Goals for 2011

You know what comes naturally after a year in review post?  A Goals for the upcoming year post!  Hooray for easy posts!  You take the goals you missed last year and repost them again, then you take the goals you accomplished and make them a little tougher and bingo bango bongo you’ve got yourself another post!  Some people might think that they should all go in the same post but that’s ludicrous and I’ll tell you why; then you only get one post out of it!  Look at me, I have 2 posts out of this now, and that’s without even counting the next post wherein I tell you HOW I’m going to accomplish all these new recycled goals.  You have to work hard to be as lazy as I am.

This year I’m actually going to try something different in my approach.  I’m not going to have any goals for 2011. (Note: Do not try this line with your boss it goes over about as well as it would if you tried to switch my regular coffee to Folgers - blech!)  However, since I’m the boss on this blog I have the final say, and I say: No goals in 2011.  I’ve never really been motivated by writing down my goals and setting high expectations for myself.   I’m more of a fly by the seat of my pants and see where we end up kind of guy.  This year I’m going to be a free spirit, just blowing wherever the wind takes me. I’ll still run, I’ll still work hard to get faster but I’m not going to beat myself up for failing to reach arbitrary goals that I set while high on the enthusiasm of a fresh start just because I had to switch out my calendar with a new one.  (Note to self: switch out your calendar with a new one.)

2011 is all about low expectations and no failures.  It will be the year of aiming low and surprising myself.  I’ll not be disappointed.  Perhaps my motto this year will be ‘nothing to aim for, nothing to miss.’  Having no goals this year sure made this ‘Goals for 2011’ post much easier to write although it’s going to make writing a year in review post a lot harder at the end of the year. 

Goodbye 2010

You know what’s sad?  I spent a good twenty-five minutes sitting in front of a blank screen trying to come up with a really clever title for this year in review post and couldn’t come up with anything better than Goodbye 2010.  Lame. 

It seems like everyone does a year in review post and I hate being the same as everyone else but how can you pass up the old year in review post?  You can’t, as evidenced by the fact that I’ve done a year in review post every single year of this blog’s stinking existence.  Yes, some of those links are duplicitous because this blog has only existed for 3½ years but it seemed more emphatic to link every word.  And just because I disappeared for 6 months of the year is no reason to not review the year, believe it or not I was still running even though I was not here telling you about it.  On top of that the year in review post is an easy one to write.  You simply repost your goals from last year, giving excuses for the ones you missed and patting yourself on the back for the ones you accomplished.  The only thing you really have to work at is an introductory paragraph... well would you look at that... it practically wrote itself.  (If only the title would write itself too, lazy title!)

2010 Goals (as posted here)

Post more frequently this year - I swear I’m not making that one up.  That was the first goal I posted last year and I even talked about writing 200 posts this year.  Obviously 33 posts is not going to be enough to call this a success.  Not off to a good start.

Run a sub 50 minute 10k - Nope.  0 for 2.  I only ran one 10k and I ran it in 54:something.  I don’t even care enough to go look it up or link to the post where I discussed it.  Haven’t I already linked to enough posts?

Set a new Half Marathon PR - YES!  I am awesome!  1 for 3!  No linking to that post either since it is the previous post.

Set a new 5k PR - Nope.  Nuh-Uh.  Didn’t do it.  1 for 4.  This is getting depressing.  Why do people write these posts again?

Run some different races Yes!  2 for 5!  I ran the Crossroads Half-Marathon and a couple new 5ks that I hadn’t run before.

