Marathon Goals

Yesterday Nitmos posted about how to set your race goals. I don’t think I necessarily fit into any of those categories, but I totally agree with Viper’s comment, “I’m more of the pick-an-arbitrary-time-that-sounds-good-and-be-pissed-off-when-I-don’t-beat-it-even-if-I-PR goal setter.” Boozers unite!

I’ve heard that for your first marathon, your goal should just be to finish, and you shouldn’t set any goals beyond that. Pshaw. I’m going with 4:15 as my goal. That’s a 9:44 mile, which sounds a little slow, but in my only >20 mile run, I did 9:55. I’m thinking I was not well-rested and not well-fueled when I did that, so I can probably do a bit better. Plus, my manager and I spent some time last week looking up celebrity marathon times, and he informed me that if I couldn’t beat Oprah (4:29:20), I was pathetic. (Then again, he also thinks he could do a marathon right now, with no training and not even a regular workout regimen, and come in under 5 hours).

Anyway, in case I fail, I thought it would be a good idea to post a list of excuses for why I don’t meet my goal.

1. Some stupid girl wearing stilettos stepped on my bare foot on Sunday at Bay to Breakers (halfway done writing the report; will post it today/tonight). It’s a little bit purple and bruised, and just a teeny bit sore when I walk on it, but I’m wearing heels so hopefully it will be fine with sneakers. I sincerely hope I don’t pull a Frayed Laces and discover mid-race that my foot was actually broken and I ran anyway.

2. Last night I committed the big no-no of trimming my nails/blisters before the marathon. My feet got pretty gross from Sunday’s race in bedroom slippers, so I thought I’d clean them up a little bit. Unfortunately, I removed some dead skin that apparently wasn’t dead, so my right ring toe (I don’t wear rings on my toes, so can I still call it that if it’s a toe instead of a finger?) is hurting a bit. To bandaid or not to bandaid?

3. The flight yesterday sucked. I got stuck in an aisle seat, which wouldn’t have been a huge deal except the guy in the window seat didn’t understand the common courtesy of staying in his seat. The entire plane was sleeping, except for the pilot (I hope) and the two of us, because he kept waking me up (literally shaking my shoulder) to get up and stretch. If you want to do that, especially on a red eye where people are trying to sleep, book an aisle seat and leave me alone! Not sure if I’ll have the time this week to catch up on sleep, but I sure hope so.

4. I’m breaking the cardinal rule of long-distance races, which is not to do anything different on race day than you’ve done in training. I’m going to be wearing a brand new shirt (the design has changed slightly since I last posted about it, but I’ll take pics of it at the actual race). I’m also going to use BodyGlide, which I should have been using all along because on my long runs I get some chafing on my chest from my sports bra (TMI?). Finally, I’m half-debating getting new shoes, because mine are kind of worn out. I meant to do that weeks ago, because I know it’s really stupid to wear new shoes for a marathon. But if I get the same model and then break them in throughout the rest of this week, maybe they’d be okay? That brings me to my final excuse…

5. You’re supposed to rest up before a marathon, but I feel weird not working out (yes, I’m an exercise addict). My plan is to ease up and not to do any hardcore leg resistance training, but legs are kind of necessary for most cardio, so I’ll prob do some running/stairclimbing/dancing. I’ll start tapering for real on Friday, two days before the race. Also, I boozed quite a bit on Sunday (two entire bottles of wine in just a few hours) and don’t plan to lay off the sauce this week if presented with any opportunities. I think I run better after alcohol, but more experienced drinkers than I include booze breaks in their pre-race strategy, so who knows.

If I fail, now you know why.