I’m starting a new triathlon training effort with a new coach. Her name is Natasha van der Merwe. She is a professional triathlete and a friend, and I’ve been talking to her for more than a year now about working with her. I was working with her a bit before heading to Portland, and now I’m picking it back up for real. We start next week, and I’m excited. I have some goals for the new training year.

1. Race a 5:11 Marathon. I’ll be running the Austin Marathon in February and the Barcelona Marathon in May. I’m not terribly concerned about my Austin time, but I do have a time goal for Barcelona. Basically, I want to beat the time Erin and I did in New York in 2010, which was 5:12.
2. Do a Good Half. I will be racing Ironman 70.3 St. George on May 4. Last year, I raced a half Ironman distance in Portland to tune up for the full. This year, I’ll be heading to Utah for a new course – a tough one. My goal for the half simply is to feel good the whole way through, which essentially means being well trained and not failing on my nutrition, as I did in Portland.
3. Do a 15:30 Full.  Natasha trains on the TriDot System. She’ll be training me on that same system. It’s a numbers system. You feed it numbers, and it spits numbers back to you. You do workouts based on speed and heart rate, and you periodically do assessment testing. She has done quite well with it, and since my training has never been terribly scientific, I’m looking forward to a new approach and, hopefully, an improved time. The goal is 15:30, which is about 50 minutes off my best time. With a solid effort on the bike and a continuous run, I think I can do that.