Week 15 – Marathon Musings: On Goal Setting
Taper time is for reflecting on goals; what am I aiming for this year?
When it comes to goals, I like to think anything is possible. In fact, whenever I talk to my athletes about their goals, I always tell them that anything is possible because we don’t know what a person is capable of until training gives us direction about capabilities. Training opens us to possibilities and reveals probabilities.
Even in this season of life where running feels extra taxing and hard, I don’t give up hope that I can feel better, get stronger, and move faster. However, this season of running has been one big invitation to review my goals and why I want those goals.
I started the training cycle for Chicago with the knowledge that running in the heat would be my biggest challenge. I decided early on that surviving and, hopefully, thriving as a runner meant including walk breaks to add moments of recovery for my body and my mind. I didn’t anticipate the different bouts of sickness that always felt like setbacks, nor did I plan for the fatigue that always left me feeling discouraged. Training the body to run a marathon is one thing; training the mind to be grateful for what the body can do even when it feels like the body is falling short of expectation is another.
It's been hard to see goals wither and shift. It’s been hard giving myself grace for trying my best with what I’ve got. It’s been hard celebrating the now without the shadow of before. I have to remind myself that I didn’t choose to run a marathon because it’s easy. I’m choosing to run a marathon because it forces me to confront the ugly, limiting voices in my head and there is something so satisfying and empowering about proving those voices wrong by doing what they say can only be done one way or not at all.
Training for a marathon isn’t for the faint of heart because it can break your heart. It takes courage, grit, and a dash of insanity to figure out how to put the pieces back together again in a new and beautiful way that makes the heart beat even stronger. It takes strength and gentleness to let the goals shift and to allow training to reveal what is and isn’t possible. If we’re in it for the long game, then seasons of highs and lows are part of the process. Forward progress is still forward, even when it feels like going backwards.
Marathon History:
2014 Chicago Marathon
2015 Miami Marathon
2015 Berlin Marathon
2015 Chicago Marathon
2016 Chicago Marathon
2016 NYC Marathon
2017 Chicago Marathon
2018 Chicago Marathon
2021 Chicago Marathon
2023 London Marathon
2023 Marine Corps Marathon
Marathon Musings series:
15 weeks of musing written and I can’t believe race week is NEXT week!
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