2006 GOALS

I haven’t run yet today. I plan on getting in 5 over lunch and then 10-12 with hills/stairs this evening. I just had lots on my mind, so I wanted to write this post.

With all the race reports yesterday, somehow I missed Bart’s awesome report from Napa. There’s nothing like a 24-minute PR in tough conditions. Up next: sub-3.

I recently mentioned my friend Casey and his 1,000-mile summer while in college. Well, I had lunch with Casey yesterday. Even though we work a suburb apart, it was the first time I’ve seen him in probably 2 years. And guess what brought us together? I question he had on heart rate monitors. Go figure. After a hiatus from running he started back up on January 1st and has even signed up for Grandma’s. He wanted to know which HRM to buy and I told him he could have one of my old ones – he’d just have to replace the battery. It turns out my new office will be very close to Casey’s house, so maybe we’ll be able to hook up for some training runs in the near future.

Elizabeth recently spelled out her goals for the upcoming season and that’s something I’ve been meaning to do too. Here’s a list of 2006 goals that I’ve come up with so far;

1) PR at Grandma’s.
2) Sub-2:55 at Grandma’s.
3) Focus on high mileage over the summer, rather than racing.
4) Meet one of the Minnesota age-group standards.*
5) Top 2 in my age-group at my alumni race.
6) PR at Chicago.

*Minnesota has a data center that ranks runners in 5-year increments, based on their times at different distances. To be eligible, you have to run a qualifying time. These times have been set, based on how many people historically achieve them. So the more popular distances, like 5k, 8k, 10k and half, will have harder standards, relatively speaking, compared to distances that aren’t raced as frequently, like 12k (only 1 in the whole state), 20k, 25k and 30k. For example, the 35-39 age-group standard for the half is 1:17:45 (5:56 pace) yet the standard for the 20K is only 1:17:00 (6:12 pace).

For my age-group the easiest standards to achieve would be;

30k 2:00:30 (6:28 pace)
20k 1:17:00 (6:12 pace)
15k 56:00 (6:00 pace)
12k 43:40 (5:51 pace)
25k 1:36:15 (6:12 pace)
Marathon 2:48 (6:25 pace)

The hardest would be;

8k 26:55 (5:25 pace)
10k 34:00 (5:28 pace)
5k 16:30 (5:19 pace)

30k, 20k and maybe even 15k seem doable to me – but, again, there are only a handful of races of those distances during the year.

I’m not sure what kind of coverage Kirby Puckett’s death is getting nationally, but in Minnesota it’s a HUGE story. I was still in Wisconsin when he led them to their first championship and in the Navy during the second championship, so I wasn’t around during his prime. From everything I’ve read or heard; he was the most beloved athlete around - by fans, teammates and even opponents. He had a bunch of family members die at a young age and apparently he knew he wouldn’t make it passed 50. He died at the age of 45 after suffering a massive stroke. Even if you’re not a baseball fan and have no idea who Kirby Puckett is, the article I linked above is still worth the time to read.

Quote of the day:
“A goal unwritten is a wish.” Unknown