Generally I enjoy reflecting back, celebrating growth and gleaning lessons where I can. Well, this has been a year. While I kind of want to just walk away and never look back, I know I’ll be glad to mine for the good things and to get some closure on the rest of it.
With it being clear the pandemic was not going anywhere, I didn’t want to add undue pressure when I set goals for 2021. I didn’t want a repeat of 2020, which had shown me what it felt like to fail at half of my goals. I set myself up for what I felt would be very reasonable to attain and an intention to go with the flow a bit more. My 2021 running goals were:
- Get a marathon PR in any any amount. I wasn’t swinging for the fences, just looking for any bit of improvement.
- Get a new state toward my 50-states goal. I planned my Spring race for Indiana in case travel didn’t feel right yet, but felt certain by Summer we’d be good to travel.
- Run 2,500 miles. I ran 2,522 in 2020, so aiming to hold steady seemed very doable.
- Finish a 50-mile ultra. I was feeling called back the the Indiana Trail race I ran in 2019.
Here’s how I fared:
✅ Get a marathon PR in any any amount.
While my annual goal was set with a lower bar, as I started training for Carmel Marathon, I was running above and beyond where I expected to be. In consultation with my coach, we upped my goal from 3:20/25 to 3:15. My workouts indicated this was possible. Scary, but possible. You can read the Carmel Marathon recap for all the nitty gritty, but the TL;DR version is that I improved from 3:37:20 at Missoula Marathon in 2019 to 3:35:08 at Carmel for a 2 minute 12 second PR. In the end, the big swing didn’t pay off for the mammoth PR, but it was enough to meet the annual goal and get me a shiny new Boston Qualifying time too.
This is a pretty nifty trick: giving yourself an annual goal that is easier to obtain, and a race specific goal above and beyond that. It’s a good way to challenge yourself while still being able to feel some measure of success. Setting A,B, and C goals can work in a similar way.
❌ Get a new state toward my 50-states goal. Originally, I planned to run Sioux Falls Marathon in 2020, but everything was cancelled and travel would not have felt right. So, naturally, I just moved those plans to 2021. I thought: South Dakota, finally! Here I come! State no. 14! Mother Nature had other plans. It stormed all evening before the race, and the full marathon course flooded in multiple places. Organizers deemed it unsafe and canceled the full. It felt pretty crappy to have a race canceled for a non-Covid reason on top of all of the foiled plans the year prior. I ended up running the half with Louie, which was still passable albeit with a few tricky mud slicks. We had a great time and went on to have some other adventures in SD I might not have been up for with marathon legs. So, it wasn’t a total loss, and yet made this goal a fail.
I set a goal that was so dependent on outside forces, so that’s on me. While I want to get some new states in 2022, I’m not marking it as an official goal, since so much is out of my control and there is no end in sight with this pandemic.
❌ Run 2,500 miles. I’m gonna be honest. I thought this one would be the easiest of my goals. It was 22 miles less than what I ran in the crap year that was 2020 with so few races. Training for two marathons, then a fall ultra would stack the mileage up nicely. But the training plans for my marathons were lower mileage, higher intensity than what I used in 2018-19, and it wasn’t adding up to where I needed to be. After the ultra, I wanted more of a break than I typically do.
In November, the math checked out that I could still hit the goal if I bounced back and really went for it, but I didn’t have the right energy. I had some work stresses and other things going on, so I prioritized rest. I know if one of my athletes asked my advice, I’d say that was the right thing to do, and I’m glad I gave myself the same grace. It stings to miss a goal, but I still got in a lot of miles. 2,275.26 to be exact.
Long goals like this deserve more thought earlier in the year. I put a lot of pressure into the last quarter. I should have checked in about this goal early and often.
✅ Finish a 50-mile ultra. Here’s another goal I figured I could handily complete. I know a 50-miler is still a big deal, but since I’d done it before, and I was going for the same race even, I was much more confident in completion. The Indiana Trail 50 in October ended up being more of a challenge than I expected due to some unseasonably warm weather, and in keeping with the theme of the year, some course flooding that destroyed my feet. While I wanted a faster time, an ultra finish is an ultra finish, and I ended up 10th place female. One timely update: after this race, I thought I would lose a toenail, my first. I had a purple streak right across the toe, with 85% of the nail discolored. This very week the last of the discoloration grew out of the toenail, and it looks as if nothing ever happened!
I picked the “just finish” goal to balance out the marathon PR. While I hoped I could also better my 50-mile time, it was nice to have the lower bar. The ultra was about trail time and joy more than anything else. I really treasured some of the summer run adventures I had with friends and the ease of long runs without a worry about pace. Now, I’m more ready than ever to get back to faster paces.
Two out of four goals complete. Two goals not met. This looks familiar to where I was last year. But there’s of course always more to the story than those goals.
🔹 Coaching was a highlight for me this year. I got more joy out of seeing my athletes meet their goals or crush a workout than I did with my own. I treasured the times I was able to get in some miles, share a race, jump on a video chat to talk goals with my athletes.
🔹 I got a 5K PR at the Joseph Maley Foundation 5K. This wasn’t a primary goal of mine, and I almost didn’t race it in the first place. I went sub-7 in a race for the first time, and it happened with a relative ease. It was also the first time I won prize money for a race!
🔹 I completed not one, but two ultras. The 8-Hour Dream Endurance Race was a last minute decision to go for 50K+.
🔹 Most importantly: I got a lot of joy out there. Running is often the highlight of my day. I love that it gets me outside, even when the weather isn’t ideal. I exercised or at least walked outside 365 days of the year, in the rain and the cold and the soul-sucking humidity too. I ran trails near and far, on the Monon and Towpath near home, in Minneapolis, Badlands National Park, the Mickelson Trail, and I don’t know how many repeats of my favorite little hill at nearby Marott Park. For many stretches of the pandemic, running with people was my sole social outlet. Miles with friends, Volée teammates, my athletes, my husband and my dogs. I felt better after running, even when it was hard to get out the door. I’m still in love with it, even in the middle of a kind of crappy run and even when I don’t meet my goals.
I’m looking forward to the miles ahead in 2022, all 2,500+ of them!