Wait?  That’s it?  Where are all the other goals?  I really only set 5 goals for last year?  What’s truly unbelievable is that in almost every year that I’ve set goals (except for 2010 I guess) I’ve included ‘win an age group award’ as one of the goals.  In 2010 I didn’t include it as a goal and it actually happened.  I took 1st place in my age group at the Hawk Hustle 5k.  Why wasn’t that a goal this year?  What was I thinking?  You know what, I’m going to go ahead and give myself an extra credit point for winning that age group award which puts me at 3 for 5.  And now that I think of it, PRing the half marathon was a HUGE deal to me and really deserves to be worth 2 points instead of 1 which brings me to 4 out of 5.  So there you have it.  I scored 80% on the year for my 2010 goals, that’s a solid B+ (I’m grading on a curve).  Wow!  What an awesome year 2010 was for me.  I really rocked it.  Here’s to 2011.  I’ll call it a success if it can be even half as successful as 2010 was.

Goals, Resolutions and Various Other Lies

I know you’re all thinking “oh great, another post containing goals and resolutions. I just can’t get enough of other people’s goals and resolutions.” First of all, you can keep your sarcasm to yourself because I’m already up to my eyeballs in it. Second of all, if I don’t post my annual goals there would be no opportunity for another FAIL riddled post at the end of the year and I’d really hate to deprive all of you jackals of another chance to engage in the schadenfreude of commenting on my year in review post.

Without further ado, here are my 2010 goals or resolutions or whatever else you want to call them (you might also want to call them laughable, or unattainable):

Post more frequently this year Admittedly two posts in eight days isn’t a great start but I’d like be back around 200 posts for the year. This is a dangerous resolution as it potentially leads to quantity over quality, which is something I’m leery of. If you don’t have time to write something and you can’t think of anything to write about, then you probably shouldn’t put up a post just to comply with some arbitrary goal. Those posts are like junk miles, except without the maintenance benefits that you might get from junk miles, so... really... not at all like junk miles. I guess they’re more like your appendix or the time you spend reading this blog; completely useless. These are the posts that clog up my reader every year when NaBloPoMo comes along, but don’t get me started on that.

Run a sub 50 minute 10k I still want to do this, so let’s carry this one over from last year.

Set a new Tripple 7k PR Another carryover. The half marathon distance is still my favorite distance to race.

Set a new 5k PR Despite my struggles this year I still managed to hover within 20 - 30 seconds of my 5k PR. With some hard work and dedication I think I could set a new 5k mark for myself. (Note: I had to look up how to spell ‘hard work and dedication’ because those words are not a regular part of my vocabulary.)

Run some different races Every year I seem to run the same races because I’ve enjoyed them in the past, but then I exhaust my racing budget and don’t do any new races. This year I want to run at least 3 new races that I’ve never run before. Of course, I’ll still run the Bolder Boulder 10k but I’m not committing to repeating any other races. I have to run the Bolder Boulder because it’s just a big Memorial Day party and many of my ‘non-running’ friends also run the race. Beating all of my non-running friends allows me to hold it over them for yet another year and makes up for them all being smarter and better looking than me. I know you’re probably skeptical that I have friends and especially ones that are better looking than me (Non! C’est pas possible! - Pardon my French.) but it’s true, we are beautiful people, like a real life version of the cast of Friends.

Finally, in honor of the failures chronicled in my last post I leave you with this video of the best fails of 2009 (via WL). Fortunately none of my fails were big enough to make the highlight reel. (Note: There’s some NSFW language at the beginning so crank up the volume if you’re at work.)

Ugh. 7am?

I just discovered that the Denver Half Marathon starts at 7am? Um, why? It’s not like this is the middle of the summer and we need to get the race in before it gets too hot. It’s mid-October for crying out loud! Why not start this thing at 8 or 9 o’clock so that I can sleep in a little? As if that wasn’t bad enough their published Race Etiquette states that you should show up an hour and a half before the race starts. 5:30? You want me to be there at 5:30? I’ll still be hitting the snooze button at 5:30, and if that makes me discourteous then so be it. You show me someone that got up early enough to be there at 5:30 and I’ll show you a discourteous runner.

The good news is that the Denver Marathon claims to be ‘iPod friendly,’ which hopefully means that I can listen to my iPod and not that they don’t discriminate against any iPods that want to run the race. This is good news because in the event that I have a really good race and win this thing, I’d hate to get disqualified like that one chick that you’ve no doubt read about elsewhere by now.

