Goal Setting

Setting Overall Goals & Targets For An Ironman

First-Time Ironman

If it’s your first one, your primary goal should be to finish!

It’s a massive event, that most of the population can’t even comprehend. Respect the distance and celebrate the finish.

You started this journey and entered the race (probably) because you want to complete an Ironman, you want to tell your friends you’re an Ironman, you want to tell yourself you’re an Ironman. Whether that is an Ironman in 10 hours or 17 hours, for your first one it shouldn’t matter.

A, B & C Goals

I like to have a range of goals going into any race.

For me, Goal A should always be to finish. That’s your primary goal. Anything else is a bonus.

Goal B might be to go quicker than you did in your last race, or to achieve a personal best. This is very much course-dependant, so be careful about comparing Ironman race times across different courses.

Goal C might be a loftier ‘dream goal’. If everything goes absolutely perfectly, what might you be able to achieve?

You may choose different goals, not time-based. “I want to reach the podium in my age group” or “I want to finish without going through any dark patches” or even “I want to enjoy the whole experience”.

Time Goals

We may set time goals. Often these are based on round numbers or breaking a particular hour time.

“I want to do the race in less than 10 (or 12 or 14) hours”.

They’re great motivators, but just be careful of basing your happiness and satisfaction (or not) on this type of goal. Things may happen outside of your control that mean you’re not going to hit your original time goal. Be prepared for this.

Time Goals In Each Discipline

We may break the race down and set time goals for each discipline.

• “It would be great if I could do the swim in less than 60 minutes”
• “I want to run under 4 hours”
• “I really want to nail the bike and go under 5.30”.

Great to have these types of goals, but make sure they fit in with your overall A, B & C goals above.

Managing Goals During The Race

During the race, be prepared to let go of some of the goals you’ve set.

If your bike time goal means you are working really hard, pushing higher power than you should and going into the red during the ride, to keep up with your average pace, then it’s going to end in disaster. In this example, let go of the bike goal, drop the pace and ride ‘sensibly’.

You may come out of the swim, check your watch and discover that you’ve swam five minutes slower than you wanted. Don’t stress. Don’t carry the disappointment of that swim time through the rest of the race. Let it go. You could have swam brilliantly, but the course was long, the tide was strong. This
isn’t reflected in your swim time. Even if you didn’t swim well, there is nothing you can do about it now. Move on and execute the next part of your plan.

Goal – To Run Well

For me, the measure of a successful Ironman race is whether you run well. We’ll talk about the reasons why this is important later. You might have a simple goal to “Run Well”. By doing this, everything in the race is then geared towards this goal. Pacing in the swim and the bike. Nutrition and hydration. Your goal means you are doing everything to set yourself up for good run. In this example, you are moving away from an overall time goal and focusing more on process (and patience!).

Shifting Goals

You may have a race that doesn’t go to plan.

• A mechanical on the bike.
• A small crash.
• Setting off too fast so you have to really slow down.
• Gut issues.

Don’t write off your race. Change your goal

“Ok, it’s not gone well so far, I’m not going to hit my pre-race goals but I’m going to execute this run perfectly”.

Get something out of the race.

I had a race where things fell apart a little bit during the early stages of the run. I slowed down, walked, felt miserable. Then when nutrition took effect, energy returned and I stopped feeling sorry for myself, I decided I was going to finish strong and run the last 10k in less than 50 minutes. I set off, energised and much more positive than I’d been all race. I ran that 10k in a few seconds over 50 minutes, overtaking so many people! I have a positive memory of that race because of that last 10k.