Race Preview - Knockburn Standard

Here is my 2012 tracker:

Splits Split Name Race Time Leg Time Time of Day Pos Cat Pos Gen Pos Dist Done Pace Swim 00:28:34 00:28:34 12:33:34 26 11 24 1.5 T1 00:30:50 00:02:15 12:35:50 44 16 37 Cycle 02:04:07 01:33:17 14:09:07 56 20 48 40 T2 02:04:50 00:00:43 14:09:50 26 14 22 Run 03:03:18 00:58:28 15:08:18 56 20 47 10

And here is a link to my 2012 race report.

In 2012 I was 5th last, but I was happy to finish. This year I will not be happy with anything like that performance. I could set myself an easy target of going 3 minutes quicker and breaking 3 hours. But really I would still be gutted if that was the best I could do.

So instead I am going to be somewhat more ambitious and set all the following targets. And I am going to break them all.

1. Swim faster. My swim last year actually wasn't too bad, so I will take anything faster. I think I can probably go about 2 minutes quicker this year, but for the sake of keeping the targets realistic I will just take anything at all faster.

2. Bike 5 minutes faster. That sounds like a huge chunk. Mostly because it is. My ride last year was awful, so I can make most of that just by being fitter and not riding like a donkey. The new bike should also get me a couple of minutes over this sort of distance despite the lumps on the back stretch of this course. 

3. Run 5 minutes faster. Another big chunk, but 58 minutes was terrible and if I can't do a 53 minute 10k then there is no way I should be going anywhere near Aberfeldy Half. To be honest I could have made this a 10 minute target but the run course is pretty steep so sticking with sensible.

4. Overall 15 minutes faster. 2 hours 48 would still have put me in the lower half of last year's results. And the people I think I should be racing were all closer to 2 hours 30.