I have no idea if you will be able to follow us on Sunday at the Denver Marathon website, but I have complete faith in your online stalking abilities. I doubt that there’s anyone out there who can’t wait until the Monday morning race report to hear how we did, especially since I have no race goals other than something about a happy ending that I didn’t quite follow in the previous post. (What? You think I understand my rambling posts any better than you do?)

Candis is looking for another PR in this race and should be within striking distance of achieving that end. Her time to beat is 2:17:14 which is the PR she set on this very same course last year. Given her recent success I’m certain that she’ll come in under that mark, the only question is how far under? My guess is 2:08:37, your guesses in the comments.

Just a PR, ma’am

That’s all I’m after at the Georgetown to Idaho Springs Half Marathon tomorrow, just a PR. There was a time in my running when attaining a PR was just a given at every race. That no longer seems to be the case and I’m learning to be OK with that (read: taking it out on my family). However having missed a PR at the Gut Buster 5K last weekend and at the Bolder Boulder 10K this year (the first time I haven’t PR’d that particular race) I’m in desperate need of a PR. I’m in need of some feel-goodery (that should totally be a word).

My current PR for the half marathon distance is 1:56:45, which was set at this same race last year incidentally, and I’ll be happy if I post a time that’s even one second faster because it will still represent a chest-thumping PR. It will help me to answer the nagging voices in my head that keep telling me I’m getting slower. Furthermore it will help me to answer all of you people in the comments who find something in every post to say “see, this is why you’re getting slower,” you know who you are.

The Runner’s World SmartCoach program that I’ve been following says that I should be able to complete the race at an 8:32 pace in 1:52:00. I’m planning on starting out a little slower than that and building up to it as the race progresses. I want to run this race a little more conservatively than I normally would for a couple of reasons: 1) Last year I started out too fast and the combination of running downhill and over-zealous speed led to cramping up in the final miles. 2) I don’t need 1:52, I need a PR. Not that I wouldn’t love to have 1:52 or even better, but this isn’t the race that I’m going to go after it. I have another half marathon coming up in October and maybe I’ll set some outrageous goal for that race and see if I can start fast and hold on.

Good luck to everyone else who is racing this weekend.

Race Goals and Pipe Dreams

As you already know, Candis and I will be running the Bolder Boulder on Monday. If you too will be celebrating Memorial Day by cursing at your alarm clock and then running 10,000 meters feel free to stop by and say hello to us after the race. Unless of course, you’re rising early and running 10,000 meters somewhere that’s not in Boulder, CO, then don’t bother stopping by to say hello because that’s just going to waste your Memorial Day. We’ll be in the lower half of section 108 drinking beer at 8:30 in the morning (now I remember why I like running so much). Just look around until you see a couple that looks like Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie because if there’s a couple there that looks like that, there’s a pretty good chance we’ll be sitting behind them, staring. Or just look for us, that might be easier. I’d tell you what we’ll be wearing but do you really think we plan what we’re wearing that far in advance? OK you’re right, we totally do. I’ll be wearing a black and grey CU shirt and Candis will either be wearing a pink shirt or her Kiss My Asthma shirt. Also, don’t be fooled by amateur imitators who are only running 5,000 meters on Memorial Day. Get that weaksauce outta’ here!

