Saturday, March 22, 2008

Lehigh Valley Half Marathon Goals

Amazingly, the half marathon is fast approaching. I remember the beginning of the year when I was trekking back and forth to the physical therapist and could barely run without getting laid up. Then, the slow building of miles (excited for a 10 mile week). Now, next week will be my first 20 mile week in a long time.

Not only that, now I'm starting to wonder how I'm going to run the half. If I plug my Run4Luck time into the McMillan calculator, I get a half time of 1:48:44. Two things about that time... My McMillan times tend to be slower than the projections as the race gets longer. I learned that the hard way last year with the full marathon. So, I don't know if that is entirely realistic. And, I'm just not putting in the serious miles I was last year when I ran the Hands on House Half in 1:54:55. So... Where am I?

I always put three goals out there for myself for virtually every race. The first one is my achievable goal. It is set low enough that I would be happy with it, but it is very achievable. The second is my more accurate, probable goal. I'd be very happy with this. And, the last one is a "pie in the sky", all things went perfect kinda goal. If I get that one, look out. There will be parties in the street.

So, here they are...
Easy goal- 1:54:55 or under (If I do this, I PR)
Probable goal- 1:53 or under
Stretch goal- 1:51 or under

Since I've only run one half, I don't really know how high to set my goals. I'm definitely excited to see how I do.

Does anyone else set goals like these? Or, am I a weirdo?

3 comments:

runningtwig said...

I always set goals like those! Nothing wrong with that at all...good luck in the race!

stevespeirs said...

I'm a weirdo too! Safe goal, happy goal, ecstatic goal!

Keep up the great work and don't be put off by the McMillan calculator - it's been accurate to within a second on a couple of occasions for me.

Have a good week,

--Steve

stevespeirs said...

Rumor has it someone just ran their "stretch goal" - congrats!

And to prove McMillan knows what he's talking about, my 10k race yesterday came within 2 seconds of his prediction based on my recent 5k time - very spooky!

Congrats once again. Next up - 1:45:00!

--Steve
--runbulldogrun.com