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Triathletix is the official coaching company for the Los Angeles Tri Club!

Athlete of the Month: Jim Goossen

TRIATHLETIX client, Jim Goossen is ready to step it up to the big one- Ironman Coeur d' Arlene 2006! To accomplish this, he signed on with TRIATHLETIX Coaching January 21st of this year. Jim believed in order to reach his Ironman goals he would need to improve his biking and swimming skills. In Jim's words, "my swimming sucks" which prompted him to take a weekend swim clinic with Ian Murray in addition to his regular coaching. Jim was beginning to move in the right direction.

Jim's first goal race was Ralph's California 70.3 in Oceanside on March 18. It was very early in the season for that distance but he wanted to give it 100% effort and improve on his 7:17 time from 2005! A pretty hefty goal for only having 56 days of TRIATHLETIX Coaching behind him but with his past experience, we weren't going to let him down and the training began.

We started with VO2 testing at Pepperdine University with Dr. Holden MacRae to ensure he was training at the proper heart rates while also focusing on rate of perceived exertion. This way he became very familiar with how he
felt in the various training zones, RPMs on the bike, and paces on the run.

We also put in short transition runs after his long rides so he would get used to the heavy leg feeling and nutrition and hydration were key components to every workout. Jim did the Ventura Marathon in February and had a Personal Best of 1:53- a great barometer for how he would do in Oceanside.

The strategy Jim was going to take for Cal was to improve on his transition times (free time and should be easy to do because rain was not in the forecast like last year which slowed him down), let the crowd of swimmers go off first so he could swim in the calm water, and to negative split the bike and run. TRIATHLETIX calculated a finish time for Jim of 6:50- which would be a huge improvement from 2005 and fingers were crossed in hopes his training would pay off. Soon after the race ended Jim call and asked "So, what was your goal time for me?" After he was told, we held our
breath to hear his time~ "6:13:56!" Holy moly! A 1 hour and 4 minute improvement from last year! He did this by improving his transition times and taking 27 minutes off his bike time and 31 minutes of his run time. And that is why Jim is TRIATHLETIX's Athlete of the Month. IM CDR is going to be a great race for Jim. Congrats to you!

(Jim was spotted at Strawberry Fields all battered and bruised... he was hit by a car while riding the day before he was to compete at SFT. When asked why he was there and not at home recovering.... "I wanted to get my T-shirt!" Gotta love that attitude! He is taking a couple of weeks off to heal and will be back out there swimming, biking and running on his way to IM CDR. Our thoughts are with you for a quick and complete recovery!)

View Previous Athletes of the Month