Calling my shots

With this season pretty much over and no races in it, I'm looking at the 2016 season and picking a few goals.

In the past, I've gotten the best results by having a single performance goal and then picking events that help test me along the way. In 2013, it was a sub-hour 40K. I wasn't picky about the course or the conditions. I just wanted the time.

Next year, it will be something similar. The goals are very performance-oriented and have a few events to see if I'm reaching them:

1. Achieve a functional threshold power (FTP) of 300 watts on the time trial bike.
2. Achieve a body weight of 164 or less.

Together, these will give me an FTP of 4 w/kg.

To put that in perspective, my best FTP on the time trial bike was 260, so getting to 300 is a hell of a jump.

The events I plan to use for testing:

1. PA State Time Trial (like you didn't know that one was coming) in late July. 24.8 (40K) miles of rolling/hilly terrain.
2. Philly Time Trial in early June. 8.2 miles of mostly flat, smooth roads.
3. Any mix of New Jersey series time trials. I'll probably do ones that have nice weather that weekend so I'm not making myself miserable early in the season. Cape May and Somerset are ones where I've been on the podium before but never won. I could do the NJ State TT as well just to get in some practice at the same 40K distance.

If my calculations are right, the performance numbers above should give me a time at the PA State Time trial of around 58:00, which in 2015 would have been a winning time. 

Time to get to work!