Reviewing your goals during testing times to stay focused

Kia Ora team,

Before I start, I want to firstly state that I am in no way downplaying a worldwide pandemic and the impact it has had, however this post is about what I have focus on to ensure I maintain a positive mental and physical health.

As Penny and I begin our 6th week of home isolation as I was in Australia prior to NZ’ national lockdown it was been interesting talking to different coaches and hearing the impact COViID-19 has had on the athletes they coach and how it would seem in a matter of weeks with unknowns on when our next race might be, people have pulled coaching until further notice.

No matter what stage of your training you’re in, as athletes we are often faced with uncertainty and I believe it is within these moments that you can identify individuals who have a strong purpose (Your why/goal) or individuals who without a certain event are unsure of what they should focus on and as such pull back.

Now whatever stage you are personally in, I believe it is essential to ground yourself in moments of unknown’ and focus on what you can control, in moments like this, I feel it is essential to maintain some level of normality and use your relationship with your coach for guidance.

As an athlete it is important to think of a coach as your mentor, as their focus may be on figuring out how they may best support you through the changes and assuring you of a plan to support your short, mid and long terms goals. Wither it is a short (a PB), Mid (a race) and long term (achieve a distance, race or qualification) goals are essential to have which support us in navigating through injuries, race cancellations or in our current state a global pandemic.

I was meant to be packing my bags this week in preparation to do my third Ironman this season at IMOZ (Port Mac), so my goals/ambitions have actually had to move out 12-19 months which in hindsight, is a big positive knowing what we can build on my last two races.

In the first week of my lock down I reached out to my coach Simon Cochrane from Athletic Peak in Hamilton, New Zealand and arranged a hour Skype session to identify our new goals considering the circumstances and with it the focus.

This catch up identified the below new goals to keep me focused;

1. Short Term Goal (March > August 2020): Use this opportunity where we are forced into lock down to restructure my nutrition to focus on dropping 5 kg’ which has been hard to focus on during my Ironman training, focus on fundamentals such as swimming technique and strength with swim cords, plus general leg and core strength and a big area of opportunity is building my high end bike and run threshold strength.

 

1. Mid Term Goals: This will consist of local races once the restrictions have been lifted and we know what the 2020/2021 schedule will look like.
   
   
2. Long Term Goals (2021 and beyond: This remains the same “Chasing that Kona Reality” (Qualifying for the IRONMAN world champs however; we have also included an ambitious goal to go sub 9 hour at IMNZ in 2021 hence the new artwork with the hashtag #Projectsub9

As you can hopefully pick up from the above, each goal is structured to support me in achieving my long term goals and to get us started we have set a few key benchmarks for each which I am accountable to, I need to give a massive shout out to my BFF Charli on designing this posts image which I have ordered on a canvas for my training room to be my constant reminder of my long term goals.

Well that’s enough from me rambling on about my cup half full approach to the situation we face however, I hope it does support you with either staying on your path or, rebuilding it.

As always, if you need to someone to reach out comment below, message me on Instagram @KiwiTriathlete or press the contact me on the panel above.

Until next time.

Robo