Strange happenings.

When I started running it was simply to run..now my drive is evolving. I am starting to run fast. I have discovered a new fuel for my motivation. This is an odd sensation. I wanted to achieve some good times this year across a few distances, sub 25 minutes for 5k, sub 50 minutes for 10k and a sub 2 hour half marathon(21k).

I haven't been running a lot of 5k runs but I reckon I could nail sub 25mins, and later in the year I will give that a bash. My best 10k is at 51:30 so that is close, and last Sunday I smashed the sub 2 hour 1/2 for the second time, except this time was 1:50:57.

This has raised a couple of internal questions ( and external from some other runners) am I setting goals that are too easy to achieve, should I be aiming for faster, and what should I shoot for in Octobers marathon.

I have the run Melbourne 1/2 on the 17th July, and my goal was sub 2 hour, I averaged 5:17m/k on my half on Sunday. If I can average 5 mins my time would be 1:45, is this a better goal? Then issue I have with this is twofold, firstly runs with lots of people tend to have bottlenecks, which makes pb's hard to achieve, second I have no idea what the course is like, last year I had to sit this run out due to injury.

So what do I shoot for in October, last year the goal was to finish, indie that in 5:08. This year I was hoping for 4:30, but it's looking like I should shoot for sub 4 hours...I just need to decide if I want that pressure.

I'm starting to see som subconscious strategy in my goals setting. I'm starting to think that I set achievable goals so as to not make running a stressful activity, so that I will not get discouraged by perceived failures, when the truth is that while I am out there pounding my body, putting one foot in front of the other it's impossible to fail. No one that enters an even comes last, everyone wins because they chose to compete against laziness, against sedentary life and against the voice in their head that says bugger it, it's 6am on a winter Sunday I just want to stay in bed.

There is something very satisfying about completing a run that you didn't really feel like doing in the first place. Try it sometime, running with a head cold is a good one, clears the head like nothing else, but it can be really hard to get out the door. Afterwards you will feel like you really achieved something because you overcame the little devil sitting on your shoulder saying "take something for that cold and go back to bed"

So get your ass out the door and run.

Daniel.