Goals
I’ve already stated my goal is to run a sub 50 minute 10K but Candis’ goal of a sub 60 minute 10K has remained a secret up until roughly 3 seconds ago when I JUST SAID IT! Maybe 8 seconds ago for some of you slower readers. I also mentioned earlier this week (Bolder Boulder Week!) that there would be an advanced handicapping system that would allow Candis to compete against me. Originally I thought we could take the first place men’s and women’s finish times from last year and use the difference as a deduction from Candis’ time but it turns out that I thought that without really thinking much and the difference is obviously not big enough to make us even. (It’s only 3 to 4 minutes.) Since our goal times are exactly 10 minutes apart I’m going to attempt to finish 10 minutes ahead of Candis (hey, just like in the bedroom!) and she’s going to try to finish less than 10 minutes behind me. See, I told you it was an advanced handicapping system, well it was advanced for you 8 second people. Basically it will come down to who beats their goal by the most, or maybe, who misses their goal by the least. Loser has to have sex with the winner. (I just threw that in there to see if Candis was paying attention.)

I ran some intervals last night to see how my g-g-groin injury responded to speed and there was virtually no pain at all. It was a little tender this morning so I’m just going to make sure and rest for a couple of days before the race. I’m pretty sure it won’t be a problem on race day but if you think for one second that I won’t use it as an excuse come Tuesday morning then you’ve seriously misunderestimated me. Although... it wouldn’t hurt to have a back-up excuse at the ready since I’ve kind of confessed that the g-g-groin injury shouldn’t be a problem. Hmmm, maybe I could use one of these excuses... or maybe I’ll eat some spicy Mexican food the night before the race.

Sweet Sixteen

Forgive me, for it has been 16 days since my last run. Sixteen sweet days of blissful rest and not running have passed since I crossed the finish line in Arizona. I had intended to run this past weekend, but then I didn’t. I intended to run this morning, but then I didn’t. Without a race in the foreseeable future I have little motivation to get out and run and even the smallest excuses keep me from lacing ‘em up. The good news is that I’m starting to miss running, which I wouldn’t have thought possible only a month ago when I was in the heart of my marathon training.

2009 Goals
The completion of the PF Chang’s RnR Marathon brings my 2008 running season to a close, despite the fact that it happened in 2009. Only now do I feel like it is appropriate to start setting some goals for the year. Obviously the first goal is to complete a marathon in 2009, not another marathon, just the one that I’ve already completed. Hooray for retroactive goals! As has always been the case I like to focus on getting faster more than anything else and I think you can see that showing through in some of my goals below:

• Get faster.
• Don’t get slower.
• Run a sub 50 minute 10K.
• Win an age group award, and by win I mean take first, second or third, I’m really not that picky. This is going to require entering some small, local races, but I think it’s about time I placed within my age group.
• Shave my 5K. As the host of the SY5K Challenge it would be embarrassing for me to get slower.
• Set a new PR at the half marathon distance.
• Not sign up for another marathon.

Incidentally, I told Candis about my goals and she didn’t think that I could win an age group award even when I told her that I was going to find a really small local race. I tried to convince her that I could find a really small race where there was only one other person in my age group and take second place by default, but she remained skeptical. Whatever. I’ll show her. If any of you know of any really small races in Colorado or maybe even Cheyenne, WY then be sure to let me know, but let’s keep it on the down low so that the race doesn’t get too popular. I don’t want to actually have to earn the age group award, I totally just want to get it by default. That’s how I roll.

Get a Hold of Yourself Man!

Thanks for all the advice on my last post, particularly to Andrew who gave me the literary bitchslap I needed in reminding me to HDFU. I am still planning on running the full marathon, and I’m planning on beating Haile Gebrselassie’s world record time of 2:03:59, that was his first half split right?

When I originally signed up for the PF Chang’s Rock ‘n’ Roll Arizona Marathon I had wanted to run a 4 hour marathon or more specifically a 3:59:59 marathon. I believe that a sub 4 hour time might have been possible had I not been injured and wimped out on some of my training runs, but I find myself coming to grips with the fact that I probably won’t achieve that goal. That’s OK. I’ve always said that in order to achieve all of your lifelong goals sometimes you have to lower your expectations, but that’s just the over-achiever in me coming out. (The under-achiever in me is totally OK with failing to meet goals entirely, at least the over-achiever tries to make it look like I accomplished my goals.)

