1st HIM goal

mnytoks

I will be competing in my first HIM in May '16 at St George.  I just started exercising about 7 months ago after little to none for about 20 years. Here are my times from a sprint triathlon that I did in September. 

42 years old 09/20 Nautica Malibu Classic. 1/2 mile swim, 18 mile bike, 4 mile run. swim 0:21:43 T1 07:30 Bike 1:02:47 T2 04:11 Run 0:49:10 Total 2:25:23.   This was going all out and giving it everything that I had. 

Is it realistic for me to set a time goal for this race or just to finish?  If so, what time should I be targeting?

Thanks,

Anthony

Bill Eckert

Congratulations on deciding to race a HIM and good luck.  And race is what you should do.  I did my first HIM this past September and my goal was to finish.  However, I also set some higher goals to push myself.  I had calculated a finish time of 8:12.  I really felt like I could go under 8.  My dream time was 7:30.  I finished in 7:29:12.  I followed the plan but I was so tired coming into the taper.  However, by the time race day was here I was ready.  This is my n=1.  So set some goals to try to reach for.  When race day comes it will just be about executing the course to the best of your abilities within the fitness level that you are at.  You have some reasonable paces.  Take those and start estimating what pace you could sustain in a HIM and calculate what time you could possibly finish in.  Then as you train and test, go back and look at those projections and fine tune them.  The most important things you can do are to be consistent with your training, follow the plan, stay healthy (don't follow the plan into a brick wall as RnP say), and really study the race execution information.  I would also start looking at nutrition, fluids, salt, etc. for race day earlier than later (nothing new on race day).  There are so many WSM here and I hope they will chime in on this as well.  Good Luck!!!

donymo

My advice is not have a time goal for your first race at the HIM or IM distance.
Following the advice you get here will set you up for your best day.
By the time you get to taper week, you will have logged some race rehearsals and that will dictate pretty much what you can do on race day. Let's say you swam 1.2 miles at a pace of 2 min/100yd and finished in good shape, then that is about what you will want to pace at for your swim and that will yield a swim of about 42 minutes. For the bike, you should execute based on power or heart rate recommendations (Z3 effort or close) and based on your weight and power you will end up with whatever time. On the run, you will run to a heart rate determined by your race rehearsals and long runs or best effort up to that.

Bottom line, just go out there and EXECUTE the best you can following the 4 Keys of Race Execution and it is what it is.

Also, consider that the course and weather will play a huge role in the result.
I raced Augusta 70.3, one of the easiest courses out there and there is no way I could expect to beat my finishing time from that race at St. George!

Even the same course cannot really be compared to itself. My race at 2014 Augusta was perfect weather, cool and overcast. I cannot really expect make a fair comparison if say the next time I race there it's 15 degrees warmer with full sun.

And really, what are you going to do at mile 8 of the run when you see you're 15 minutes behind your goal? Increase pace by 2 min/mile?

Just go out there and do your best and have fun!

Coach Patrick

x100 for what Don said. You can put goals up there but by the time you get there your fitness will be in a different zip code and the goals won't really be so relevant. Worse, you might spend all winter chasing crazy goals, get way fit, but still be disappointed b/c you didn't hit some whacky goal.

Spend time setting PROCESS GOALS.

+ # x swimming per week.
+ Big bike week of "X"
+ # x core per week.
+ Minimum sleep hours per week target, etc.

mnytoks

Great advice, thanks everyone. I think at this point I will just set a goal as to finish my first one and then a time goal for HIM #2.

David Leventhal

Agree with the guys above. Time is an output rather than an input. Work hard, follow the plan, learn the EN way to execute and you will dominate your first HIM. Excited to have you on the team. Dig into the forums and ask a bunch of questions!

Bruce Thompson

Anthony....agree 100% with Coach P.  Focus on the process goals in training, and on race day the time will be what it is.  Also, on race day I simply focus on trying to do the best I can at each moment in time.  Then I try to string together a 1000 good moments.  There will be highs and lows during the race (we all go thru them in every race) but if you focus on the process of doing the best you can right now, the lows will pass and your string of good moments will grow longer. 

Remember, it will be a PR for you at this distance what ever time you get.  Celebrate that!!  Then the next HIM you can use your experience and knowledge gained to set some precise goals, targeting to go faster.   Good luck and have fun. 

MattAaronson

In my first HIM I really didn't have a good handle on what to expect. I was also about a year off the couch. I had a huge target which was to go sub-5 in my first HIM. I thought this would be a monster challenge and very uncertain. However, based on two of the factors others have already mentioned, it turned out that I beat that goal by about 12 minutes. Those factors, to emphasize them, are:
1. You fitness now is a shadow of the fitness you will have if you follow the training plan. But you have to follow the plan.
2. Execution is a multiplier for your fitness. Actually, it is an exponent on your fitness. No joke. That is what made my race that day, no question.

Coach Rich

Good points by everyone. To reiterate:

• Train the best you can
• Don't forget to address body composition, in parallel to training.
• If you're training with power and pace, it's fine to set goals for those, to be hit, for example, on your last testing session before IMSG.
• Learn how to race and execute. That's the part that most people miss.
• Let the resultant time take care of itself. 

That said, the IMSG run is a bitch so you definitely want to be focused on your running game this winter/spring, especially hill running. That means excellent run durability and improving your body composition the best you can.