It's London Marathon Race Week: Let's Talk Goals

It's London Marathon Race Week: Let's Talk Goals

Stephanie Diaz
Marathon, Running

Repping Rays of Sunshine on one of my long runs.

The London Marathon is in five days. FIVE. DAYS. What? Where did this training cycle go? I’ve said it once, but it is worth saying again: this training cycle is the fastest-feeling training cycle I have ever experienced in my 10+ years of running. The London Marathon will be my 10th marathon and the fourth star along the journey to Abbott’s Six Star status.

I went into this training cycle with three goals:

Nail nutrition: I wanted to figure out what the ideal nutrition would be for me. Training is the perfect time to experiment with the combination of hydration and fuel that works best. The two biggest changes I made were only drinking water on my runs and having a gel every 30-minutes/3 miles. I used to drink Nuun, but read somewhere that the drinking electrolytes counteracted the benefits of gels. Not sure if it was a placebo effect, but I did notice that I had less cramping, less of a need to stop to pee, and a more springy step after making this change. The change with the gels was huge for me as taking a gel every 30 minutes/3 miles (vs. taking one every 45 minutes) led to less brain fog and hunger on the run. I felt like the change in fueling strategy allowed me to better respond to training demands.

Process: This goal was all about leaning in, liking, and maybe even loving the process of marathon training. For the longest time I have felt like there is something missing from training that leads to me feeling completely over the marathon distance by the time I cross the finish line. This “missing piece” theory didn’t really hit me until I started to reflect on myself as a marathon runner. When I first started running marathons, everything was exciting because I was so curious as to what I could do. Then, in 2017, I went into the Chicago Marathon with high finish time hopes and had the toughest marathon experience ever. I fell into a funk with running and was burnt out by the process of training for a specific time. It’s taken a lot of reflection to get to a place where I understand what motivates me as a runner and make decisions that are in alignment with my WHY for running and this training cycle was about getting these reflections in alignment with my body.

Just Try: The biggest, most impactful goal for this training cycle. My “Just Try” mentality was all about putting a pause in the overthinking cycle, challenging myself to show up to each run without judgment, trusting myself to give each run my best, and giving myself the grace to let each run be what it is without making it reflect something greater about me as a person. Do the runs. Give it your best. Let it go. Just Try means letting go of doubt and accepting that what I had to give on each run was the best I had to give on each run.

These three goals were the bedrock of my training and helped me get through each run without making any one run stand out more than another. Each run served its purpose and each run had a lesson for me to learn about nutrition, the process of training for a marathon, and how to best show up to each run on the schedule.

As I look forward to actually running the London Marathon, I’ve come up with three goals for myself:

Finish feeling like I can do another one: Not just do another but want to do another one. My big overarching goal with marathon running is to get my Six Stars and, after London, I’ll have Tokyo and Boston left. London is all about getting me closer to that goal and keeping me walking down the path of enjoying the process of running, regardless of the distance. As I shared earlier, 2017 was a turning/breaking/pivot point for me and every marathon since has been met with me proclaiming I will never run another marathon. I want to break that cycle of thinking in London and I want to return to that curious and excitement mindset I had before 2017 when everything was about exploring what I could do and being in awe that it was me who was doing it. This goal is an extension of my training Process goal.

Own every decision made on the course: This is my race and I want to give it my best on Sunday. To do that, I want to go into the race ready to mentally fight for the finish. Even if the race goes perfectly (whatever that even means!), 26.2 miles is still 26.2 miles of being in my head and in my body. I want to finish feeling proud of the effort and not like I need to justify or create excuses for why I didn’t have a better experience. This goal is an extension of my training Just Try goal.

Time goal: I have such a murky relationship with setting time goals for myself because, while I see the value of time goals, I also know what it feels like to focus so much on the time goal that I can’t bring myself to savor the accomplishment if I don’t meet my time goal. However, I know how we runners love metrics (I’m not immune!) and if I have to establish a time goal for myself it would be 4:15-ish. This is a time that I feel is within reach mentally. Based on my training, I know this is what I am physically capable of, but I don’t know where I am mentally when it comes to racing and probably won’t know until race day. Race day mentality is a whole different beast and I’ve been in a weird space with the idea of racing for a while now: Do I want to race for a PR? Or do I want to race to test my limits on race day? While I know I’m not in PR shape, the next few days will be spent reflecting on how hard I want to push myself on Sunday and how to best rest my mind so that I can show up prepared to work.  This goal is an extension of my training Nail Nutrition goal because if the body feels great, the mind has less decisions to make on the course.

Wow. What a blog post to recap a marathon training cycle and all the thoughts surrounding race day goals. The links recapping of the past few months of training are here:

If you want to hear me dive deeper into all of this, check out the most recent Runner’s Round Table podcast episode, Bonus Episode: Pre-London Marathon Questions Answered.

You can support my #TeamSunshine fundraiser for the London Marathon by making a donation to my fundraiser here.

Thanks for all the love and encouragement as I make my way to London. Running for charity has helped elevate the meaning on my miles. Stay tuned for my race experience post and all my post-race reflections. If you can’t wait until those blog posts, follow me on Instagram @thecookierunner for all the updates and in-between moments.

2023 London Marathon Race Experience

2023 London Marathon Race Experience
Reflect/Reset March & April 2023

Reflect/Reset March & April 2023