With that in mind I’m going to establish several levels of goals for this marathon, and hopefully I’ll be able to accomplish one of them. Here they are, ranked from most likely to occur to least likely to occur:

1. Start the marathon.
2. Finish the marathon.
3. Finish the marathon in an upright position.
4. Finish the marathon with a time under 4 hours 30 minutes.
5. Finish the marathon with a time under 4 hours 15 minutes.
6. Finish the marathon with a smile on my face.
7. Finish the marathon with a time under 4 hours.
8. Qualify for Boston - requires a time of 3:10:59 (my computer audibly chuckled when I wrote that).
9. Set a new marathon world record - requires a time of 2:03:58 or better.
10. Take it easy and enjoy myself.

I think I have a realistic shot at the first 4, maybe even number 5 if I’m having a really good day. If I accomplish number 7, then number 6 will just naturally follow suit, but I doubt that either of those will happen. Numbers 8 through 10 are just there for humor because none of them are going to happen.

Have a great weekend everyone! Stay tuned next week for the announcement of the Shave Your 5K winners.

Update: Oh yeah, and Happy New Year and all that jazz.

Race Weekend

Saturday is the Skirt Chaser 5K, which is my first 5K since I posted my Stubble time of 25:56 at the end of last year so it will be a good indication of how well I’m Shaving My 5K. If you’re a new reader of Half-Fast and have only just heard about the Shave Your 5K Challenge it’s not too late for you to enter, especially if you’ve already run a 5K this year. If you haven’t run a 5K this year then it’s still not too late to enter but it probably is too late to win. Enter anyway, because life’s not just about winning; it’s about the journey, the camaraderie, it’s about pushing yourself to the limits because it makes you a better person, and a bunch of other crap like that - anything that takes your mind off the fact that you’re not winning, loser!

The Skirt Chaser race is all about fun, and I have several friends, including Carl, running the race with me so I’m not going to set a real aggressive goal for myself. I want to have enough energy left for the post race bash so that I can party like a rock star. Except without the sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll, and without the musical talent, or the groupies, or the good looks, or the expensive tastes, or the wild temper, or the propensity for dating Pamela Anderson. But other than those few missing details, I’ll be partying EXACTLY like a rock star.

The goal for Saturday is simply to set a new PR, but I’m undecided on how to go about doing that. I usually try to reign myself in at the beginning of a race so as not to fade at the end, but I also recently read this article on Runner’s World that talks about runners having success in 5Ks by going out fast. I kind of like the idea of going out fast because then I’ll be able to catch Candis much sooner, but I also like having a nice strong kick to the finish because it makes me feel good and it always sucks to get passed at the end of a race. Let me hear your thoughts on 5K strategy in the comments so that I can arrogantly ignore them and do my own thing.

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.

Miscellany

Just a couple of housekeeping items today. First, I don’t think Candis ever posted her goal time for the Bolder Boulder. What’s up with that? I put myself out there with a 50:00 minute goal and she just tries to slide by with a post about how much tapering sucks? I won’t stand for it. Allow me to tell you what her goal is for the Bolder Boulder 10K on Monday: 1:06:30 (10:40 pace). Of course, I don’t particularly feel like this will be much of a stretch for her. She ran her St. Paddy’s day 5K at a 10:15 pace and has since zipped through a significant amount of speedwork as part of the FIRST training program. Personally, I think that she can get a lot closer to 10 minute miles, a 1:02:00 race time and since that’s so close to the 1 hour mark I’m going to go ahead and announce that as her goal time. 1 hour.

Second, if anyone is going to be at the Bolder Boulder on race day, Candis and I will be running in the FC wave (as in Fail Completely) which means we should finish somewhere around 8:30am. We’re meeting up with some friends and anyone who wants to stop by the stadium afterwards in section 108. I’ll be wearing a white shirt and probably this sweaty Red Sox hat, Candis will also be wearing a Red Sox hat or visor along with her Kiss My Asthma shirt. If you can’t find us, then look for the two most beautiful people in the section, we’ll try to sit right behind them. Or just stand in the middle of section 108 and yell “Yo Vanilla!” at the top of your lungs. I’ll be the one laughing at you, but don’t let that deter you from stopping by to say hi.

