End of Q1 Review

So my targets for the year can be found here but they are not easily translatable to here so I am just going to cover them on a 'by exception' basis.

Here are some pretty pictures of my progress. 



So the swimming mile numbers are pretty good. Well above target for the year and close to my stretch target, despite a couple of weeks of no swimming at the start of Feb. This has been by far my biggest swim year. Doing two sessions every week is definitely making a difference to the miles counts but I am not sure it is actually helping with the speed. My T20 time trial was faster and I have odd bursts of fast reps during sessions but I am not really sustaining that. It will be interesting to see what happens in a race, or even what happens when I take a proper rest into a swim session. 

Still another month until Knockburn opens and I get to try out my new race wetsuit.

Nowhere near any of the swim speed targets yet, but that isn't a surprise since I haven't been in a swim race yet. 

Biking is almost the opposite story. Quite far behind on miles (nearly 100 miles / 20%) but and the pace for long rides is absolutely shocking. On the other side of this one I did put in some pretty good turbo sessions and the new road bike feels pretty comfortable. I still really need a change of weather conditions if I am going to catch up on the miles on my own.

Hopefully once I get into TT  and triathlon seasons I will get a better idea of how I am actually biking. 

Nowhere near a bike race target yet as I haven't even been on the TT bike yet. 

Running is just a huge success story. Ignoring the 2011 line this is again the biggest year I have done in terms of running miles. Way over targets, and over my stretch targets as well for a lot of Q1. And this isn't just a case of putting in lots of 'junk' miles. The club fartlek sessions and the 'Zombies, Run' efforts in the middle of my runs are definitely upping my pace in sections of all those runs. And that is all paying off. 

The 40-minute 10k crosses one of my race targets off the list but also gives me huge confidence in my running.


Overall, it is difficult to measure until race season starts and I can see what actually happens on the bike. Swimming and running are inconsistent but I think I can prepare for those with a couple of days before races and when I have prepped well they are going better than ever. 

I have entered an age-group championship race, so June 4th will cross another target off the list during Q2.