Fifteen Minutes

My goal is to finish in the top ten at the USAT National Age Group Championship for the 60-64 year old age group. I will turn 60 in 2011 so at least I’ll have youth going for me.

I started competing in Triathlons casually in 2005 when I was 54. I’ve noticed that as I moved from the 50-54 to 55-59 cohort, there are fewer competitors, but those who remain are really tough. There aren’t many casual competitors in the 55-59 group and I suspect that there aren’t any in the sixty plus categories.

Last year’s winner of the 60-64 group was Steve Smith with a remarkable time of 2:15:17. The tenth place finisher, David Roadhouse, from Wilmette, Illinois finished in 2:30:48. My personal best time for Swim, Bike and Run segments would have garnered me a time of 2:45:09 if I had made those times in one race.

So my goal over the next two years is to improve my time by fifteen minutes. Here are my goals for each segment:

Segment…….. Personal Best……Target
---------- ……..----------------…….-------
Swim………… . 34:31………….... 28:00
Bike…………..1:15:51……….... 1:11:00
Run……………..50:40...............48:00
Transitions ……….4:07…………...4:00
------------- ……..---------………. ---------
Total ………….2:45:09………… 2:30:00

I had a nice table that showed the pace for each event – triathlons are great for stats – almost as good as baseball – but the blogger thing didn’t take to tables very well so I will just say that to reach my goal I need to improve my swim pace from 2:09 (minutes / 100 yards) to 1:45; my bike time from 19.7 mph to 21.0 mph; and my run rate from 8:10 minutes per mile to 7:35.

Right now my focus is on rehabbing my injured hamstrings so that I can compete at Tuscaloosa in three weeks. After that I will start working with my coach on the plan for the next two years.

Workout: Bike – 70 minutes / 18 miles; got out at 5:20 am and no real traffic along Sheridan Road for the first half of the ride. Slight hamstring tightness for the last couple of miles.

Stretching / Strength: 20 minutes of calf and quad stretches and did the glut exercises that my chiropractor proscribes. He said tight calves and weak gluts were putting too much strain on the hamstrings;

Run: 30 minutes - easy jog at 3 PM; trying to get acclimated to heat that I will experience in Tuscaloosa.

Weight: 189