Stadium Map (click to enlarge)
Enjoy your 3 day weekend everyone. I’ll have the Weekend Splits post tomorrow, and then a detailed list of excuses race report for you on Tuesday.

Blatantly Unattainable Goal

A post in which Vanilla sets a goal for himself that he has no chance of sniffing and talks about himself in the third person. You’d probably be better off just skipping it.

This was going to be just another “dull statement of intention,” but Nitmos really raised the bar on race goals yesterday with his Setting Race Goals post. If you missed his post then you should go check it out because there’s nothing like a good race goal post... and that was nothing like a good race goal post! Ba-Boom Cha! (Thanks, you’ve been a great audience. I’ll be here all week and don’t forget to tip your waitress!)

I mentioned back in February that I wanted to do a 50 minute 10K and I hate to back down from that even though I doubted its attainability when I first wrote it. However I did write that on Leap Day (a day that doesn’t REALLY exist), so it doesn’t REALLY count. This is known as the Leap Day Rule; you can’t be held accountable for things that you say on February 29th in much the same way that people cannot be offended by insults that you preface with the phrase “with all due respect.” Allow me to demonstrate: With all due respect, Nitmos is a blathering, self-absorbed tool. (Zing!) See, no harm done.

Now where was I? Oh yes, a 50 minute 10K. No chance in hell. I want it so bad that I can taste it. It tastes a little like chicken, not delicious fried chicken mind you, but more like a bland, unseasoned chicken that I could picture them serving in England. I ran Nancy’s 10K on the 10th last weekend in 52:43, but that was done as the middle part of an 8 mile training run, without carb loading, and without the additional motivation of knowing it was a race. I think that I’ll be able to run the Bolder Boulder in 51:30 and if I use Nitmos’ patented method of multiplying by 0.975 I come up with 50:13 which is so close to 50:00 that I really should just make that my goal, my Pie-Eyed Optimist goal. It’s OK. I’ve started working on a doozey of an excuse in case I miss that goal, it starts out like a regular excuse but then out of nowhere it turns out that I’m blaming you the reader for my shoddy performance.

Welcome to 2008

This pretty much mirrors my response to resolutions.

I’m back at work from a long break, which means more regular blog posts and more regular reading of all of your blog posts. I came into my office this morning and was horrified to find both my e-mail and voicemail inboxes overflowing. In the spirit of a new year and a fresh start I just deleted all the new messages and decided to leave the past in the past. Don’t people know that I’ve got a blog to write? I can’t be spending my time here at work answering e-mails and returning calls. How would I ever get anything posted?

As I said in my year in review post, the main goal this year is to get faster. With that in mind I will try to be more consistent about doing speedwork and tempo runs as a regular part of my training. As for what races I plan on running, here they are:

• Bolder Boulder 10K
• Denver Half Marathon
• Colder Bolder 5K

Why so few? To give everyone else a fighting chance, of course. Actually, I always run the Bolder Boulder, and the Denver Half Marathon and Colder Bolder 5K were two of my favorite races last year, so that’s why I’m listing those three. I am planning on running several other races this year but I like to keep my options open. I’m considering running the following races but in typical guy fashion I don’t want to commit to them just yet:

• Nancy’s 9 on the 9th (Feb 9) – Nancy, you’d have had me for sure with a 2 on the 2nd.
• Georgetown to Idaho Springs Half Marathon (Aug 9) – It’s all downhill.
• Boulder Backroads Half Marathon (Sep 21)
• Rudolph’s Revenge (Dec) – Just because I missed it this past year.

