Goals

One of the reasons I wanted to start this blog was to get a little better at setting reasonable goals for races -- so here we go!

I guess that it's not really necessary to set goals at all, but how can you avoid it? Anyways, if I didn't set goals I'd be disappointed with every race I didn't win and/or run a blazing fast time. There are a lot of ways to set goals...it all depends on the race course and distance and your current training and all kinds of things. Of course it's always a goal to place as high as possible (I particularly love to beat men, what of it), but that all depends on who shows up on the day, and anyways when you start putting times in like a...global running scene context....we are all running at a snail's pace anyways. So to me right now, it only makes sense to set personal time goals and whatever else comes along is bonus.

What I tend to do is have many levels of goals before a race, ranging from "if I at least do this I'll be satisfied" to "in a perfect world I would love to do this". I think people call them "A" and "B" goals, etc. I don't usually like to write my goals down or tell many people my goals beyond the slowest of them. I guess that for me goal-setting is an exercise in avoiding disappointment and embarrassment? Something something pessimism something expect the worst something pleasantly surprised.

Well, let me see how honest I can be about what I'd really like to do in some upcoming races. Right now I'm hoping to set PR's in the 10k and the marathon. Currently my PR's are 39:35 in the 10k and 3:23:something in the marathon.

This Sunday, I'll be running a 10k here in Tucson. It's on roads and bike paths in a park and the course should be really flat and fast. Last year, I ran the 5k at this same event and was the first female...however, the top ladies in the 10k ran a pace that was faster than my 5k pace! Sometimes cherry-picking races like that can lead to easier prizes, at least. This year I'm going to mix it up with the big girls, however. I have avoided running 10k's for many years, since my 10k PR has felt completely untouchable. The full story behind my 10k PR will have to wait for another day, but I ran it when I was 22 on a very fast downhill course (at altitude though, so that might balance out).  I am finally, 10 years later, running well enough that I think I might have a shot at a 10k PR, if everything goes perfectly. However, I am not trained for a 10k, nor am I backing off marathon training at all for this race, so we'll see. I'll say that my "at least satisfied" goal would be around 41 minutes, and my "perfect world" goal would be 38:xx. Let's not think about the splits required to run those times (6:15-6:35, lololololol), nor shall we compare them to what I have run in recent 5k's! One thing's for sure, if I'm going to go for it it's really going to hurt.

The second race I'm still working on setting a goal for is the upcoming Phoenix Marathon, which is on February 28th. Oh, HELLO, that is 7 weeks from Saturday. That means that I have only about a month of really hard training left to go! This will be my second time running Phoenix and my third marathon (but we won't count the first one as I didn't train for it at all). Last year I ran just under 3:24 at this marathon, which I was happy with at the time. I've been running so much more than last year though, and quite a bit faster, so I'm struggling to set a goal this time around. The thing with a marathon is that the chances come around much more rarely, I mean I can't exactly jump in another marathon 2 weeks later if I bomb this one. So that leads me to think I should set an aggressive goal...which brings me back around to worrying about being disappointed if I don't meet my goals. I think that if I break 3:15 I'll be ok with it, and progressively happier until, by some miracle, I could manage to break 3 hours.

All right, that's going to do it for my upcoming race goals. Luckily hardly anyone knows about this blog so my goals are not really public yet....that's how blogging works right? Keep it secret? When does the cash start to roll in?