Goals, goals, goals

As I reflect on the last few months and my spotty / sporadic running during that time, I asked myself: "Why can't I seem to get some consistency"?

I've come to believe the biggest reason is a lack of goals.

I started running in my early thirties, somewhat as a response to a divorce and wanting to get fit - but then it lead to just a sheer joy of running. After about a year of on again / off again running, I bought some books and set a goal for a Marathon.

Naturally, I ignored a lot of the advice about first marathon goal setting (Biggest one is - only goal should be to finish). The nice thing is that I created a plan, followed it reasonable closely, modified the plan as needed and actually reached my modified goal (Initial goal was for a 3:30 Marathon, modified it to 3:45).

The big thing about the goals for me is to be Specific, Measurable and Achievable. Specifically, I'm going to run a 10K next year. Currently, the one I'm considering is 10K associated with the Calgary Marathon.

What I don't yet know is what time I should set? (This is the Measurable and Achievable parts). What can I achieve in the next 6 months of running? Right now, I think 10K would take be about 2 hours :), most of it walking. If I remain injury free in my training, I'm likely to be able to run it in under an hour.

Given that I really don't know what is achievable now, how long will it take for me to get a good sense of what is achievable. Am I just creating a tempest in a teapot - perhaps the right answer is to set the goal, work towards it and then modify if required. Hmmm - sounds like a good way to go.

The goal is:

• Run the 10K on May 30, 2010.
• Stay injury free throughout the training period.
• Focus on finishing rather than speed.
• Plan for an under 60M 10K, revise this number in January and April.
• Blog weekly or better about my plan, approach and progress.
  

All of this should be quite doable. I remained substantially injury free for my first three marathons, it was just when I did the 4th a few months after the third that problems started occurring.