Last Updated on 10 November 2021:
Why bother getting on the bike? What reason do you have for training? What is your ‘why’? These three powerful questions should be the driving force behind your goal setting. If you’re not asking yourself these questions when goal setting, you’re probably not focused enough on what you want to achieve.
Thankfully, a big part of being a coach is helping my clients accurately and effectively set goals.
Covered in this blog:
- Goal setting for cycling
- Long term goals
- Dreaming big, but keeping it real
- Short term goals
- Process goals
- Five ways to stay goal focused
Goal setting for cycling
If you’ve ever trained hard for anything, you will know that it’s not always smooth sailing towards your goal. Perhaps you’ve set a goal that you thought you wanted to achieve, but later realised the end result wasn’t worth the effort to get there – the juice wasn’t worth the squeeze…
There’s a couple of factors to consider here. The first is how much you can actually commit to achieving your goals. This is something I’m passionate about as, typically, most athletes I start to work with overcommit themselves to their goals. It’s ok not to be 100% committed. In reality, it’s like trying to reach perfection, you just simply can’t get there. The problem, when you don’t, is that people tend to feel so badly about not being able to commit to the training, that they quit entirely, rather than taking a more realistic look at what they can achieve.
The second factor to consider is motivation. It’s highly unusual that I work long-term with an athlete who doesn’t set solid goals. If their goal is simply to ride their bike faster, to be more powerful, or to beat their friends, often we work together for a short time before the motivation drops out and they quit.
Setting several different goals is one of the first steps towards building a strong mentality towards training. Continually reevaluate your goals too, set new goals before you’ve achieved your current ones, and keep striving for the next step in your cycling training.
Long term goals
Having long-term goals is going to be crucial to directing your cycling training correctly. Lots of new cyclists set short term goals based on their limited experience in the sport, only to change them when they’ve been introduced to something else. While fine, if you want to see considerable gains in performance, over a long period of time, having a longer term plan is worthwhile.
A five or even eight year plan is common when I’m planning goals with my clients. Ask yourself right now “what would you like to achieve, in cycling, within five to eight years?”. It’s ok if you have no idea! My suggestion here is to get a white board and start brainstorming some ideas. Once you’ve got some, start researching each until you find some that really spark your interest. If you’re feeling excited and, perhaps, a little nervous, you’re probably on the right path!
What is important is setting goals correctly. There’s a few systems, but I like the old school SMART system. In this context SMART stands for: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Time-Bound. For example, your goal might be to ride from Land’s End to John O’Groats (LEJOG) within five years. This is SMART because it’s a specific route, measurable by having a target which is either completed or not, attainable because it is likely that it could be completed with training, relevant to the rider and time-bound by having a time-frame by which to achieve it.
Dreaming big, but keeping it real
I do like to encourage some dreaming with my clients, albeit I don’t encourage something ridiculous and do stress that it’s something that we can work towards without expectations of actually achieving it. The expectation here is important. Don’t place unnecessary stress by trying to achieve the unachievable. I’ve had athletes in their late thirties, who have barely ridden a bike in their life, tell me that they want to be the next big track cycling superstar. It’s ok to want to be the next track cycling superstar, but as soon as you expect yourself to be, you’re setting yourself up for disappointment.
You also might have read the last chapter and thought “5-year plan, I’m not thinking that far ahead!”. That’s ok as well. Some of the funniest responses I’ve had from new clients when I’ve asked about their eight year plan include “be alive”…
While goal setting is crucial to building that solid training mentality, it shouldn’t be something you’re not looking forward to doing. However, by accurately setting, and then resetting, your goals, you will find long term mental strength, and greater desire to stick to your plan. In my book, ‘The Guide to Truly Effective Cycling’, I stress that I believe around 50% of your performance improvements will come from your mentality. With goal setting being a foundation, it makes a lot of sense to put in the time to get this done.
Short term goals
Short term would fall within the next year. In cycling terms, we would call this a macro-cycle and would start at the end of your break following your previous season, and run through to the start of your next break at the end of this season, typically this is after you’ve completed your last main event, but not always.
