Goal Making for the Half Marathon

21 days until race day. That was somewhat terrifying to actually count out, though I’ve already sketched out my training plan til raceday, so I really should have been expecting that.

Exercise is tough. If you’re anything like my mother, you probably just rolled your eyes after reading that. “Of course it is! It’s exercise!” And yes, there is the physical challenge to it, but I’ve been struggling with the mental aspect of it more as of late. I’m staying the course with my training plan (see more later on that), but so many doubts keep worming their way into my mind. Am I too ambitious? What if I don’t get that sub 2 hour time? Am I messing up my training with this off day? Oh how the thoughts continue. Let’s see if we can kick some negative thought bootie here.

Many of my struggles are coming from my race. I’m putting a fair amount of pressure on myself for just one race, so I think I need to give myself a list of goals.

• Basic: Finish the Race Running

  • I’ve done the distance before, but it’s still longer than my long runs. Don’t trivialize just finishing, self. The last time I did this course I walked the last 4 miles. It’s time to do better.

• Acceptable: Finish the Race faster than 8 years ago

  • My latest Half time is much faster, but that was with a different course. Let’s go for a course PB!

• Goal B: Finish in a similar time to last Half

  • It won’t have been that long between races, so I shouldn’t expect dramatic improvements.

• Goal A: PB

  • It might involve sprinting up a mile long hill, but I want this one quite a bit.

• Stretch Goal: Sub 2 hour Half

  • 7 minutes faster is quite a bit to expect since the last Half I did. It would be amazing, but in writing this, I recognize that it is at the limit of reasonable.

• Garmin’s Goal: 1:46:20

  • Okay, I put this in here for the lolz. Maybe someday, but not this day. Garmin’s race predictions for me is worth its own post.

Seriously, write this out for yourself if you are freaking out about a race. It really can help. Also, put in the miles (in a safe way!! Don’t just ramp up your mileage drastically to meet your training plan!).

Earlier I said that I would talk about my training plan later. Later is here! I use the bones of Jack Daniel’s “Alien” training plan. This means I have two quality workouts a week (Tuesday and Thursday), a long run on Sunday (sometimes Saturday, depending on the weather), and the rest is easy runs. I vary my mileage up by week, 30 for recovery, less than 35 for first week of building, more than 35 for second week of building, and 40 for volume, and then the cycle repeats. I throw in my PT a couple times a week and the occasional walk when I don’t take the dog out running. It’s a fairly flexible plan and it seems to be working for me. A note about the mileage: this is specific to my training state at this time. The first time I hit 40 miles in a week, I paid for it with the beginnings of injuries, so I had to dial it back down. Additionally, my easy run pace is sooooooooo dang slow, that I don’t have much more time in the week to commit to exercising. I’m going to have to get faster before I can run more, and that’s just a waiting game with consistent training.

Thank you for reading this far. I wish you luck with whatever your training goals are!

“I’m pulling for ya. We’re all in this together.”

— Red Green