Leading on from a previous post, some analysis and goal setting.


The table on the left compares my race results in 2007 and 2008, excluding Kona, against the average of the top 5 female results. It appears that my 2007 performances were better than 2008 – which may be the case or may be a reflection of the improving standard of the field. My running certainly did improve over the course of a year, and it is likely true that my swimming became weaker. The choice of races in 2007 – Lanzarote and Switzerland, both had hilly bike courses and suited me better than the rolling courses at Germany and Wisconsin where I competed in 2008 rather than a loss of strength on the bike.

So lets say that currently my swim was about 15% (10min) down on the average of top 5, bike about 4.5% (15min) and run about 4% (9min) - with total overall time just under 5% (half an hour). I’m not sure where the other 5 min went!
My biggest improvements should come in the swim really – but that’s a lengthy process and the likelihood is that I will not increase my swim training volume by the order of magnitude required to sort it out, and it’s more likely that more immediate gains will be achieved on the bike with the additional time that I have at my disposal.
This ought to drag my run times up a little too.

So, targets for the end of year should be to race within 10% of the average top 5 swim times and 2.5% in bike and the run - that is looking for a general improvement of around 8 min (10%) on my swim times, 10 min (3%) on the bike and 6 min (3%) on the marathon.
IM New Zealand is such an early race that these are probably too optimistic so targets are as shown on the right - within 12% on swim, 3% bike and run and 4% overall.