I will also probably run several local 5Ks this year but I like to be spontaneous about those. I like to fly by the seat of my pants, because I’m a wild and crazy guy who can’t be tied down to a restrictive schedule. Or maybe I’m just too lazy to put in all the planning work and find some 5Ks right now, you’ll have to decide for yourself.

Image credit to KissingSuzyKolber who probably stole it from somewhere else anyway.

A Goal To Fall Short Of

With the Denver Half Marathon less than 5 days away it's probably a good time to start thinking about setting a goal. Actually a good time for setting a goal would have been 6 months ago when I could have trained towards that specific goal, but that's just not the way we do things in the procrastination business. When it comes to getting things done, I drag my feet more than Keyser Söze.

Over the past few weeks I've had some really good runs that have left me feeling like a world beater and some pretty crappy VW Jetta runs. I've changed my mind on what I think my goal time will be every other run and the times have varied by as much as 15 minutes. There's a good chance that I'm indecisive. An indecisive, procrastinating employee who is blogging from work? They're lucky to have me, but in typical corporate fashion they keep promoting me up the ladder. Enough with the procrastinating, on to the goal.

My FIRST training plan indicates that the pace I've been running at should allow me to complete the race in 2:02:42. The annoyingly accurate McMillan Calculator indicates from my last race that I'll finish in 2:04:37. Going off of these numbers and taking a guess at what my time will be I'd say it's going to be 2:06:57. I've kind of been hoping that I could finish with a time under 2 hours but given my history in predicting my time I doubt that will happen.

Let's hear your predictions for my time in the comments. Maybe I'll even have some Half-Fast memorabilia for the person who comes the closest to my official time, like a keychain, or a bracelet - something really useless that you'll never use.

100 Posts

This is the 100th post on Half-Fast since I started the site back on April Fools Day (tell me that isn't an appropriate launch date). Back on Friday I proclaimed that the 100th post here at Half-Fast was going to be big, and ever since then I've been racking my brains trying to figure out what to do for this post. Then it came to me while I was watching an old episode of Friends. It was a clip show. I hate clip shows. A clip show is one of those episodes where one member of the cast says to another "those were good times weren't they?" Then both actors act like they're thinking about the 'good times' and for the next half hour they proceed to show you clips of previous episodes to illustrate the 'good times.' I hate this because I've already seen all those episodes and I wanted some new original funny, not highlights of past funny. Nevertheless, my 100th post will be a clip show, I'm not giving you any new funny, just highlights of previous funny. I assume that most of you here reading this post have not been here since the beginning so maybe you'll get to read something new anyway.

The funniest post: That Wasn't Me You Saw Running – This is probably my all time favorite post. Honorable mention in the category of funniest post: 9 Types Of Runs, Running Dad and To the police officer who almost ran me over in the crosswalk.

Most creative post: Excuses. This is a poem that I wrote based on my take of Shel Silverstein's classic children's poem Sick.

My wife's favorite post: Running Mad. (Wow, look how much shorter my posts used to be.)

Posts with funny video's that are worth your time: Idiot vs Treadmill, Treadmills are for Hamsters, and of course this past Friday's video was pretty good too.

Posts containing useful information and facts:

Posts containing pictures of Vanilla: Bolder Boulder Race Report, Things Only I Find Interesting.

Most embarrassing thing I've done since I started Half-Fast: Entering the Hottest Male Blogger Contest. Yes it's just as geeky as it sounds. Think of it like a Mr. Universe contest only without all the oiled up muscles and with 90% more pocket protectors and horn-rimmed glasses. In case you're wondering why you've never heard about me entering the Hottest Male Blogger Contest it's because I was too embarrassed to admit to it at the time and I lost in the first round. Ouch!

Looking back over all these posts makes it seem like it's been such a long time, but I still remember my first comment from a non-family member. I remember I used to get excited when I got 3 comments on one post. Now I want more, I'm never satisfied. I want 20 plus comments on every post, and when I get there, I'll want 30 plus comments on every post. I want to rule the blogs. "One Blog to rule them all, One Blog to find them, One Blog to bring them all and in the darkness bind them." That's my new goal. Screw running and getting faster, I want to be Lord of the Blogs.

