For some of our athletes who live in warmer climates, the early season races have started or are just around the corner. Having non-results-oriented objectives for early season races can take a lot of the pressure off and pay real dividends for your higher priority races. Just as we advocate having specific objectives for each training ride, it's important to plan specific objectives for low priority races (if you're unfamiliar with race prioritization, see The Six P's of Race Prioritization: Properly Planned Priorities Promote Perfect Peaks). Here are some sample objectives:

Put in three hard, well-timed attacks

Go for two primes

Get teammate to bottom of climb in top 10 position

Work on energy conservation, doing as little work as possible on first 3 of 4 laps

Chase down attacks on lap Y (initiate attack if one isn't launched by Z)

Initiate early break and try to stay away at least 5 miles

Average XXX watts on ABC climb

Simulate a flat, wheel change and chase back to peloton on lap Z

As you can see, you can construct a wide range of goals. Just make sure they are consistent with where you are in your Annual Training Plan. Have fun!