At the end of 2017, I made a lot of personal running goals for the new year, but the biggest one was to make 2018 my best running year yet. That could mean a lot of things, but to me, it meant chasing down PRs in the half marathon and marathon and ultimately punching my ticket to the Boston Marathon. Over the past few months of spring half marathon training, not only did I nab two new big PRs, but something much greater happened – I gained my confidence back. I lined up at the start line for the Carmel Half Marathon knowing that I had put in the work and that a big PR was possible. I lined up at the IL Half curious how much more I could push myself to see what was left in my legs. I hope this newfound confidence carries over to my marathon training that begins on June 4th as I have more big goals for myself.
Since my half marathons, I have begun reevaluating the time goals I set for myself for the Berlin Marathon. Still, my ultimate goal has been making it to the starting line of the Boston Marathon, but to do that with a cushion my goal was a 3:30 with a BQ time of 3:35. Today, I find myself wanting more than just that 3:30 because I’m more confident in myself as a runner and that 3:30 while still a fantastic goal and 8 minutes faster than my current PR of 3:38, might not be pushing myself to my full potential. When I break it down, 3:30 is running two 1:45 half marathons. That used to seem a little daunting to me, but with a current half PR now of 1:36, it seems doable if I put in the work this summer and stay healthy. I started thinking to myself…what is in the realm of possible now and what time would I be happy with? And I keep coming back to the time 3:25. It’s become less and less scary as I’ve thought about it over the last few weeks and writing it down now it sounds pretty darn good. 3:25 equates to a 7:49 pace. I’ve always believed I could run a marathon pace in the 7’s before but when your goal starts becoming closer and closer to reality it can be scary. I was commenting to someone the other day that it’s funny that we pray and pray for things to work out the way we imagine but when they actually start playing out we question, “ok, what’s the catch”, rather than be thankful things are going well.
I know the next 4 months of training are going to be intense and they’re going to push me to both my physical and mental limits but I’m so ready to put in the work and make my dreams come true.
What big goals are you chasing this year? Let me know in the comments below!
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