Gaining Focus

Ten years ago, when I first started getting back into biking and triathlon, life was simple. I was a single with little or no responsibilities outside of myself, which gave me large chunks of time to go off and ride or run. My training plan, if you can call it that, was simple: ride long and often, when you can't ride run, when the weather is iffy go for a swim. Every year I would rack up 3000+ miles on the bike, 800+ miles running and as little swimming as I could get away with. Don't get me wrong this sort of unfocused high volume training was great, it got me through dozens of centuries, double centuries, sprint and olympic distance tris, a dozen half Ironmans and Ironman Canada twice. It also cemented me firmly in the middle of the pack. And that's okay. I really enjoyed going out for long rides and runs with friends, and seriously the first Ironman or two is all about finishing.

But life changes. Now I'm married to a wonderful, and also bike-crazy, woman, we have twin 18 month old girls, one very happy yellow lab and a great house complete with mortgage. The amount of “free” time I have to train is now somewhat limited. But, the desire / need to train and compete is still burning strong.

So, what's the solution for a 40 something family man with limited time who still wants to compete and even move forward out of the mid pack? In a word, “focus”. Does that sound overly simple? Maybe it is, but “focus” is just shorthand for- establish a goal, develop a plan to achieve that goal, follow the plan, monitor the results and make modifications to the plan as needed based on results.

In the interest of focus, while I won't be giving up triathlon completely, 2009 will be all about the bike, specifically, the Utah State Time Trial championships on Saturday, June 6th, 103days and counting. I will be doing some other bike racing both Road bike (cat 5) and Mountain bike (novice?), but all training and racing will be geared towards the State Time Trial championships on June 6th.

In the coming weeks I'll get into my “power” based training plan. Using a powermeter on a bike is like putting on glasses, it puts everything into focus and is absolutely essential if you want to make the most of your limited training time. It highlights my progress, my mistakes just about everything related to getting to my goal.

Train hard,

Pat