This year, my main focus will be on improving my speed. That's one of the reasons why I am preparing for "shorter" races this season.

My goal is to improve my overall speed in all three disciplines (swim, bike, run) and then take advantage of that next year where I would love to race in one or two full distance triathlons.

My race calendar looks something like this:

  
    Date
    Name
    Type
    Distance
  

  	19th of March
    Vip ZAGREB21
    Run
    Half marathon
  

  	9th of April
    Hendrix Half Marathon
    Run
    Half marathon
  

  	28th of May
    Falkenstainer Punta Skala Triathlon
    Triathlon
    Half distance
  

  	11th of June
    IM 70.3 Kreichgau
    Triathlon
    Half distance
  

  	17th of June
    Oviratlon
    Mud race
    10k-ish
  

  	TBD
    GRAWE Night marathon
    Run
    Marathon
  

  	17th of September
    IM 70.3 Pula
    Triathlon
    Half distance
  

  	5th of November
    Night 10k
    Run
    10k
  

  	9th of December
    Zagrepčanka 512
    Staircase run
    480 stairs :)
  

I plan on racing a bunch of local triathlon and duathlon races and maybe some other races just for fun (there are a few 5k races which I might throw into the mix) but this is the general structure of my season. The two main races here are the Ironman 70.3 races in June and September with the half distance race in May being something of a sanity check before the main 3 months (June - September).

I started writing this post a little while ago so that I have already finished my first (longer) race of the season and it turned out better then expected.

My last year's personal best was at 1:30:05 and based on the last few months of training things are improving a lot! I was aiming for something around 1:28:00 which would be a pace of around 4:10min/km but my "coach" (a.k.a my wife) usually likes to take away a few minutes of my goal time just to make things interesting so we "agreed" to shoot for around 1:26:00.

I started out pretty relaxed and tried to make sure not to go too fast in the first half and to my surprise everything went pretty good. I had to fight a little harder just for the last 2 or 3 km and I arrived at the finish line in 1:26:26 which is pretty close to what she expected :)

If I manage to keep up this pace then some personal bests might crumble this season and I might be pretty close to cracking the sub 5 hour half Ironman distance.

Wish me luck!

p.s. racing is always more fun when done with friends so if you want to join me on a race (either as a participant or on the sideline) just let me know and we'll see what we can do about it.

Until next time, stay curious.