Plans for a PR

With my Georgetown to Idaho Springs Half Marathon coming up next Saturday, this is probably as good a time as any to set a goal. In the past when it came time to set race goals I’ve set blatantly unattainable ones to push myself, I’ve set easy ones so that I knew I wouldn’t fail, I’ve set round number goals because they sound nice, I’ve even attempted to retroactively change my race goals so it looked like I succeeded. As you can tell, I take this stuff pretty seriously. I calculate and recalculate to make sure I’ve thoroughly thought through my race goals. (Thoroughly thought through? There’s got to be a better way to say that.) However, in setting my goal for this upcoming half marathon I’ve done very little thinking or calculating and it’s not a round number. My goal time is 1:54:48.

If you’re wondering where I got that time from then wonder no more; it’s one second faster than Viper’s PR at the half marathon distance. Up until May of this year, Viper had faster PRs than I did in all of the 4 major race distances. (Note: I consider the 4 major race distances to be 5K, 10K, Half Marathon and Marathon, this is my opinion, it is not fact although scientists often consider the two to be one and the same.) However in May I posted a 10K time of 52:07 which is still faster than Viper’s current 10K PR and thus put me 1-up on Viper. And if you follow my logic on how I could be 1-up on someone who has 3 faster PRs than I do, then you’re well on your way to becoming one of my favorite readers. The goal for next Saturday then is to claim another PR from Viper and then to bloviate at length about being 2-up.

Unfortunately, it’s a little more complicated than it sounds. You see on the same Saturday that I’ll be decimating the 1:54:48 half marathon record, Viper is running a 10K in the hopes of breaking the 50 minute 10K. Truth be told, Viper was on pace to beat my 10K time earlier this month, but instead decided to teach the internets about the Puke Threshold. We are all the wiser for it.

So mark your calendars because next Saturday, August 9th is going to go down in history. Will we both make our stated goals or will one of us fail? *cough Viper cough* Perhaps we’ll both fail which would be really pathetic and anticlimactic, but totally within character, for me at least. Either way, I’m drawing a line in the sand, and then drawing a little winking smiley face so Viper knows that this is all in good fun, and also maybe a cartoon Pluto because I learned to draw him as a kid and can still draw him really well. Then maybe I’ll draw a beautiful beach scene in the sand because, wouldn’t it be ironic if people were gazing at my beach scene drawing and missing the beautiful beach scene that was all around them? Man, some people are idiots.

If you’re really that interested you can see a list of my PRs at the bottom of this page, and can find a list of Viper’s in the sidebar at Booze Hounds Inc.