NYC: Week 3

Suffering from lack of a "goal"?

It dawned on me this last week that I am training for the New York City Marathon without a clearly identifiable target or goal and that might be hurting my motivation a bit. After all, the goal in Arizona was to finish and to try to do it under 3:30.  Mission accomplished.  The goal in San Diego was to finish under 3:21 and qualify for Boston. Mission accomplished.

There is no doubt about it, though.  All those miles training and only short break after Arizona before I started training for San Diego left me a bit dinged up.  New York is just going to be about experiencing the atmosphere and soaking up the flavors of the five boroughs.  But maybe that is not enough.  And setting a goal time that is slower than either of the two marathons I've already run seems like going backwards.

I might have a problem...

There is no way that I could continue to improve on my times each marathon I run. That might have been realistic had I started at 23 and not 38.  While breaking three hours would be an outstanding goal, that is a goal that is outside my capabilities now and probably forever.  Ten years ago, maybe....today, not a chance.  So for now, I have to try to figure out what it is going to be to motivate me to train right for New York.  I have not figured it out yet.

This was a good week, nonetheless.  While I had to push things back a day and missed a short 4-miler that would have otherwise been on Friday, I made up for it with 12 miles and hills on Sunday. Running west from my house on the Big Dry Creek Trail leads me on an 350 foot climb over 6 miles to the top of Standley Lake Reservoir.  Throw in warm temperatures and humid conditions, and I got a great workout.  It also felt better than last week's ten-miler, which gave me some comfort.  So far, the feet and ankles are holding up...I hope that is a trend that continues.