Saturday, November 26, 2011

A Goal Is A Dream With A Plan

So wrote Macca in his book ‘I’m Here To Win’.

Goals are the basis of motivation and motives. Goals give us a purpose to advance and progress in our lives. Which are some of your recent goals?

Here are my collaborative marathon race strategies my runner model and pacer, Melvin How; we interviewed him a few months ago on aging athletes.

Plan A: First 2km at 5:00-5:15 minute/km pace to ease into a race pace. Hold the heart-rate at 155BPM +/- 2% for 30km, then open up in the final 12km and ignore the spike in HR. We hope to hold our pace and heart-rate for a race-day average of 4:42min/K as many factors can affect performance.

Plan B: If Melvin’s heel condition flares up, then we switch to damage control and attempt for a target of a revised Boston Qualifier (BQ) instead of the 3:20:00 goal. For our age group, a BQ has to be 3:24:59 and faster. As of 2013, all BQs have been reduced across the board by five minutes.

Plan C: If it is too painful for Melvin to continue, I will be on my own while he just attempts to finish, or target the SAFRA CRT time of 3:45:00 for veterans.

I am thankful that Melvin agreed to pace with me, as I believe that this may allow me to pace with more discipline. I have a tendency to race with my heart instead of my head in the initial portion of my races. If I aspire to earn a negative split on my second-half, then it will involve me sticking to my plan and not just sticking to my guns.

I posted on the Facebook forum that I am tapering for next weekend’s marathon. Actually, it is business as usual as this 42.195K is part of my preparation for IMNZ 2012. This is my final A-race for 2011, and a time trial in itself. Next week is my second training block after my Build Phase. My Endurance building block is next, focusing on managing a higher workload.

No comments: