2014 Cycling/Running/Fitness Goals

[Dreadhead]

In the spirit of last year's thread I decided to see what everyone else is thinking for the year

 

My major goals are the following two Gran Fondos:

 

Diabolical Double (16k+ ft, 125 miles): http://www.winthefight.org/granfondo/diabolical_double.htm

The Alpine Loop Gran Fondo (11.5k+ ft, 107 miles): http://alpineloopgranfondo.com/

 

Plus I think I will probably do the Tour de Cure in Northern VA (6/1/14) with Jeff. I'm also loooking at:

 

MS Ride The Riverside (6/7/14-6/8/14)

Airforce Classic (6/8/14): http://cyclingclassic.org/

Total 200 Double Century (6/14/14): http://www.total200.com/

 

Edit: It's not a "goal" really but I'll probably do a few 5k races with my wife and maybe a sprint tri for the heck of it.

Edited January 8, 2014 by Dreadhead

[jp11801]

For me 

 

complete one tough mudder, complete one sprint tri, maybe a 10k or two and do in excess of 3500 miles on the bike. I'm not looking at centuries right now as 2-3 hours on that medieval turtler device called a bike seat is enough for me

 

Oh and I would like to get myself down to sub 190 mainly to see what that does for me on the bike and running 

[Salt Peanuts]

Nothing real specific for me but goal is to get back to exercising more frequently and regularly (probably the most popular New Years goal). I've become entirely too sedate these past couple of years.

[Aura]

Good idea Chris. Since I've done nothing but gain weight the last 3 years, I have a general goal in mind to weigh less periodically throughout 2014 than I did in 2013 (like for my birthday and the holidays). I  have an exact weight in mind but I'm going to try and get healthy without following the scale religiously because, simply put, it hasn't worked for me the last 3 years. All the scale has done is add pressure and get me frustrated when I've worked out for 9-10 days consecutively and haven't lost what I thought I should.

 

I'm also getting a sense of just how important eating is for health. When I lost weight in college, I still ate crap processed shit every day. That wasn't healthy. I want to do it the right way this time. Allison and I bought a Breville juicer right after Christmas and I went on a 72 hour juice fast. I didn't do it because I wanted to lose weight. I did it because I wanted to gain a perspective on getting all my nutrients straight from fruits and vegetables, both of which I eat very little of in a normal day. Once I went back on solids, I decided moving forward to supplement meals with juice or potentially replace one meal a day with juice alone. This should help balance out my daily diet. I also plan on severely restricting my diary and red meat. I was considering trying vegan 100%, but I think we're going to start with a few vegan meals every week and see how that goes. I need to introduce a lot more whole foods, including some good grains to replace a lot of the basic pasta and bread meals I would usually eat.

 

Physical goals:

• Maybe a half dozen 5K's at actual running events. Allison is doing one formal 5K every month this year and I'll be tagging along.
• 10K at a running event down in Peoria in September. Hopefully I'll have run a couple practice 10K's leading into this.
• Fit back into a few select pairs of dress pants by the end of summer.

Edited January 8, 2014 by Aura

[raffy]

• Meet or beat the 3,000 miles I did on the bike in 2013
• Do at least one century
• Do the Tour de Cure again this year
• Increase training ride lengths from 40-50 miles to 60 and up. Now that I seem to have cramping issues controlled this should be more doable
• Do a GoRuck Lite with Mike B.
• Get down to 140 lbs. or less

 

I hate to say this but I cannot deny this any longer. The key to all this:

 

LESS PARTICIPATION IN THE "WHAT ARE YOU DRINKING NOW" THREAD!!!

[Torpedo]

I'd be happy with my back getting normal and being able to do whatever. Just swimming would be great.

[tyrion]

• Goruck Light with Jasen and then one with Raffy and Jp
• Tough Mudder with Jp
• Goruck Challenge 
• Ride my bike more
• Continue with Orange Theory and possibly give CrossFit a try

[raffy]

Mike, I think you have to start working to keep your "Dances on Pedals" nickname

[grawk]

I plan on training to do the moco epic metric century mountain bike ride.

[tyrion]

Mike, I think you have to start working to keep your "Dances on Pedals" nickname

I'm afraid it is not deserving at the moment despite riding stronger than I expected in Sebring.  I will try to earn it better.  If I finish a mudder it can be changed to dances with mud.

