marathon goals

richard posted an entry about his marathon goals and it got me to thinking about race times.

marathon goals are a funny thing. the first two races i did for time were races where i trained and raced solo. no real input from any gurus or rbf'ers, so i had no idea about pacing, hydration, fuel, etc. those two races were a painful lesson in what not to do. but despite the pain, i loved running both races (maybe not at the time!) and i learned more about what to do NEXT time. my next race was with smsmh and i put into practice all the things i learned from the previous two marathons and came away from the race successful. not successful in the sense that i'd hit a marathon time goal, but that i'd raced successfully.

my fourth marathon was for time. i trained HARD for it. i was SURE that i'd run a 3:30, easy. maybe even if i felt good enough, i'd push for a bq time...every long run and training run up to the taper indicated that i'd hit my goals. all the lessons had been learned, i'd trained properly and was MOTIVATED. so why did i end up with a 3:53? life threw some interesting hurdles at me. flu the week before the race, head wind the entire route, a much larger hill than advertised and last, but certainly not least, a guy that needed motivation more than i needed a good finishing time.

i think my most 'successful' races have been the ones where i truly enjoyed myself and the celebration of the training. for some, it's the finishing time, for others it's the community, and for a warped few, it's about the pain. heck yeah, i still want to hit that elusive 3:30 and eventually run a bq time, heck, i may even shoot for a sub 3 at some point, but for now, i'm enjoying the celebration.

ken, my training partner, made a great observation about race goals. he said that in previous races where he'd only had one goal, when he realized that he wasn't going to meet that goal, he'd find himself giving up and usually tanking the race. he found that if he laid out a 'wildest dreams' goal, a 'i trained hard' goal, a 'reasonable' goal and a 'fallback' goal, he had the ability to adjust during the race if things were going good or bad. with a series of defined goals, it helped mitigate the "i've failed since i missed my 3:30 pace" collapse and made possible the "wow, i've got lots of juice, let's see what i can do!" pr's.

i guess where i'm going with this is encouraging folks to make sure they know their goals when they set out for a race, event, training. whether it's a time, a celebration of running, a dollar amount raised, etc. have them firmly placed in your mind, etched on your heart and shared with others. having that focus and support will get you through the challenge.

Posted by jeff at November 30, 2004 11:41 AM