This weekend I spent a lot of time thinking about goals. More specifically, how my fitness goals have shifted and changed over the past two years. On Saturday, I ran the South Shore Half Marathon with a handful of friends- a really great group of runners who are all at different levels. As for me, I came into the race looking at it as another training run for my upcoming full marathon, but in the back of my head I knew I wanted to break my previous half marathon time from last August (2:04) and hopefully even crack the two hour mark.
I ran it in 1:55.
Not only did I run it 9 minutes faster than my last “official” half marathon, I ran the last three miles of the race at my 5K pace. Crazy much? Of course a time like this is nothing compared to the times posted by the winners, but as I was cruising along during miles 12 and 13 I thought a lot about expectations and what we believe our bodies are capable of. If I was running comfortably at a 5K pace on mile 13 then gosh darn it why don’t I try to run an actual 5K even faster? Why am I so conservative with my goals?
I’m not going on about my race time because I’m trying to brag. It’s just that right now I’m really re-evaluating how hard I want to push myself in the future. I think sometimes we don’t want to admit to ourselves what we really want to achieve out of fear that we won’t be able to do it. On one hand, I like surprising myself with what I can do at a race but I have to wonder what else I could accomplish if I was more confident in my abilities. It’s an interesting balance where you don’t necessarily want to psych yourself out but you don’t want to hinder your progress either.
I’m sharing this because I think it is relevant even if you aren’t out there trying to run a sub-2 hour half marathon. The great thing about running- or even working out in general- is that your goals are constantly changing as you get stronger. Maybe your goal is to stay on the stationary bike for ten more minutes or to pick up a heavier set of weights. Maybe you can’t imagine being able to jog a mile without stopping. I’m here to tell you that if you really put the effort in, something that seems crazy and unachievable right now will be no big deal to you a year from now. Last year I didn’t even enter this race because at the time I had never run farther than seven miles without practically passing out at the end.
The human body is an incredible piece of work and the way we can adapt to new things can be downright amazing. I guess what I’m saying is don’t ever be afraid to push past what you ‘think’ is your limit. When you make the decision not to settle you may be surprised at what you are capable of.
*Photo by jayneandd and random nice guy who took our group post-race photo.
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