My 2018 Running Plans + Goals
As I’ve mentioned before on the blog, I’m not really one for New Year’s Resolutions but I do love taking some time at this time of year to look ahead and set some goals for the year ahead. The past 2.5 weeks have been a good mental break from running but I’ve also spent a good amount of time thinking about my running goals for 2018 and planning out my racing schedule for the first half of the year. Before my performance at CIM Henri and I were looking planning to expand our family this year but if you listened to my episode of the I’ll Have Another Podcast with Lindsey Hein you’ll know that after a lot of conversations, considerations and prayer we’ve decided to put baby #2 on hold until after the 2020 Trials. That means that for the next 2 years I’ll be dedicating myself to my training and continuing to improve my times. My training plans and goals for this year were all made made with the Trials in mind.
2018 Training/Racing Plans
Winter/Spring 2018
The first half of this year is going to be focused on shorter distances. I’m going to do a half marathon focused training cycle while also keeping my legs sharp and moving fast by dropping down to the 5K and 10K in some track and road races. I haven’t hammered out which 5Ks and 10Ks I’ll be doing yet but I’ll be running the following half marathons.
Surf City Half Marathon – 3/4/2018 – Huntington Beach, CA
PGH Half Marathon/USA Half Marathon Championships – 5/6/2018 – Pittsburgh, PA
San Diego Rock N Roll Half Marathon – 6/3/2018 – San Diego, CA
Summer/Fall 2018
After the San Diego RnR Half I’ll take a prescribed break for 1-2 weeks just like I did after CIM. I’ll do a short base building/strength focused cycle in the summer and dive into CIM 2018 training at the end of July. The 18 week build-up worked really well this year so that is what my coach and I are planning to do again this coming year. I’ll do a half marathon or two (and maybe some shorter races) throughout the cycle again but we won’t lock in the exact races until we are closer to the start of that training cycle.
2018 Goals
I have some time goals in mind for this year that I would really love to hit but I’m also trying not to put too much emphasis on the clock. As I’ve seen this past year if I take the pressure off of myself to hit a specific time and just focus on putting in the hard work and racing to the best of my ability the performances will follow. That being said, the time goals that my coach and I think are attainable this year are…
5K – sub 16:30
10K – around 35:00
Half Marathon – sub 1:17
Marathon – sub 2:40
Other, non-time related running goals that I would like to achieve this year are:
- Run my first USA Championship Race – If everything goes as planned I should be running in 2 USA Championships, the Half Championships in May and CIM 2018 which is the host of the USA Marathon Champs again this year.
- Finish higher at CIM than this year – At CIM this year I was 48th so next year I would like to place higher than that. Looking at the results from this past year my goal time of <2:40 was 19th place so top 25 would be a dream!
- Run my first 10K on the track
- Continue to work on my mental strength in racing and competitiveness – In college I was always racing the clock because the meets that my team went to weren’t super competitive (for me). With my new half and full marathon PRs there are so many opportunities more opportunities for me to race in very competitive fields. I don’t want to shy away from these opportunities (which would be my natural approach) instead I want to cease these opportunities to get faster and test my limits!
- Get on top of my strength training – If there’s any area of my training that I slacked at doing this past year it was my strength training, so this year I want to get in a more consistent strength training routine. I’ll make sure to share how I’m doing at this as the year goes on!
As you can see, there’s nothing fancy about my goals and plans for this year. For the most part I’m just going to keep plugging along and executing the training plans that my coach laying out for me. I’m excited for what lays ahead and to see the progress that I can continue to make under his guidance.
Now I want to hear your running goals for this year! Are you looking to run your first marathon? Run a 5K PR? Let me know!!