Saturday was a long day of bike riding, cheering, chasing Olaf around town, shivering in the cold, more cheering, riding with marathoners to the finish, and a little more shivering. It was fun watching Olaf, Sam, Laura, Gina, Lindsay, Steve, Layla, Cayce, Duane, Lisa, Casey, Rachel, Carolyn and the other 10,000 runners strive to meet their goals. The goals ranged from a 2:50 marathon, to PRing in the half despite sickness, to finishing a first full marathon. It seems to me that just about everyone whose goals I knew of met them.
That got me to thinking about my athletic goals. I'm scared to admit them most of the time. If I have a real, true, deep-down dream goal, I almost never say it aloud. If I do verbalize a goal to anybody, it's a goal that I'm pretty sure I can hit. I'm not pessimistic about my abilities, I try to be more realistic. Why is it that most people are not scared to share a dream goal that they may fail at meeting? What's so hard about letting people know that I am disappointed in myself sometimes? And what's wrong with being disappointed sometimes?
At work we teach about setting SMART goals: goals that are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Rewarding, and Time-oriented. If you don't make goals attainable, then you'll end up disappointing yourself when you don't reach them, right? But in running, is this really a bad thing? Maybe sharing goals will keep me accountable for actually training to meet those goals.
I mentioned to Damie last time we were at track and running a 7:00 pace that I'd like to run a marathon at that pace. But I think I'm scared to actually try. I know it's a way-out-there goal for me, but if I really worked for it, I don't see why I couldn't do it. Come to think of it, I just might be scared to run another flat out, stand alone marathon. I'm pretty sure I could run faster than the only one I've done, which was 8 years ago, and is now only 3 minutes faster than my Ironman best marathon. But how much faster? 5 minutes? 20 minutes? Oh it sounds so painful!
Thanks to everyone who shared their true goals this weekend. I'm getting my motivation back thanks to you.
It is a most mortifying reflection for a man to consider what he has done, compared to what he might have done. ~Samuel Johnson, in Boswell's Life of Johnson, 1770
I'm with you. I'm not saying it out loud unless I really think I can do it. Too much pressure. I think you can achieve whatever goals you set for yourself, secret or public. Now that I've pulled out the pace calculator and figured it out, I have no doubt you could pull off a 7:00 pace marathon. If you set your mind to it you'll do it.
ReplyDeleteyes, yes....you can do 7:00- actually, you can go faster! I know this post is not about your future fast marathon, but rather about dreaming big and not being afraid. I have trouble with that too. it was fun watching everyone this weekend. thanks for riding around with my no-bike-skills butt all day.
ReplyDeleteps, my lats were still hurting today
It is scary to put your pie-in-the-sky goals out there. Sometimes I think it's especially hard to do that in this very talented sometimes very critical athletic community we live in. You're such a talented hard working athlete Joy, I too think you can get whatever goals you set for yourself!
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