On to 2019: Reviewing your year, part one
Last night, I wrote both the post I link to below (and its soon-to-be-published follow-up) and this one under the influence of lots of caffeine and probably some THC as well, thanks to ample application of a CBD-THC topical analgesic that I can easily get and you probably cannot. My hamstring's been bugging me and a friend recommended -- and donated -- the stuff. I like the results of writing on a more smoothed-out version of the usual coffee buzz. On the other hand, it's always easier to churn out thousands of recreational words in a single evening when I have no outstanding professional assignments.
Already, without prompting from the Internet, you’ve started concocting your running goals for 2019. Soon, you’ll see about a zillion articles and blog posts throwing more variables and ideas at you than your mind can process at once. Focus on the marathon and forget the 5K. PR across all distances. Work on speed. Conquer your tempo run bugaboo.
The most important aspect of planning for the upcoming year – and obviously this goes for any strategic endeavor, not just those that involve a significant turn of the calendar – is reviewing the most recent year, and specifically how your training related to your race results. It takes literally minutes to jot down sane but challenging goals based on times you’ve achieved across a range of distances. But the reason you fix those time goals in mind is because you’ve achieved something remotely similar already. So how did you get to this point – and how could you have done it better?
Read the rest at Lowell Running.