Saturday, December 7, 2013

#Reverb13, Day 5: Challenge

Throughout the month of December, I’ll be participating in #reverb13: Reverb is a way to reflect on the past year and project into the next year with a prompt a day for 31 days.

Day 5 – Challenge
Did you take on a new challenge? What was it? Is there a challenge you deliberately avoided? What do you want to do to challenge yourself in 2014?

The theme for my 2013 was a marathon time goal challenge.  In many ways, this wasn't a new challenge, though this particular time goal was.  I know I've posted before, but I definitely started off running marathons much more slowly, in fact, hourSSSS slower than I do now.  So there was a long series of time goals ... breaking 5 hours, breaking the 11 minute mile, beating Oprah (like Aimee did!), breaking the 10 minute mile, breaking 4 hours, getting a BQ, etc.  But each one is a new challenge, and you take them one at a time (though sometimes of course you aim for one and get two goals (again, like Aimee, aiming for Oprah and then ending up even faster and breaking the 10 minute mile). 

Hmm... I suppose it is time to think about challenges for 2014.  Ideally, I figured I'd take the step toward doing a full Ironman in a few years if I hit my marathon goal.  But yeah, I still have unfinished business with the marathon.  I don't know if I'm going to go for the same time again.  In reality, I should.  Technically, I have a full marathon in about 5 weeks in Houston, but I'm not in shape to hit my goal time there.  In reality, I really should keep trying.  I certainly had to take MULTIPLE shots at the goals listed above.  Fock, that sub-4 was elusive.  My first shot at it was a horrible year in Chicago when the temps were in the 90s, they ran out of ambulances, and they cancelled the marathon right in the middle of it.  But you know, I kept trying.  I didn't get it on my second attempt either, but again, I kept trying.  The problem is, many "experts" posit that the majority of adult-onset runners improve for 7-8 years before they gradually start to slow down.  Which is one of the reasons that for long term running, you're NOT supposed to compete against yourself.  At some point, older you won't be able to beat younger you.  So that can't be your motivation. 

Long way of saying... I haven't committed to it wholly yet, and it will largely depend on when exactly we take our 2014 Dubai-India-Nepal-Maldives vacation extravaganza ... but yeah, I very well might take another shot at this marathon goal. 

Other challenges likely on the 2014 horizon -- learning some basic phrases in Hindi, Nepali and maybe Arabic.  Some unexciting financial challenges.  Maybe something like learning to swim for real? 

1 comment:

  1. You give me hope! I guess I haven't seen any of your old times so I figured you are one of those naturally fast people. Obviously, you started your blog as a journey to BQ, but I figured you were a sub-4 person to begin with. (I have a good friend who was planning on running Dallas as her first full marathon and was most likely going to BQ… I envy her!!… But I can only imagine how disappointed she must be now that the Dallas marathon is canceled). Anyway, I'm happy to read that you've come a long way since your first marathon. It makes me feel like I can eventually break the 4-hour mark eventually too (and maybe more)!!

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