How to set and keep triathlon goals for the next race season
It's always a good idea to set some training and racing goals for next year. But how and where to start? Triathlon coach Ben Bright is here to guide us...
Once you’re recovered from the racing season and spent some time reflecting on how it went, the next step in the planning process for the year ahead is to look at setting some goals. What next challenge do you want to aim for, are you going to change up the distance or location for your next race? Triathlon Coach Ben Bright explains the best ways to plan a successful race season.
In my experience as a triathlon coach, there are three important aspects to consider when setting goals. Most importantly, the goal must either feel exciting (or even scary) and/or meaningful to you. There’s many avenues to go down with this, perhaps you want to up the distance and delve into the world of endurance triathlon. Or perhaps you want to race in a location that holds meaning to you.
The goal should be a challenge, but also realistic. There’s no point setting yourself up for failure. And finally, don’t over-complicate things. Follow a triathlon training plan and have a clear one or two ‘A’ races in mind and then populate the rest of your season with ‘B’ races to support your goals, without stretching yourself too thin.
Is your goal exciting/meaningful, or both?
Your goal/s should be something that will have you looking forward to achieving, like setting a fast time on a known course, completing a race you’ve not done yet, or something that really means a lot to you, such as a charity event or a race distance you had previously thought you weren’t capable of.
Whatever it is, your goals should speak to you on some level, not something you’re doing because it’s what you’ve always done or it’s what you think is expected of you.
It should be challenging yet realistic
Don’t set yourself up for failure by going for a goal that is unrealistic, or if you can reach it you end up not enjoying it because you’ve sacrificed so much else.
This is where a triathlon coach or training partner comes in. Spend your time around peers who know you and who you can trust, they’ll help to bounce ideas around.
At the same time, if the challenge is going to excite you, it probably needs to be something that scares you a little bit as well. Finding that balance is key.
Keep it simple
Keep your goals clear and between one and three objectives. That’s just a rule of thumb and some people can deal with more than that, but it’s okay to accept that you’re busy with a lot going on, so don’t burden yourself with more things to worry about.
Your goals should be clear for you to aim for and aspirational to get you out the door, not an extra burden that you have to deal with.
Another thing to remember with goals is that it’s a good idea to reassess them regularly. Things change and it’s better to accept those changes have happened and adjust your goals accordingly than to blindly plough on towards stress and disappointment.
How to understand and achieve your goals
Now that you have your goals, you can begin to look at how you’re going to go about understanding and achieving them:
1. Analyse requirements
In practical terms, what is it going to take to achieve each goal you have set? For instance – ‘I want to swim the 1,500m in my local triathlon in under 25mins, or 1:40mins per 100m.’
2. Contrast with my current situation
‘My previous best is 28mins, so I need to improve by 3mins.’ Breaking that down further: ‘I know I’ve been swimming each 100m in 1:52mins, or 12secs per 100m slower than my target.’
3. Where is the gap in my performance?
From this, you can figure out, possibly with some testing, whether you need to be able to swim faster, or you need to work on your endurance (or both!), thus giving you some clear direction for training towards your goal.
The above is just an example, but the process for any goal is similar – ultimately, you’re looking to identify the gap you need to bridge to reach your goal. From this point you can start to consider how you are going to achieve it.
Taking some time to go through this process is time well spent. It will give you greater clarity in your training sessions and motivation to keep pushing each session even through the depths of winter.
Once you’ve decided on your goals, one of he first places you should turn to is a triathlon training plan for clear structure and guidance.
Ben Bright
Triathlon coach 
