As I sit at the keyboard on the wrong side of midnight waiting for my sleeping pill to enact its intended effect, I listen. I hear the whoosh of flying snow. I hear the spatter of frozen rain upon my window pane. And I think of this: running is a metaphor for life. I weakly feign surprise when you tell me this is an overdone cliche. But just because something is cliche does not mean it is not true.
Having run the Rocket City Marathon several weeks ago as our last big event of 2010, my friend Terry and I swore off full-length marathons for awhile. (In guy-speak this could mean anywhere from next week to never again) But we did agree to run (with perseverance -- fingers crossed) the Mercedes Half Marathon on February 13, 2011. But how would I handle the transition from one race to the next? Only by reflecting on what I had accomplished (and not) before turning to what I hoped to accomplish in the future.
Looking back, my whole goal was to run the marathon in under 4 hours. But I put some caveats in my training. I only wanted to train 4 days a week. I only wanted to run 500 miles in 18 weeks (unlike the prescribed 600). I didn't want to do speedwork on the track. But I still thought I could make my goal. So what did I do? Did I set myself up for failure? No, I set my self up not to meet my goal. This was not a pass-fail experience. I was shooting for a sub-4 marathon; I ran 4:03. That's not a failure; that's a B+. I did very well for me, compared only to me. The years before 2004 when I did not run or bike or otherwise engage in physical activity -- those years were failures. The years 2005-2008 when I gave up running after a marathon -- failure.
The surest way to failure is not to set out to do the thing that you are supposed to do, that you need to do. So, we see that setting out to do something is the first blow against failure. Once in motion, we need to "count the costs" of our goal. The goal of a sub-4:00 marathon requires a certain number of miles and training sessions. Balancing these requirements with the desire to remain injury-free lead me to the decision to go light on the training. Don't get me wrong -- I put in plenty of miles, and time, and early mornings. Just not enough.
So, what's the point of all this? To self-flagellate over missing a time goal by three minutes? No.
- Did I have a goal? YES
- Did I pick the correct goal in the first place? Was it reasonable? Yes, I think it was.
- Having picked a reasonable goal, did I do enough to meet my goal? No, I think not. I could have done more to reach the goal.
- Am I disappointed with the result? No, not at all. I came close to meeting my goal. It is likely the best I could have done under the circumstances.
Do you realize that I haven't been writing about running for awhile now? This is life. This is school. This is work. This is your relationships. This is your spiritual walk.
So back to running...Terry and I used the recent Red Nose Run as a tune-up for the Mercedes which is in 5 weeks. We pushed it hard, but not too hard. We did well for us. I set a new PR (personal record) in the 10-miler. And we ran a pace that would allow us to break our Half marathon records again...Hey, that sounds like a good goal.
A last bit of advice: don't set your goals too high such that you never meet them...or too low such that you always meet them.
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