I have a new swim season coming up, and in the past I liked to set a couple of types of goals at the beginning of the season, a behavioural goal(s) and a performance goal(s). The first type is usually pretty easy to achieve, and is almost completely within my control (e.g. training volume).
The second one is a bit trickier. I also like to set a performance standard, e.g. a time standard, or it could be a performance standard relative to my competition (placing, top 10%, etc). The performance standard should be somewhat of a stretch and there is no guarantee that I'll meet it, even if I do everything right.
My question is, how much of a stretch do you make that standard? Do you set it at unattainable, and then see how close you can get? Or do you set it at a slight stretch, eminently doable as long as you put in the work? Or something in between? Or not at all?
For example, I swam a 4:49 for a 400 free recently, which is slightly over the 'A' time for 17-18 y/o boys. I know I am still on an improvement trajectory (that was on 6 months of training, and only 2.5 months of really solid work. the first 3 months were just trying to build enough fitness to be able to start doing some hard training), but I don't really know where that peak is yet. So a slight stretch would be to get that A time (4:45.99) at our first LCM meet of the season, but the big unattainable stretch would be a AAA time (4:22.19, AA is 4:34 which I'm calling a big stretch, but potentially achievable).
So what do you folks do? How far do you stretch?
Swimming Workout of the Day:
Favourite Swim Sets:
2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly
The second one is a bit trickier. I also like to set a performance standard, e.g. a time standard, or it could be a performance standard relative to my competition (placing, top 10%, etc). The performance standard should be somewhat of a stretch and there is no guarantee that I'll meet it, even if I do everything right.
My question is, how much of a stretch do you make that standard? Do you set it at unattainable, and then see how close you can get? Or do you set it at a slight stretch, eminently doable as long as you put in the work? Or something in between? Or not at all?
For example, I swam a 4:49 for a 400 free recently, which is slightly over the 'A' time for 17-18 y/o boys. I know I am still on an improvement trajectory (that was on 6 months of training, and only 2.5 months of really solid work. the first 3 months were just trying to build enough fitness to be able to start doing some hard training), but I don't really know where that peak is yet. So a slight stretch would be to get that A time (4:45.99) at our first LCM meet of the season, but the big unattainable stretch would be a AAA time (4:22.19, AA is 4:34 which I'm calling a big stretch, but potentially achievable).
So what do you folks do? How far do you stretch?
Swimming Workout of the Day:
Favourite Swim Sets:
2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly