and motivated throughout the year and was able to hit my mountaineering and triathlon goals.  It was especially gratifying to do so by executing against a well defined training and racing plan.

I plan to do the same again in 2020 leading up to the center piece of my 2020 year at the IM World Championships in Kona on 10/10/20.  I don't have any major climbing goals for the year and really look to narrow my focus on triathlon and see if I can't continue to "roll back the years" a bit in 2020.

Kona

I've had the privilege of racing at Kona three times in 2010, 2012 and 2014.  I learned a lot there but one of the most important lessons was the conditions are unpredictable, variable, and can dramatically impact one's finishing time and performance (especially for someone as challenged by heat and humidity as I am).  Thus, I've stated my race goal as having a "good" race.  This is squishy of course but when I get there I 'll have a good sense of what I'm capable of doing and combined with the actual conditions on race day, I'll be able to judge if I had a "good" race or not.

However, at this point in the year I'm going to go out on a limb and say that a "good" race at Kona for me in 2020 is to set a new PR for Kona.  Find below my history at Kona and my early target for Kona 2020:

Several observations on the above:

1. I've never been very fast at Kona.  This is driven by 3 main things: a. my lack of talent; b. I don't race well at that distance in those conditions; 3. I've never really approached Kona as a full on hammer-fest but rather as a victory lap of sorts--an experience to be enjoyed.  With respect to the 2020 race, all three factors (especially the 3rd) will once again be very much in play.

2. I've narrowly missed swimming sub 80 and indeed swam 76 in the official practice swim in 2014, so I think my goal of 79 minutes this year is quite reasonable.

3. My run goal, especially given the running rally I made down the stretch in 2019 (and my solid run at IMAZ19) I believe is doable, although it will require me getting off the bike in reasonably strong shape, as was my focus in 2019.

4. The crux of this challenge will be hitting the bike goal which is almost 30 minutes faster than my PR there.  This is a big goal and a necessary one given the liabilities of my bad knee and poor run today.  There isn't really a sound basis to set such an improvement and if its really, really windy (as it was in 10,12, and 14) I'll probably have no chance. I'll probably need some help from Mother Nature.

Still, my "Bike Monster" strategy in 2019 led to a relatively easy 5:34 at IMAZ and with Bike Monster 2020 already underway (did over 300 miles last week) my thought is what the heck--let's give it a shot!

Prior to Kona, I plan on racing several times (I'll publish a calendar shortly) and notably I plan to return to Eagleman70.3 this year in June.  I raced Eagleman four consecutive years from 2005 to 2008, which was during the timeframe when I was the fastest triathlete I was ever able to be.  For 2020, I've set a "mini-goal" (by that I mean, it's part of my Kona "good" race goal--a means to that end) of beating my last time at Eagleman time back in 2008--12 years ago.  I'd take a fair amount of satisfaction in my 62 year old self beating my 50 year old time that year.

Similar to the above for Kona, here is my Eagleman history and my target for 2020:

More on this later as we get closer to the June race.

Zwift Tron bike

If you do Zwift you know what the Tron bike is.  I won't go into details other than to say you need to accumulate over 164,000 vertical feet of climbing to earn it.  I'm happy to say I did so earlier this month after about 24 months on Zwift (I mostly ride Zwift in the winter).

Onward and Upward!

2020 Training Plan and 1 week in

OK, here we are, off to the races in 2020!  I'm excited for the new decade, but not that excited that I'm now living in my 8th separate decade--well I am excited that I'm living but not so much about being so old...

In any event--here is a summary of my 2020 training plan (at 50,000 feet):

I just finished my first week of the new decade:

291 miles on the bike (I've done 3 of the Zwift FTP build workouts so far)

8 miles run

21:35 total time (about 3 hours of PT)

Last year the first week looked like this:

1,000 yds swim

260 bike

16 miles run

20:46

Pretty similar weeks for the most part (absent the running this year) and that's a good thing.  I think my training really worked well last year and the plan above is designed for the most part to mimic last year.

Onward and Upward!

2019 Year In Review

And so another year (and decade) comes to an end.  Among other things, this serves as a trigger to look back on the past year (mostly) and decade (a little bit, for context) with respect to triathlon and adventure.  This is a narrow perspective, in that it's on me (well it is my blog) and I'll stay focused on my training and events and not comment on life more broadly....Here goes:

Overall

2019 in sum was a very successful and rewarding year for me.  My two major goals were to train for and have a successful alpine expedition to Bolivia in May and to train for and execute an excellent Ironman and qualify for Kona 2020 in November.  Both of these goals were effectively achieved.

I was also able to stay relatively healthy and injury free (which is no small thing at 62 years of age) and set new training milestones along the way.

I put a lot into this year.  I think I had a more effective and accurate view of what I can and can't do this year than ever before and as a result was able to translate that into executing against my plan and goals for the year.  This was perhaps the most rewarding thing about the year!

