I’m not one to wait for New Years to declare my resolutions, I feel I should be reviewing what I have or have not been doing, assessing where I am at, and planning my next steps all year round. Every new week, new month, new quarter, and a new year are all great times to get aligned with one’s north star.
With that said, and it being the start of a New Year, I’ve got some goals percolating and ready to be poured into the digital pot (I’m writing this in a coffee shop).
No surprise that I have running goals, a few goals, requiring strategy, scheduling, and stoke to make them a reality. Biggest of these goals, my “A” goal, is to run a fast enough time at the San Diego Marathon to get me onto the podium. A top three finish in my age group, which historically would get me top 100 overall. I’ve been 4th and 5th a few times and each of these times I told myself someday I’ll get some hardware for all this time and effort. Now, the old guy that I am, and looking at the finish times over the past few years, this would mean I will need to best a 3-hour 5-minute marathon. That should do the trick.
When I hit this time, it would officially be my fourth fastest marathon, so this is a challenging goal indeed. Many things need to come together, even the planets, to achieve this. So, for the next few weeks I plan to gather my gear, finalize my training calendar, begin the base phase of training, and get my nutrition in order. Since my Ironman in October nearly 2 months ago I’ve been “jogging” and getting way out of shape. It’s conditioning time. And officially my 21 week advanced masters running plan starts January 8th, less than two weeks out for a new season of Surf Run!