Often this is another area that athletes tend to get wrong. Your short term goals will, ideally, be linked to your longer term ones. For example, if you are wanting to compete in an ultra-endurance event, maybe Race Across America (RAAM) in the next five years, you might start with the next goal of riding Land’s End to John O’Groats (LEJOG) this year.
Of course, there should be plenty of other events along the way. I would not recommend you only completing one event, and that being your main one. If you have the goal of completing a gruelling gran fondo, I’d suggest you find several other, perhaps slightly easier, events that will be a great test of your performance and help you identify areas you still need to work on. You can prioritise your events to make it more obvious as you work towards them.
Process goals
Process goals will be even smaller goals that will lead you to your bigger ambitions. These might not be events themselves, they might be markers that prove you are capable of achieving the demands of the event that you are mainly targeting.
For example, here’s the demands of a century ride:
- Flexibility and comfort to hold the position on the bike
- Fuelling and hydrating
- Your actual nutrition strategy
- Actually being able to eat and drink on the bike
- Being comfortable riding in a group (if it’s a mass participation event)
- Changing positions within a group
- Communicating with others in the group
- Riding efficiently within the group (not doing all the work on the front or hanging off the back)
- Other skills and techniques
- Climbing
- Descending
- Cornering
- Mounting and dismounting the bike
You’ll notice that I haven’t even mentioned being physically fit enough to ride 100 miles! Once you’ve detailed the demands of your particular event or goal, you can really start to look at what you need to be able to achieve, and then put some realistic timeframes down for completing these process goals.
Five ways to stay goal focused
Regardless of how well you set your goals, you will have times when you wonder why you’re bothering. In these moments, it’ll be important to remind yourself of the reasons you started in the first place. Here’s my top five tips to remaining goal focused while training for cycling events.
Check back in with your goals
As simple as it sounds, this might be the most effective way to get back on track when you wobble. I recommend to my clients that they hang pictures of their goals in areas where they need reminding of why they’re doing this. For example, athletes targeting the Maratona dles Dolomites might have pictures of the iconic Giau climb near their trainer. Clients who need to work on their weight have often hung pictures of me pointing at them in places where they usually slip, perhaps on the fridge or snack drawer. Whatever you do, it should spark that passion and get you motivated.
Nurture your motivation
Continually working on your motivation is often better than letting it slip away. Asides from pictures, you might consider doing something grander like creating a dream or vision board. Make or print pictures of all your goals and put them on this board. The board will serve as a powerful reminder of why you’re training. Are you someone who reacts to music? Do you often feel motivated by certain tunes or genres? Most of us do, so creating a playlist to listen to in the last 30 minutes before starting training, can be a powerful motivator. You can also tie this into your warm-up, creating that bubble that focuses your energy and gets you in the zone.
Reconnect with what makes you smile
One common symptom of low motivation is when people start to hide away. Often forcing that reconnection is a positive step towards reengaging that motivation. Go for a ride with an old friend, go out on that club ride, take part in the midweek chain gang. A high portion of my clients have some form of social element attached to their training, it’s incredibly powerful for motivation.
Try something new
Keeping training fresh is really important. I have a training library with well over a thousand different sessions for my clients to use. Even then, I often talk with my clients about doing something new. Winter (presuming your main goal is in the summer) is an excellent time to cross-train and try something new. It doesn’t have to complement cycling, but sports such as crossfit, lifting weights, running, rowing, and other activities like that are a great addition to a training plan, and will boost motivation greatly.
Work with a coach
Of course I’m biased, but it’s why most coaches are coached as well. Not only will a coach be able to help you reach your goals from a performance, nutrition, tactical, technical, and mental perspective, they will ensure you keep on track. Once you have someone watching you, you will go harder and last longer. Once you start paying for coaching, you will want to get your money’s worth by doing your best. Coaching is simply the best way to achieve your goals, the best way to stay motivated, and the best way to achieve those cycling dreams.
