While on the Isle of Man, Dave and I had a wonderful seafood meal in Port Erin (great name!) and got into a conversation about how does one set their goals. It was a good conversation (as most tend to be with my wonderful hubby) that brought up a lot of interesting points. I was talking about how I was feeling at a loss for what my goals should be and he was feeling like he tends to always set his goals too high and he hasn't met many of his goals for a long time.
So how does one set their goals? There's the first, to me most obvious answer, which is if you want to make a team you have to hit a time standard. USATF/the RW Executive Committee sets standards for what times you have to hit in order to earn that Team USA uniform and go overseas to compete. Then of course you have to hit a certain place in a trials race, but even if you hit that place without the time you can't go. So you have a time goal.
But that is only for a select few of the myriads of people out there competing. And you have athletes who are not yet quite at the level of making a national team, or juniors/youth who may not yet be eligible to make a national team. How do they set their goals?
Some people set a goal of winning an event. I'm not a fan of that as it's something you have no control over. You cant' control who your competition will be and what they're capable of. You can still try to win, and compete like crazy, but if I want to win a 50K and Yohann Diniz shows up, well, I'm going to be out of luck no matter how hard I try. So place goals are never goals I set for myself or my athletes (except like stated above if needed to make a team.).
Something else happens when making a goal. One thing Dave kept saying during our conversation was, "well, I think about what I should be able to do." As in, I should be able to do a 4:45 50K or a 1:36 20K. But who decides what someone "should" be able to do? How did Dave decide that he "should" be able to do a 4:45 50K or a 1:36 20K? He said based off what he's done in training you can extrapolate out for different distances.
There's validity in that. Andi Drake has published data of many of the top men in the world who have done 50Ks and 20Ks. And if you follow the general curve then if you have done XX for a 50K then you can do XXX for a 20K. There's also tons of pace charts out there for runners that show if you run a certain time for a 3K then you can extrapolate all the way up to a marathon. So if I run this for a 3K then I "should" be able to do this for a half marathon.
Is that how we should set our goals? By what we "should" be able to do? I wonder if that's what Yohann Diniz thought before he broke the world record in the 20K. Or the 50K. Did he think, "This is what I should be able to do." Or did he think this is what I know I can do? Is there a difference between those two ways of thinking? I wonder how many of the people who have made it their goal to make a national team "shouldn't" have been able to do it based on other workouts/races/times they've done, but did it because that's what they needed to do.
Now we come down to the big question... To make the big team next year, the Olympic Games, you have to make a time standard. That time standard is a sub 1:35 for 20K. Less than 10 American women have ever done that (two of them are still actively racing, they being, of course, Maria and Miranda). Not an easy feat. Of course if it was easy then it wouldn't be the Olympic Games, but the time standard has been lowered I believe three minutes since 2012, a significant amount. Is that what I set my goal at? Some people's response is an automatic, "Yes! Go for it! What do you have to lose?"
What do I have to lose? If I go off my philosophy of success is doing your best and trying your hardest, then time isn't the goal. Hopefully doing my best will equal a sub 1:35, but many would say history has shown that I'm not that fast of an athlete. And people will be quick to point out that I'm not getting any younger. There's the frustration of trying your everything to achieve something and not doing it. That is hard. That is frustrating. That can be devastating. Then again, I could go for it and surprise a ton of people and actually do it. And wouldn't that be amazing! Am I willing to commit the time, energy, money, resources necessary to try and get to that level. It seems daunting, it seems almost impossible. I had just wrapped my head around having to do a sub 1:36 when they came out with the new standard of 1:35. At the time it was shattering. I felt like just giving up right then and there. Now instead of taking off 5 minutes I had to take off 6! I've taken that much off at one point before, but man, that's a lot!
The verdict is still out. I still haven't come to terms with what my goals should be. It's hard to think about 1:35 when you can't go out and walk at all. Today will be telling, going out and seeing how the leg feels. I have certain races to use as markers to see how things are progressing. But I keep asking myself, what "should" I be able to do?
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