Wednesday, August 22, 2007

More concrete fitness goals

Inspired by Jank's post on goals (in which he referenced my post on goals, go figure), I put some thought into more aggressively focusing on specific fitness goals for the next year.

Here's an idea I'm kicking around.

What if:

- Over the winter, I work on slowly increasing my base mileage, speed, and strength
- In early spring, I harshly evaluate my fitness with the aim of ...
- Starting a 6-month training schedule for a half-marathon in fall of 2008?

I've never run more than a 10K. The 10K I ran, I ran too hard, and didn't recover well from the resulting vague injuries I suffered.

But in spring of '08 I'll have a good year of running on my legs (this time around), and should be in a good position to determine if I'm okay to push it to the next level or not.

I haven't committed to this idea yet. But it has a certain attraction.

The long term payoff for this plan, of course, would be to run a marathon before I turn 40. But that's crazy talk and I'm going to shut up about it now. The half is a crazy idea, never mind the big one....

2 comments:

Tea said...

GO FOR IT!

You can definitely do it, but you have to believe you can.

Remember, the human body can do anything you ask it to; it's the mind that gives out first.

Jank said...

Dave - that's an imminently sensible plan. One of my regrets is tackling the big M too soon (about a year) after really starting running again. Not so much for physical trouble, but 'cause it's mentally draining.

A half is a great distance, and the stretch from 13 to 26 isn't nearly so tough as the stretch from potato to runner.