About Me

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Pie in the Sky

I struggle with goal setting. Here’s why – I tend to think that with enough hard work I can do anything. Yet, when it comes down to it, I’m too much of a realist to actually believe I can achieve that pie in the sky goal.

Let’s take my most recent marathon (of all 2 that I have done) as an example.

I set a goal way, way back when (ie sometime last fall) that I wanted to try and qualify for the Boston Marathon, which would be a 3:40 marathon. Last October, I ran a half in Central Park at pretty much the exact pace I would need to run a marathon in to qualify. Being the idiot I sometimes am while also aided by endorphins, I though “jeah, you totally got this!” (I stole “jeah” from Ryan Lochte whom I follow on twitter and l.o.v.e.)

So, I signed up for the NJ Marathon in hopes that 1) I would spot a NJ Housewife and 2) I would BQ (just joking on #1…kind of).

I trained pretty hard (at least I think so, I mean, as much as you can while also being a med student), but as it got closer to said very very very long run, I got less confident that I was actually going to be able to do it. I think its because I realized that when I tried to run my “goal pace” on some long runs, it was really hard. Or maybe I’m just a wimp because usually when it comes to races I have to talk myself into racing instead of “just jogging this one.” I’m not sure why that’s so hard for me.

Because I’m incredibly stubborn, I still started with the 3:40 group. I held on to them until….16? I’m not so sure...all those middle miles kind of blend together and all I was thinking about was getting to the next mile marker (and yelling at Bruce to get my water; I got to sound like Kris Jenner for a lot of the marathon going “Bruce!!!”).

I finished in 3:48:03. To pat myself on the back, it was a pretty good improvement from my first marathon (Feb 2010), which I finished in 4:09:59. Don’t worry, I celebrated accordingly (and used it to justify anything I wanted to do for the next week). But, it wasn’t my “goal” so I was kind of…disappointed.

In retrospect, I think 3:40 was (and still is) my goal, although maybe my expectation when it came to race day should’ve been different than my goal. So, maybe from here on out , I should keep my ridiculous goals, realizing that I may not get them on the first go round, and then set an expectation closer to the day of what I can realistically do.

It was suggested to me by an extremely good runner far, far wiser than I to set 3 goals: an A, B, and C. Kind of like a “holy shit I can’t believe I did that goal,” a “that was a good day goal,” and “that went alright” goal. I think that may be better than setting an expectation, as expectations seem, to me, to have a negative connation. Like, if you don’t meet them, you really didn’t do so hot.

Sometimes, I wish I didn’t like to set goals and could just float through life happy with whatever comes my way. But, then I guess life wouldn’t be as fun and I probably wouldn’t be where I am today.

Anyone good at the realistic goal setting thing? Is there such a thing as a realistic goal or should they all be kind of unrealistic so you work hard…

Or maybe I just think too much...

2 comments:

  1. Goal setting can be tricky business. You want to motivate yourself to do your best, but you don't want to end up disappointed. I think 3:40 is definitely within reach, but I agree that a tiered system is always a good thing. I usually break it down like this -
    1) PR
    2) Decent effort (within a few minutes of my PR)
    3) Finished and had fun

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  2. I like the idea of the A, B, C goals. I had a goal to break 4 hours in my first marathon, and when I didn't meet that goal, I almost felt like the whole effort was a failure. In retrospect, you have to be realistic and realize that you may not be at your best on race day.

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