The G-Word!

I still can't quite wrap my head around the fact that I'll be here on Sunday...a little farther back than those folks up front!

GOALS that is...it is something I've been thinking of for the past couple of weeks...that's a lie, months.  For my first half marathon I had one goal, FINISH and I did.  Even though I walked a little and was disappointed that I did I was proud that I finished.  But then came the need to beat myself, over and over again and try to obtain personal records with each race.  I'm still dreaming of a sub 2 hour half...

I know I've trained well, I know what pace I will probably run for 26.2 miles, but I'm still not sure I want to put it out there for the blog world to see and hold me accountable for.  Okay, fine I will...in three parts!

13 weeks of training baby!

GOAL 1: CROSS THE FINISH LINE...PERIOD
This is a goal I'm very confident will happen and even if it takes me 6.5 hours (the course limit) I will still be ecstatic when I go up the only hill of the race and cross the finish line.  Since this is the first time my body and mind will ever run this distance I really don't know what to expect from my body or mind and I'll have to adapt as things happen.

GOAL 2: UNDER 5 HOUR
I'm not sure why under 5 hours sounds good, but it does.  I also know that if I maintain a 10:30 pace for most of the race this gives me quite a bit of time to significantly slow down towards the end and still come in under 5 hours.  Again, I will just be happy to be crossing the finish line.

GOAL 3: 4 HOURS AND 30 MINUTES
Secretly, I would like to finish in around 4 hours, 30 minutes.  During our 20 miler, Stacey and I were figuring out that if we kept up the pace we normally run at a 4:30 time is totally doable, but again we didn't want to put such lofty goals out there...until now.

So, it's gonna be warm...time to mentally prepare!

I honestly can't even put into words how training for a marathon has made me feel, especially since we are in the final countdown.  Maybe post race I'll have some words of wisdom to share.  Right now I'm still pretty numb to the idea that I'll be running 26.2 miles in 4 days.  In fact, I just realized that I'll be visiting a city I've never been to before and how I'm going to jam everything into a few days in the middle of this race of my life.

Question: Do you make goals for every race you set out to do?