Stick to the Plan Challenge

Hi Rob,

Are you still interested in doing something along these lines?

Here's my suggestion for a "stick to the plan" challenge: it doesn't matter which plan anyone is following, but at the beginning of each month we sign up to a set training schedule (in my case it's the sprint 2x run focused plan with a couple of modifications).

Then each week we score how we did against plan: 1 point for each "main" training session completed (run, bike, swim) and 0.5 point for each "broader" training session (e.g. core, yoga, strength).

At the end of each week, we work out how we've done as a percentage (actual versus planned and it doesn't matter if you don't do your training on the exact day as long as it's done in the week) and the winner and loser each update their signature lines for the following week. This evens out any differences in plans. Each week ends on Sunday and if it's not logged it doesn't count. We report weekly progress in this thread and send inspires/issue smack talk along the way.

At the end of the challenge (June 1 works for me), the overall winner is the person who has won the most weeks along the way. Pinching an idea from the dog-eat-dog challenge, the loser makes a donation to the winner's charity of choice to a total of $1 for each week the winner won. (Does that make sense?? And it would need to be an international charity - or an international equivalent - because I'm in the UK!)

How does that sound?

cheers,
Gill

Some further refinements to the challenge:

1. Broader training sessions are capped at 5 per week (even if you plan to do more)
2. All training sessions have to be planned and you have to specify whether you measure your plan in time or distance (usually this is specified by the original BT plan)
3. Extending a training session (main or broader) doesn't get you any extra credit in this challenge
4. Doing training that isn't in your plan (as you define and log it each month; not necessarily as downloaded from BT) doesn't get you any extra credit in this challenge

So an example (using my planned and actual training last week):

I planned to attend 2 swimming training sessions, go for 3 runs (14, 19 & 24 mins) and 2 bike rides (48 & 29 mins), and complete 3 core training sessions. That's a possible total of 7 main sessions and 3 broader sessions which makes 8.5 points.

I did all my runs (although I switched one run from Thursday to Sunday), did both bike rides, missed one swimming session and skipped one core training day - which makes 6 + 1 = 7.

My score for the week would be 82.3% - this would beat someone who planned for 4 main sessions and only did 3 (75%) but lose to someone who planned for 8 sessions and did 7 (87.5%). All of these would lose to anyone who completed all their planned training!

The key to making this work will be making sure all planned and actual training are logged. Turning on the planned vs actual graph on our blogs would also be good!

(I'll look for the link on loading amended BT plans and post it here later tonight.)

As much as I like the survivor idea, I think I would struggle to last a month of 100% training. (Probably shouldn't admit that to you before we start our "stick to the plan" challenge...) But because I'm quite competitive, what I would probably end up doing is only committing to two-thirds or three-quarters of my planned training and that's not really good for me or the challenge.

So for this challenge, can we stick to our original idea? With the added condition of no "sand-bagging".

And yes, you still have to beat me!!

Useful links for this challenge:

Importing planned training:
http://www.beginnertriathlete.com/cms/article-detail.asp?articleid=1066

And general link to training log help:
http://www.beginnertriathlete.com/cms/index.asp?catid=122

OK, my February plan looks like this: calendar view

Bring it on Rob!!

Alright Gilly.  Here is my schedule for February.  Best of luck to us!

The strength is a push/pull schedule.  Tuesday is chest/tris/shoulders and Thursday is Back/bis/legs.  I'll work in core throughout the week here and there but won't count it as another "session".   I will also commit to one yoga session a week but don't know which day that will be.  Likely on Wednesday since that day is real light.

Thanks Tammy.

 Alright Gilly, I've done my first planned workout!

OK, so the one thing we didn't consider was how we're going to treat injuries and illness. Needless to say I don't advocate training while ill or injured, and this is now a current issue for me as I've got a throat infection .

Now I know most challenges (the monthly variety) just let people drop ill/injured days from their training, but because this is a smaller challenge with weekly goals how about the following: if you can't train on a given day because of illness or injury, you can either try to make it up during the week or score 0.8/0.4 for any training on that day.

Let me know what you think.

Superb, welcome to the game - I'm sure Rob needs some kicking as I've been too sick this week to dish out any smack

wait, damn it, it looks like he's on plan...

Welcome aboard!

I think I need more frequent checks for this challenge than monthly. At the end of each week, lets post our progress here (with the logs available to verify). The original plan was for "core" workouts (run, bike, swim) to count for 1 point and additional workouts (yoga, abs work, strength, etc) to count for 0.5.

If we each calculate our score for the week as a % then we'll get a fair way to compare progress on different plans. Now that there are 4 of us, each week can produce 2 winners and 2 losers (or more winners if we've all done 100% for that week). We can update our signatures weekly, with the running total of the number of weeks we've won.

Happy to opt for demerits if you think this is too complicated, but that would make life harder for people with longer plans. Let me know what you all think.

OK, we have four now.  This email should serve as the "rules" going forward (of course please hollar if there is something you don't like).  If others join they can just pick up in the current week.  All are welcome.

• We'll post our schedules monthly in this thread.  Sherm will post his weekly schedule.  Gill, Gator, and I will post monthly.
• We'll measure progress weekly by % complete.  So, if you had 10 workouts scheduled for the week and actually did 8 you had 80% complete.
• In the case of injury or illness scheduled workouts are excused.  No need to show a doctors note!
• We report our progress each Monday morning in this thread.
• People should be encouraged to issue smack and inspiration on logs and in this thread.
• The winner(s) of each week will add to their signature "I won the Stick to the Plan challenge this week!"
• The loser(s) of each week will add to their signature  "I lost the Stick to the Plan challenge this week!".

 Here is Gill's February Schedule:

All sounds good.

Just to check, anyone with 100% or the person who comes top each week is the weekly winner.

Also, are we going to have an overall result, based on the number of weeks you won along the way?