Once you go into maintenance mode, there's one plaguing question: What are your goals for the next round?
What is so awful about this question is the fact that I suffer from Acute Over-Achiever's Syndrome with a nice healthy dose of Unrealistic Expectionalism. And a pinch of Amibitionitis.
My entire life since pre-school has been defined by the goals on my list, no matter how big (graduate college) or small (get out of bed). I have always wanted to be the best, be the elite, to win. This being said, I am not actually that athletic.
To be perfectly honest, I am a slow runner. I'm getting faster each race, sure. But I credit some of that to the fact that I went into running with "no expectations".
Goal for the 2008 Lowell 1/2 Marathon: Finish (check)
Goal for the 2009 Boston Marathon: Finish (check)
Goal for the 2009 Baystate Marathon: Beat Boston's time (check)
Goal for the 2010 Fitness 1/2 Marathon: Beat Lowell's time (check)
With every race I do, the time gets whittled away. Which is great. I worked really hard to get those results and it's kind of fantastic (and easy) to have no other competition other than myself.
But when Lisa asked me on Thursday what my goals were going through to Chicago, I literally had to take all weekend to think about it. Because now, I want to see what I can really do. What am I really capable of? I know I can finish marathons - that's why this #3 is a huge deal to me. Finishing Baystate proved that my Boston finish wasn't a fluke (and I actually saw what a real marathon training schedule is like). And so now I want to just blow the doors off this thing.
Blowing the doors off it is all relative, though. I can power through the next 5 months, but am I going to go and qualify for Boston (which is running a marathon in about 3:30:00)? Absolutely not. Would it be nice? Absolutely. Would I get hurt on the way? Absolutely. A more realistic goal is 4:59:59 (which means I would pull ~18:00 off my time. Which is what I did between Boston and Baystate). Eighteen minutes doesn't sound like a lot and doesn't sound like it should take 5 months of work, but it probably will. And that's okay (deep breath).
One of the areas that has (always) been severely lacking for me is speed. I'm not fast. I joined the track team in high school to get better for soccer (more on that in another post!) because I was told I wasn't fast enough. Let's face it: who goes out and does a bunch of short range 50-100m dashes and then tortures themselves with a few 400's? Masochists and professionals with oodles of dollars in endorsements, that's who. People with brains who aren't getting paid are not like....let's do a sprint workout!
I need to do some sprint workouts. My legs are accustomed (and have a love/hate relationship with) long runs. I need to mix it up a little bit to keep them fresh and strong (I also have been getting completely smoked in my Ultimate games - who wants to be agile and run in more than one direction? Or go for short speed bursts? Lame.) and speedy.
All of my lifting over the past year has come with some pitfalls, too. While everyone can see how jacked and tan I am (not right now chief, I'm in the zone!), my flexibility has become almost nonexistent. When I first started out running 2 1/2 years ago, my goal was for overall fitness and athleticism. Well, endurance and speed are dichotomies, and so are strength and flexibility. And all four are indicators of fitness. I'm getting to a point that I'm actually worried that I might tear something in my right leg because I'm not the nice stretchy rubber band, I'm that one that's around broccoli in the grocery store (you totally know what I'm talking about).
I keep struggling to keep up with yoga because I usually try to squeeze it in on a day that's supposed to be a rest day, thinking yoga is rest. Nope, it's not. Holding a Warrior II pose after running 10 miles basically makes your Om turn into OMFGthisfuckingkills. After a few OMFGTGK, I stop going - there is nothing calming about painful downward dogs.
The worst part of thinking about all these things is knowing that I have to stay realistic. I can write down and tell myself that I'm basically going to be training Monday-Saturday, but I know after 2 or 3 training cycles like this, that I need 2 rest days, or I'll be down to 1 run a week. And sometimes, I would rather sit in the recliner and watch every DVR'ed episode I have stored and eat ice cream instead of "cross training".
In the past (college mostly) I set myself up for inevitable failure: huge goals with little to no support and I would dry up my willpower well by the end of week 1. I think one of the main reasons I've been able to stick with running this long and consistently is because I started out small: 5 milers, 5Ks, 1/2 marathons, and the fact that I only really prepare for 2 events a year (spring and fall). I can go into a 6 week stretch where I can run as far and as fast and as often as I want without fear of repercussion.
After thinking for 4 straight days, I finally wrote down my goals (and am now publicizing):
-Finish Chicago in 5:00:00 or less
-A more balanced approach to my training with speed and flexibility being the focus until about July
-Over all tone (buh-bye arm jiggle and tummy pooch...note: this has been a goal of mine since....1999. See paragraph of failure setting.)
-Train in some way 5 days a week (and now! with less junk food! to help with all over tone!)
-Harpoon 5 Miler in 46:00 (last year I did it in 52:00)
-Run a 5K in 8:37 miles (right now my fastest 5K time is 27:00 flat, which is about 8:42's)
I'm going to grant blog space the same cred as Facebook: now that this is on the webz, I have to do it!
Let's see what I can do in the next 5 months!
See you on the road.
Amy
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