Bolivia

The first 4+ months of the year were principally focused on getting my body ready to climb 3 specific mountains in Bolivia.  I was additionally, building up my triathlon training so that after Bolivia (beginning of June), I could hit the ground running (and swimming and biking) and get ready for my Ironman in the fall.

I did a huge amount of walking/trekking/climbing/stair master, etc. in preparation for the expedition.   Two highlights here were 11 major treks in Shenandoah National and my 30+ mile circumnavigation of Manhattan.

In May, Anders and I enjoyed a very successful and enjoyable two weeks in Bolivia.  On the first climb I successfully reached the summit of Tarija (17,000 ft+) and Anders additionally bagged the nearby, and more technically difficult summit of Pequeno Alpamayo.

We then travelled to Huyana Potosi (19,974 feet), which is a classic glaciated and at times pretty steep climb and both successfully submitted.  It was a particularly challenging day for me, one where I had to rely on Anders and Andy (our guide) pretty heavily.  Immensely rewarding as well!

Our original plan was to seek a third summit climb to Sajama but when we arrived at the base we saw 80+mph winds at the summit and no one climbing into what would clearly be life threatening conditions.

Overall, we returned safe, had a great time, and achieved our climbing objectives--nailed our three priorities and added to an already large bag of epic adventure experiences!

Triathlon

The headline goal for 2019 was to qualify for Kona at (originally Barcelona) IMAZ in late November.  Along the way, I entered just one other triathlon this year and was able to achieve an important personal milestone as I won my Age Group in a triathlon for the 50th time of my triathlon career.

Anders and I were coming off of IM DNFs (his at IM Texas and mine at IMFL--this later the first triathlon I had DNF'ed at).  At one level, our first objective here was to just finish.  Beyond that, we had both sacrificed a great deal and trained very hard and we were hoping to have a race that was consistent with the fitness we believed we had developed.  But make no mistake about it, given that I'm in the home stretch as far as my IM racing days go, we wanted to both KQ and race together as a father and son at Kona in 2020.

As you know, we were both able to achieve all three as we basically both executed our race plans pretty much as planned.  Extremely rewarding, and of-course Kona 2020 will by our primary focus for 2020!

Training

In some respects, my ability to consistently train at high volumes and with appropriate intensity was the biggest story of 2019.  As you might recall, my back/nerve problems in 2015 basically caused me to have to take 2015 off from climbing and triathlon (and caused me to think about if I had reached the end of this phase of my life).  I tentatively got back into training in 2016, decided to "sorta" go for another IM in 2017 and this ultimately led to my biggest training year ever in 2019.  You can see that in this chart below, which shows my annual  training hours from 2011 (labelled 1) to 2019 (9)...(2015 is understated because I didn't record a bunch of my training after my back problems and before I decided to get back into things in late 2015):

As you can see, in 2019 I surpassed 1,200 hours for the first time.  This means I averaged over 100 hours of training per month, 23+ hours/week, and over 3 hours per day!  The 1,200 hours were also 17% higher than my previous annual high.  That I was able to do this with no significant injuries along the way, I think is a testament to a reasonable plan, high expectations, and the fact I've been doing this now for nearly 20 years.  (this is not to say I didn't have aches and pains along the way--lots of those and one minor bike crash/separated shoulder).

My swim shows a similar pattern over this nine year period with over 280,000 yards in 2019.  While this is a relatively modest amount by real swimming standards, and quite short of my personal high water marks, it was a fairly significant commitment to swimming, especially since it was concentrated in essentially a 5-6 month period:

2019 was the year of "Bike Monster", essentially an extreme focus on bike riding as a triathlon training strategy, that Anders proposed while we were in Bolivia.   During the summer, I was sometimes exceeding 400 miles during 7-day stretches and did 10 pretty high quality 100+ mile rides.  As a result, I had my best year biking in probably 7-8 years and hit 12,343 miles for the year.  In addition to exceeding 1,000 miles/month on average, it works out to 237 miles/week and was my largest bike volume ever:

For the run (or in my case run/trek/climb/walk), the big investment in getting ready for Bolivia early in the year led to a significant up-tick in my run volume.  Although I didn't get back to my pre-back  injury days, in terms of volume and especially in terms of intensity, 2019 was a very solid year for me and in-fact as the calendar turned to the fall, I was running as well as a I have been able to since 2015--very satisfying for me:

Lastly, I continued to increase my investment in non-SBR training (mostly weights and stretching PT type activities) and reached 70 hours this past year:

So, all-in-all, a very successful and rewarding year by any reasonable set of standards.  It fills me with pride and an eagerness to spin the wheel again in 2020.  Check back in a few days for what the plan for 2020 is!

Onward and Upward!