[Nebby]

Goals:

• Complete the Tour of Sufferlandria
• Complete a century (or century+) ride, the two listed by Chris look like a good challenge to train for
• Do at least one MTB race as a beginner
  • Spring Thaw Series
  • Cranky Monkey
• Ride the MOCO Epic 50 mile ride (most folks I've talked to have said the metric century is more work than fun, with the 50 mi course being the sweet spot)
• Improve my 5K run time

 

Possible goal:

• Friend wants me to run a half marathon in May, but I'm leaning towards focusing on cycling more. Nonetheless, it would be nice to be able to complete the half.

Edited March 6, 2014 by Nebby

[Pars]

Goals:

 

• Do 2000+ miles (up from my current ~1000)
• Tour de Cure this year, try to do the 100k
• Dairyland Dare (hopefully with my brother), also try 100k
• Try to get below 170, maybe 160 and see where that gets me
• Commute more (see #1)

[Riotvan]

Improving my running form and body strength so i can do more running. Had lots of problems with injuries and shitty footwear last year till i switched over to natural running. For me less is definately more and have been steadily building it up again.

[Dreadhead]

 

Goals:

• Complete the Tour of Sufferlandria
• Complete a century (or century+) ride, the two listed by Chris look like a good challenge to train for

 

We'll get a nice warm up in when we go to SC. The climb up Cesars head is 5% for 11 km .

 

I had not heard of the Tour of Sufferlandia. I may need to see if Meaghan will allow me to do it (I have all the videos). Doesn't seem too bad but that's a lot of time.

[nikongod]

I don't have any specific fitness goals for 2014, but some rough ones. 

 

I want to make MOAR POWER! Strava says I average like 75W. I needs mores!

 

I want to get home from work in 1 hour (according to my cheap computer) while maintaining a low (~137bpm) average heart rate. On Squirt, obviously. This may not actually be possible. 

 

Keeping up with Nechama on her Gunnar would be cool. 

[justin]

regain 100% of left arm/shoulder strength in the next few months, rather than the 70% average that people get back

 

meet or exceed my crossfit top performance from 2010-2011

 

run a hand-timed 4.6 40 yard

 

don't crash on a bike

[shellylh]

I guess I don't really have any real fitness goals for this year except to finish the year with no new or old injuries and to be in better shape than I am now.  In particular, I hope I am not still dealing with bicep tendonitis issues in a year (like I was all last year).  

 

Here are some of the goals I have been working on: 

 

1.  Be able to do 3-5 real (dead-hang, palms facing away from you) pull-ups;  I can do one real one (and multiple fake ones right now). 

 

2.  Gain more flexibility in my hips for squats.  Get my shoulder healed enough to do back squats instead of front squats. 

 

3.  Be able to ride a bike outside again (another shoulder issue). 

 

I also don't want to crash on a bike.  

[MexicanDragon]

I would really like to get a new bike and ride, but I can't until I have my back and my leg working.  That's a goal, I think, though one that might require surgical intervention.

Due to big changes in the last half of the year, I didn't get to ride much, but in the first part of the year, cycling helped quite a bit with my back issues, and especially my weak ankle. After surgery for Cauda Equina Syndrome, it's still not great, even a while later, but road riding helped as a low-impact way of working out some issues.

I just want to ride. I'm doing the Tour de Cure in Chattanooga in May, and I'm looking at getting Xavier a new 24" bike when it gets warmer, as he's outgrowing his old one.

I'm not going to do a mileage goal this year, as it didn't really work out for me this year, but I'm just going to try to get out, have fun on the bike, maybe get an inexpensive trainer so I can at least get some cardio in when it's ridiculously cold/hot/wet/blah outside.

**BRENT**

[n_maher]

Goal #1 - get the Calfee fitting right.  Doing two long rides on it at the end of the year in extremely cold temps was a bad combo and seems to have truly tweaked my left hamstring.  I am slightly concerned that I won't be able to find a happy riding position on it.  That would be heart breaking.  

 

Mileage

Road - 2,000 - same as last year, since I don't really have any more time to ride and I missed the goal by 15 fricken miles.

