It happens sometimes I guess. All I can say is that life has been busy, and most of my online time is now work time, which is a good thing. At least it's productive and I'm making a bit of money sharing a product I love with others! Plus, it's World Cup and that has been a big distraction!
Speaking of here's a look at my current nail situation...
So much fun!
Mostly though I was on a bit of a running emotions roller coaster with the knee situation, and just didn't feel like blogging.
I think goals are a good thing so don't take this wrong...but I'm realizing the problem with setting a goal for a specific race and pinning the whole year's running on that one big race. It makes it really hard to let go and do what's right/smart vs pushing harder than you probably should and making things worse. (Even though my goal is to pr all my distances hitting the pr I want for the half was the #1 focus for me).
I had a strong talk with myself and reminded myself that I registered for a back-up race for a reason, that my goal was just a random goal I set for the year in order to stay focused and motivated, and as such life does not depend on me hitting that goal, and that my long term running ability and health are more important than some stupid numbers on a clock at the finish line.
It sure does seem that when numbers are involved in life it's way easier to obsess...numbers on a scale, numbers on a watch, daily/weekly/monthly/yearly miles etc. I had to remind myself that there is a reason I don't own a scale...I can't use it in a healthy way, and if I can't run for the joy of it and stop obsessing about pace, and how my 4 or 6 mile time may translate into my 13.1 time then I'm going to have to not own a Garmin as well.
It's kind of funny to me that after having a strong convo with myself and letting go of what I thought this race was going to be, and focusing instead on running smart and just making it to the start line healthy, things came together on yesterdays run!
Ran with the watch mostly to keep track of miles, not pace. I kept it fairly flat and ran what felt good and only looked at the watch towards the end so I didn't go over 6.
I'm also adding on miles slowly. Two miles a week to the long run and the shorter runs during the week are about half of what the should be at this point. Two miles may seem like a lot, but I'm only up to 6 miles and at this point in the training I should be at 11...way behind. I should still hit 12 before race day, but my taper time is going to be way less than normal.
After I get my knee worked on this week I'll start adding miles onto the short runs as well, provided everything feels good. My new goal is to make it to the start line period, and finishing. It stressed me out for a bit, but I'm letting go of arbitrary goals and just focusing on running smart, doing what works for my knee, and having fun. I really love the Tacoma Narrows course, and Dad is going to race chase again, so I have a lot to look forward to!
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How do you set your running goals? Do you have a yearly goal, monthly, weekly, race by race?
I tend to set a goal for the year, but out of my 3 years of running I've only hit my goal once. Last year when I qualified for Half Fanatics, the first year I missed it (run a race a month for the year) and this year isn't looking so great, but we will see. Clearly I may need to change how I set my running goals.
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