In a little more than a week I’ll be running my 15th marathon.
When I get to the starting line, I usually have one goal in mind. Depending on how my training has gone I’m either planning a PR, or to just finish.
To be honest, this strategy has worked against me.
I chatted with a running buddy recently on the topic of goal setting and he told me about Scott Jurek’s strategy.
The way I understand it (and how it was communicated to me), Scott doesn’t head into a race with one goal in mind, when he toes the line he’s got upwards of 10 goals in mind, staring with winning the race and ending with just finishing.
I love this idea, while I’m not a “competitive runner.” That’s not to say I don’t “compete” at all. I compete all the time, against the clock, against my friends, against my mind. Setting multiple goals can ensure that I won’t walk away from a race feeling defeated, like I hate running and need to hang up my kicks.
And this isn’t just for race day, I think this applies to training as well. Case and point, when I set out to train for the LA Marathon I had a pretty solid base. I had just come off a really bad NYC Marathon, but I did have a 26.2 miler under my feet, along with a bunch of 16, 17 and 19 milers. So when I built my training plan for LA, I was planning a marathon PR. The course is relatively flat and I was feeling pretty confident.
December rolled around, I ran my first 19 miler of LA training and I crushed it. I really felt a PR was in my sites.
And then I bent down to say goodbye to my wife and son one fateful morning (which just happened to be my birthday) and I tweaked something in my back that had me laid up for about 10 days. I was barley able to sit in a chair, forget running.
Being out for that long at the top of the training arc is devastating to a race strategy. So I needed to adjust.
And then, last week rolled around and I got a strange pain on the bottom of my foot right in front of the heel. Are you kidding me? Was the universe trying to tell me I wasn’t supposed to run this race? Pretty quickly, I remembered a package I received right before the NYC Marathon. The folks at KT Tape were kind enough to send me some product to see what I thought about it. The problem was, I wasn’t injured at the time so I didn’t really have any use for it.
Well, I clearly did now! I had always been skeptical of the product, I can’t tell you why, I don’t think I can articulate it, but it just seemed trendy and that is a death knell to me. Being desperate I thought, well, it can’t hurt, right?
I dug the roll of tape out of my closet, went to the brand website to learn about to apply it for Plantar Fasciitis (which turned out to be really easy) and viola! I was practically good as new.
My training has gotten back on track since but I’m still figuring out what my LA goals are going to look like.
One thing I know, I’ll be able to walk away from the race with a sense of accomplishment. I love running and don’t want to come to resent it, and I really feel like this is the way to help me do that!
Wish me luck next week!
Good luck with LA. I know all too well about injuries and big races as I had to pull out of NYC and getting close to getting back. Lots of tricks on the internet on P.F. I'll give you two; don't go barefoot in the house (get some good memory foam slippers,) and have a golf ball or lacrosse ball by your bed and desk (if you work at a desk.) roll it on the arch first thing in the AM, and often when you're sitting at the desk.