MTB - given how little I got out this year the goal for 2014 will simply be to get out more.  I think I might have made it out 6 times which is about half what I'd hoped.  The fall season just disappeared...

 

Specific Rides - this will really depend on whether or not I sell the Roubaix and buy some sort of gravel/cross bike. My older brother and I have talked about doing some sort of epic dirt/road ride mid-summer but I'm not doing that on the Calfee or Roubaix.  I think ideally I'd like a steel or Al framed bike that isn't so nice that I can't ride it around the neighborhood with the kids.  Lily really started to like riding her bike at the end of the year and I'm looking forward to getting out on a few short rides with her.  After that I'll definitely be doing the 3-notch ride again.  I wouldn't mind tossing in another century earlier in the year and Team Big Guy is talking about trying to do the B2B ride (http://b2vtride.com/) and that decision will have to be made next week.  I'm not sure I'm up for thinking about that epic a ride that early in the year.  Once during the summer I want to ride to work all 5 days of the week.  Just to say that I did.  With the new position at work it'll probably be hard to do it twice.  We'll see.

 

Fitness - simply put, end the year more fit than I started.  I think I succeeded in that effort this year but I can feel it already slipping as there is no real way to replace the amount of time that I spend on the bike with other ways of working out without significantly impacting other areas of life.  But, I need to work on that and not simply give up until the weather breaks and I can hit the road again.  

[Hopstretch]

Lose 20 lbs.

 

Get back to being able to run comfortably for an hour.

[thrice]

I have some goals:

 

Reasonable goals:

1. Finally get below 200 lbs.
2. Run at least one 5K
3. Work up to 100 pushups (it's an app, and it's making working on pushups really easy and fun

Asipirational goal: Get strong enough to do at least one freestanding handstand pushup.

[shellylh]

I guess I don't really have any real fitness goals for this year except to finish the year with no new or old injuries and to be in better shape than I am now.  In particular, I hope I am not still dealing with bicep tendonitis issues in a year (like I was all last year).  

 

Here are some of the goals I have been working on: 

 

1.  Be able to do 3-5 real (dead-hang, palms facing away from you) pull-ups;  I can do one real one (and multiple fake ones right now). 

 

2.  Gain more flexibility in my hips for squats.  Get my shoulder healed enough to do back squats instead of front squats. 

 

3.  Be able to ride a bike outside again (another shoulder issue). 

 

I also don't want to crash on a bike.  

 

Fuck yeah!  I did 2 real (dead-hang both times, palms facing away from me, no swinging, etc.) pullups in a row today at the gym!!!  I was pretty beat after that and couldn't start a third.

[justin]

nice shelly

 

i played soccer last night. my first physical activity outside of a few times the past couple weeks on the bike trainer and the physical therapy work. i wore a hooded sweatshirt and held onto it most of the time like i was wearing a sling. it has been 9 weeks, 4 days since the surgery. my last appointment for an x-ray was 1 week, 5 days ago and i was told i could play in 4 weeks, because i might trip/fall or something. so hopefully just running around carefully is not a problem. on my Dec 7 appt i was told i should be OK to run in 3 weeks, which would have been over 2 weeks ago. afterwards my collarbone was a little sore, but no more sore than it was from carrying a 40lb box at waist level for 50 feet today

[pigmode]

Finally back after 4+ mo off the bike, and 3 mo with very, very little mileage. This with a MTB trying to resolve a bulged disc between L4-5. Had to let my Serotta go, and not without inner turmoil. Won't be going back to an aggressive racing bike again.

It's probably too early but I couldn't resist. Have just ordered a new 2013 Spesh Roubaix frameset (tall head tube), a great (1500mi) DT 240s/Comp spoke/32h 440 asym wheelset, and a Veloce gruppo.

The good news is my fitness, while no where close to last July, is not *too* bad. Not good, but not too bad. Also have lost 17 lb!!! Granted some muscle mass is gone, but a good deal of fat as well.

Goal is to capitalize on the weight loss (now 161lb @ 5'-10"), adapt properly to road bike riding, and if all goes well transform my climbing. Will miss Cycle to the Sun, again. Last year because I wasn't satisfied with my fitness, this year because I'm betting for a next year.