With the drop of temperatures, falling of the leaves, and ending of yet another season of coaching cross country, I annually find myself thinking about my next ‘season’. Our lives are made up of seasons. For me, after a season of devoting a significant amount of time to my athletes, I enter into a season that is self-serving. I choose to spend time focusing on my own health and fitness, or on other areas I want to pay attention to, like relationships, or learning a new skill. This investment in myself for the span of a few months allows me to give so much of myself in other parts of the year.
Over
the last few weeks I’ve spent time mulling over what I will work towards in
this season. I knew I wanted to set a running goal for myself that I hadn’t ever
considered. Something that will push
me out of my comfort zone. Something
that I previously thought I couldn’t do. Something that would require a
different kind of training and approach than I’ve used in the past. After running some marathons, a couple trail
50k’s, and a 3 person Ragnar Relay, I have set my sights on something
bigger. Something…. Audacious.
I am
signing up to run a 12 hour trail race
in June of 2016. Now that in itself
is a challenge, but I wanted to up the ante even more. Not just set a big goal, but set a Big Hairy
Audacious Goal. I want to clear 100k on
race day. But as my BHAG, I want to land in the top ten women
finishers in the history of the race. (Holy shit, yep. I just declared that
publicly.) As of right now the woman in 10th
place ran 66.24 miles.
I’m
sure quite a few of my readers think this is crazy. And you know what? It is.
And that’s what I love about it.
What’s the fun in setting a goal you know you can accomplish?
That’s why I’m thinking big
here. Really big. Audaciously
big.
Over
the upcoming months I’ll be sharing information about my training, how things
are going, the victories along the way, and the inevitable blunders. The training plan I have designed to give me
the best possible shot at achieving this goal is a two phase plan. Phase one is focused primarily on strength,
flexibility, and base miles. Phase two
has enough strength workouts to maintain the progress I’ve made, and increasing
mileage. After each completed month I'll publish my training calendar so you can use it, modify it, whatever you like.
I invite you to follow along, take a peek
into the mind and lifestyle of an endurance runner, and be a part of the
pursuit of my biggest goal yet. Laugh at
my quirks, learn from my mistakes, question my sanity, and maybe even be
inspired to set a BHAG of your own. After
all, fortune favors the audacious.
"The most fearless hearts, the audacious dreamers, have always maintained a sense of optimism that often flies in the face of the available evidence."
Martin O'Malley
