This is the third installment of the Hopes & Dreams series and seems to be getting a regular thing now, certainly before the bigger races anyway.

In my previous posts, my hopes for TOKYO MARATHON were massively underestimated and for the MANCHESTER MARATHON, I completely changed my mind and didn’t run at all. So it’s fair to say when I set a goal, hope or dream its pretty much finger in the air and have an educated guess.

With all races, there are many factors at play come race day. Some times things fall into place and you have the race of your life (Tokyo) or on the flip side, things don’t go to plan and its a struggle (90% of my races fall into this category).

So for the Mallorca 70.3 I pretty much have one primary goal of completing the course better than my only other 70.3 race at IRONMAN 70.3 STAFFORDSHIRE 2018. When I say better, I think there are two ways to measure a performance. The first being the time taken, which is what I use to measure most of my races. The course can make this inaccurate. Is it fair to compare race times of a triathlon where the swim was in a calm lake, the bike course fairly flat and the run flat (Staffs 70.3) to a sea swim, a bike course with a mountain in the middle and a flat run (Mallorca 70.3)? Then there is the weather effect too.

So another way to measure performance in an Ironman event is your age group position. This is a measure of how your race time stacked up against others of the same gender and age range on that course, on that day.

Whereas my overall race time on a more difficult course maybe slower than 2018, my age group positioning will show whether I have made any progress. Obviously, I have no bearing on who is racing, I could be unlucky and be up against faster athletes this time around, who knows.

Goals:

1. In Staffordshire 2018, I finished 97th in my Age Group in 5:37.48. The goal is to better that.
2. Beat my 2018 times for each of the Swim, Bike and Run segments, I feel this is possible. Even with a more difficult bike course and potentially more difficult sea swim.
3. Finish under 5 hours.
4. Finish within 114% of my age group winner. This would potentially qualify me for the GB Age Group Middle Distance team for 2020.
5. Heck! why not? Finish in the top 3 of my Age Group, qualifying me for the Ironman 70.3 World Championships.

There are a few to have a go at there.

I think goals 1 and 2 are achievable, possibly goal 3 then the last two more of a stretch, probably further down the road but one thing Tokyo taught me is to never underestimate what your body and mind can achieve.