If you want to improve your cycling performance, you need to develop some kind of training program. Setting goals is the first step in this process. This is an important step because your goals embody what you most want to achieve as a cyclist. For example, you might want to set your personal best in a particular race, complete your first century journey, or improve your race category. Whatever your goals, I suggest you use the SMART Goal process to improve your chances of success. SMART stands for specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and limited in time:
1. Specific. Your goals must be precise and expressed in terms of performance. For example, if you want to lose weight, your goal might be to “lose 10 pounds in the next 8 weeks.” If you want to improve your race performance, your goal might be to “complete a 40km time trial in under an hour by the end of the racing season.”
2. Measurable. A goal is measurable when it is easy to determine whether it has been achieved. The weight loss goal described above is easily measured. In 8 weeks you will weigh 10 lbs. less or you won’t. Likewise, it is easy to determine if you have completed a 40 km time trial in less than an hour at the end of the racing season. By contrast, the goal of “greatly improving my running performance” is not easily measured.
3. Realizable. One of the biggest mistakes cyclists make in the goal setting process is setting unattainable goals. Your goals should be challenging, but they should also be realistic. For example, if you are a beginning cyclist, the goal of completing a 40K time trial in less than an hour is probably unrealistic. Set high goals, but make sure they are achievable.
Four. Important. This may be the most important element of the SMART Goal process. Your goals must be important to you as an individual. Don’t set a goal because your coach, teammate, or cycling buddy has that goal. Set goals that are meaningful to you. Our goals are what motivate us. You are much more likely to achieve goals that have personal and/or professional meaning.
5. Limited in time. Make sure that each goal you set has a specific time frame to complete. This allows you to easily determine if it has been achieved. It also increases the probability that you will achieve each objective since you know that time is ticking!
A final consideration in the goal setting process is the choice of process against Go out objectives. Outcome goals are probably more common as they focus on the ultimate accomplishments. Objectives such as finishing in the top 10 in a key race, completing a 40km time trial in one hour, and earning enough race points to move from Category 4 to Category 3 are examples of result objectives. You probably want to set one or more performance targets at the start of each cycling season. However, you may also want to incorporate process goals. The goals of the process focus on the implementation of your training regimen. For example, “ride 5,000 miles during the calendar year” is a process goal, as is “perform two interval training sessions per week for 12 weeks during the intensity phase of my annual training plan.”
Process objectives have two advantages over outcome objectives. First, if you fail to achieve an outcome goal, it can be a very demoralizing experience. You have more control over the process goals because they focus on program implementation rather than results. Second, for newcomers to cycling, it can be very difficult to set performance goals. If an athlete has very little experience, it is difficult to quantify the expected performance in cycling events. In cases like these, it will be more effective to use process objectives.