Follow up to baselines

I thought this would be a good time to update the baselines post with some data. Coming off the knee injury/surgery I put a bit more time in the pool around biking to work on technique a bit more and see if I couldnt get a bit faster. I decided to create a goal for myself to help keep me focused. I started this year/ended last around 1:44-1:45 per 100 meters for my 20:00 time trials. Nothing to complain about, but I wanted to see if I could dip into the 1:30's. This past Monday I hit 1:40 per 100 meters for my 20:00 TT in the pool. I was very happy with this, its early in the season, and it made all the work I did in the pool this winter/spring worth while. If I had not improved, then I would have had to re-evaluate my training to see if doing something different would help me obtain my goal.

Another scenario, one of the people I help coach in the pool seemed to be getting frustrated. I knew the person was progressing but they didnt feel that they were. So during a recent workout, I had them swim a fairly casual distance equal to their last TT distance and I took the time they posted for that normal swim and showed them that their now moderate swim was right around the exact same time their all out TT effort was just a couple of months ago! Not too shabby at all! But its nice to have that data to fall back on to evaluate where a person is at, has been, and where we're trying to get them to go. If you can see your progress its easier to stay motivated and its also easier to evaluate the plan you are following.