While I'm on the subject of comments let me assure you that I do read ALL of your comments. I actually have blogger set up to e-mail me every comment that is posted, so even if you go back and comment on a post from 3 months ago, I still read it. I love all your comments. I crave comments, even if it is just a simple "hello". I especially love funny comments. Ali, Amy, Pat, jkrunning, Marcy, and many others, you guys make me laugh all the time. So, keep the funny comments coming, even the one's that make fun of me. Make fun of my running, make fun of my writing, I don't care. I poke fun at a lot of things on this site without intending to be taken seriously and I don't ever take offense to any comments you leave. I love them all, whether it's a full blown analysis of my post, a long story you just have to share or a quick "lol." So, now that I've just declared open season on myself... have at it. What are your favorite posts? What are your least favorite posts?

Setting a Goal: Part 2 - At World's End

In the past the Bolder Boulder has been the only race that I’ve participated in, it’s been kind of like my annual self-check of how well I’m running, and since it coincides with my car’s annual oil change it has also served as a good reminder that it’s once again time for my mechanic to scold me for waiting so long. However I find that I’m beginning to take this running thing more seriously, last year my longest training run prior to the 10K Bolder Boulder was 6.2 miles (exactly 10K). This year my longest training run was 10 miles and I even did some speedwork and tempo runs. All this tells me that I need a bigger challenge, which is why I’m going to sign up for the Denver Half Marathon. Apparently they don’t have a logo for the half marathon so I had to make my own, pretty stylish huh? I’ve got mad Photoshop MS Paint skillz!

The half marathon is a great race to run because when you tell someone that you ran it you can kind of cough through the “half” part or say it quietly enough that people will think that you’ve just run a marathon. Then when you tell them that you did it in 2 hours and 45 minutes it will be impressive instead of pitiable. (With apologies to anyone who just ran a half in 2:45:00, you’ve already done more than I have.)

You might be remembering that I made fun of the Denver Marathon in this entry, and their marketing strategy of targeting runners after the Bolder Boulder, or you might be wondering why anyone would actually continue to read this blog after having read one of the posts. Either way it turns out that their marketing strategy wasn’t so bad after all.

Setting a Goal

The ticker at the bottom of the site indicates that there’s less than 17 days until the Bolder Boulder 10K so the purpose of this entry is to do 3 things:
1. Set a goal for myself
(b) Make it public so as to hold myself accountable (yes, this counts as making it public)
3. Impress my boss who is always encouraging me to set goals.

The question is should I set an attainable goal so that I feel like I've accomplished something? Or should I set the impossible, impractical, upper-management-thinks-we-should-do-this goal that will push me harder but make it look like I’ve failed at the end. To resolve this inner dilemma, this inner struggle between lazy and motivated, I’m going to set a stretch goal to push myself and an easy goal so I can feel good about myself. Running is all about feeling good.

My time in 2006 was 58:53, almost 8 minutes faster than in 2005, so if I could cut another 8 minutes off my time this year that would put me at 50 minutes. This translates to 8 minute miles and according to the McMillan Running Calculator my workouts are not fast enough to believe that I could accomplish this. I actually think I heard it laughing at me when I input the data, so that will be the high end goal or perhaps it’s more accurate to call it an aspiration.

On the attainable side my aspiration is that I’ll be able to run sub 9 minute miles or under 56 minutes. Plugging this into the McMillan calculator gives me results that are more inline with my current workouts. There you have it, that’s my goal aspiration, or is it more exact to call it a tentative anticipation? Bingo! I tentatively anticipate that I will run the Bolder Boulder somewhere between 50:00 and 56:00. Strong words I know, but if you want to succeed in this life you have to be a go-getter, a goal-setter, at least that’s what my boss is always telling me.