RunGoals – StewsCat

Happy New Years!!

The first run of 2017 is in the books. I made it out for 4.3 miles and some short(ish) intervals mixed in. I happily accomplished by 2016 goal and thought I’d set some modest goals for this coming year.

Goal 1: Stay Healthy

This will probably always be my goal each year with regards to both fitness as well as life in general. I’ve now been running for 7 years consistently and the first 6 years have been plagued with various injuries.

Goal 2: Finish Marathon #4

I’m signed up for the Big Sur International Marathon. Everything you read about running a race often involves having multiple goals for the race. This way you have a fall-back goal if it isn’t your day. So typically people will set up a Goal A, Goal B, Goal C. My A Goal would be a PR (which isn’t that ambitious considering that’s anything less than 5 hours). It is a little ambitious because of the hilly nature of the race. For Big Sur, everyone says not to even try for a PR and just enjoy the beauty that surrounds you, which I do plan on doing (that’s why it is my A Goal). My B goal is to finish feeling good (each of my first 3 marathons ended with me walking – I suspect I know why too). Finally, my C goal is to finish before the 6 hour cutoff.

I suspect that the reason I’ve not had good luck with finishing any of my prior marathons in a satisfying way is because of my lack of training volume. I haven’t really ever followed a strict training plan for my marathons. I know that this probably has had a significant impact on me on race day. So I’m going to try to stick to an actual marathon training plan this time.

The one difficulty I will run into with this race is that I’ll be traveling the 3-4 weeks prior to the race. This potentially impacts my long run (20 miler?) and the timing of it. I will most likely need to make an adjustment and do the longest run prior to the trip and just maintain my fitness on my trip.

I’ve started to break in some new kicks as I start my marathon training program. I’m returning to the original brand that I used to run in almost exclusively: Saucony. I have enjoyed the Guide series and so have started putting in mileage on the Saucony Guide 8. So far just one run but I like them and the green in them.