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| This is my "crazy goal" in a frame on my desk at work :) (Spoiler alert: I did not meet this goal on October 13, 2013) |
Alright, folks—we’re officially one week into 2014! Since it’s that time of year when everyone
seems to be making resolutions, I figured a mini-series on goals would be a
pretty logical next topic. However, if
you’re not really into the whole goal thing, you should probably either set
some or just check back for a different topic on January 19. I’d recommend setting some J
I am a goal-setter (shocker). Always have been, probably
always will be. I can’t think of a
single time in my life when I wasn’t working toward one goal or another.
In 8th grade, it was the WNBA. Yes, like the Women’s National Basketball
Association. Believe it or not, that
goal was far from absurd in my mind. I
was obsessed. Like—would stay at home on Friday nights to
practice in my driveway—obsessed. I even
had a basketball goal in my room with the phrase, “In 49 states it’s just
basketball, but this is Indiana” collaged across the top. The plan was to make the varsity team my
freshmen year of high school, get a full-ride to Purdue, and then go straight
to the WNBA. You’re laughing, but I was
dead serious. Anyone who knew me in 8th
grade can attest to this. I talked about
it non-stop.
Well, I barely made the freshmen team, rode the bench the
majority of the season, and then spent a solid four months deliberating my future
basketball career—only to arrive at the conclusion that basketball just wasn’t
for me. Thank God for that. Never looked back on that one. Hilarious, right?
It didn’t take long to replace one addiction with another,
and I quickly became just as obsessed with running (except thank goodness there
really isn’t a running equivalent of the WNBA, and I've never been as delusional about running as I was with basketball). I love running for about a million
reasons. I love the inclusiveness of running—anyone
can do it! I love the simplicity of
running—all you really need is a decent pair of shoes (although I now require
all technical clothing, a heart rate monitor, an embarrassingly large and
complex Garmin, an iPod, etc.). I love
that you can always work toward a goal, and once you accomplish that goal you
can set another one. There’s no
limit. There’s never an ending
point. As our high school coach used to
say, “On any given day, you can run farther or faster than you’ve ever run
before.” Man, it’s hard to beat that feeling when you do run farther or faster
than you’ve ever run before. It’s
thrilling.
So what’s my goal? To qualify for (and run) the Boston Marathon. This has been my goal since I first started
running marathons in 2008, and it will remain my goal until I toe the start
line in Hopkinton and get one of those sweet-ass Boston Athletic Association
jackets. I’ve finished 4 marathons, and
my best time is 9 minutes and 39 seconds away from the qualifying time. If you’re not a runner, you may think that
ten minutes is no big deal. In reality,
that’s a totally different level of running.
To actually get a slot, I’d have to run something like a 3:32.
I’ve tried to qualify for Boston (“BQ” as we runners call
it) in every marathon I’ve run:
Chicago Marathon ’08—It
was sweltering, and I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I made the epic mistake of running through a
full-on fire hydrant at mile 22 out of sheer desperation for anything that
would possibly cool me down, not even thinking about the fact that my shoes
would weigh about a thousand pounds and give me killer blisters. Oops.
Indianapolis
Monumental Marathon ’11—I had come back from essentially 3 years of
injuries—two separate foot surgeries, a severed tendon in my toe, tendonitis,
and had been in a boot for a solid month before the marathon. I swear the lifeguards at the Vandy rec
almost had me committed for the amount of time I spent aquajogging. I got to the start line of the race wondering
whether I’d even make it to mile 3. By
some miracle, that was my best race ever—3:44:38.
Country Music
Marathon ’13—I signed up “for fun.”
As it turns out, I can never do a marathon just “for fun.” Regardless of how I’ve trained, I’m going to
go for a BQ on race day (even if it means I make the mistake of going out too
fast and tanking at mile 20, which I did).
It poured the entire time. Not,
like, rained here and there—I mean poured.
The. Entire. Time. Obviously I didn’t BQ
at that one.
Chicago Marathon ’13—This
was going to be my race. I was ready to
train my ass off—and I did. Until I got
mono—smack dab in the middle of training. I tried to fight it for the first few
weeks and squeezed in short runs here and there. Finally, I accepted that it just wasn’t going
to happen. I realized that making the
logical decision to drop out actually required more courage than pushing
forward and being stubborn. That is,
until 19 days out from the race when I thought to myself, “If I can run 16
miles this weekend, I think I can at least finish the race.” So I did the 16
miles. And then I went to Chicago. What happened? The night before the race, I decided I could still
PR. (Seriously,
Renée?!) I went out at a good pace,
until I started hurting at mile 5. Yes, that’s right. Mile 5.
Like—21 miles to go—mile 5. At
that point, I decided to switch the display on my Garmin and just run for
fun. I had been through hell in the past
few months, and I just wanted to enjoy the fact that I was physically able to
run. It. Was. Amazing. I felt so alive in the present moment, like I
was fully appreciating what my body was able to do, despite the fact that I
knew I wouldn’t PR (and certainly wouldn’t BQ).
So why go on and on about my marathon sagas? (Note: If you think that this qualifies as
going “on and on,” you clearly have never talked to me about running in
person.) Because I learned something
super important during that last race.
Qualifying for Boston will be my goal for every single marathon I run,
and I’ll train accordingly. However, my
Chicago ’13 experience taught me that I have to have grace with myself, no
matter what happens on race day. There
are just too many variables that are outside my control—temperature, injury,
sickness the week of the race, etc. So
from here on out, I’m training to BQ, but choosing to accept whatever my body
can do on race day.
Setting a goal is scary because you feel ashamed or
embarrassed or whatever if you fail—like you didn't work hard enough, or you weren't good enough to begin with, or you were delusional about what you could do. But the reality is that if you set aggressive goals, there’s
always a chance of failure. I’d say I’m
quite familiar with that by now, so I guess I’m just not as scared of it
anymore. Sharing a goal publicly is even
scarier because then everyone else knows if you fail. If you don't tell anyone what your goals are, then at least you're the only one who has to deal with the shame of failure. Sometimes you look like an idiot for setting
crazy goals. So it’s way better to forget
the whole goal thing and just coast through life, right?
In my opinion, that’s not really living. Publicizing my goals
has been a great way to stop caring about what other people think because I know I set crazy goals. Go on and judge...I love crazy goals, and I
plan to have them until the day I die.
Till next time,
RR
PS: If you dig the whole goal thing, check out the next post in the series, “Chasing Crazy Goals” on Sunday!
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