What are your (immediate) goals?

[ilanarama]

Let's talk about running goals. These can be simply time or distance (like, to be able to run 10 miles, or to be able to run 3 miles without stopping, or to run a mile in under 10 minutes), or a time goal for an upcoming race.

I've got a half marathon coming up in just under two weeks. I've been really focusing on this one, because I've run it twice before, each time with a time a bit more than two hours. This spring, I have been training really hard, and I have a number of goals:

Fallback goal: better than 1:56 (my current half marathon PR)
Stated goal: better than 1:50
Seekrit goal: 1:48:xx
All the stars align and someone throws magic pixie dust on me: better than 1:48

I try to set multiple goals for every race. Usually I make my stated goal (but not always; last time I did this race my goal was 2 hours, and I missed it by nearly 4 minutes), sometimes I make my seekrit goal, and I have never made my pixie dust goal but that doesn't stop me from trying!

Comments

[coverallthebasses]

I'm running my first 10K on July 25! My first distance race was a 5K that I ran in mid-May and I finished with a time of 32:40 so for my 10K, ideally I'd like to get around 1:10:00 but we'll see how training goes!

I like your idea of multiple goals. I'll have to think about mine more in depth as the weeks go by!

[ilanarama]

That's awesome - good luck for the 10K! The runworks calculator predicts a time of just under 1:08 based on that 5K, and if you have been improving since then you might even do better.

I have not yet run a 10K to my satisfaction. I keep having pacing issues - in other words, I go out too fast and I limp miserably to the finish line. Well, I did that twice, in the two 10Ks I have run. I hope you manage yours better than that.