Just one goal for 2018

I need all of these notebooks to write down all my goals for 2018. Just kidding, I’m only setting one, and I don’t need to write it down. 

This afternoon, after a quick session at the gym to ride the bike and the elipitical, and to do my PT exercises, I was sitting in bed looking for some motivation to write. Motivation and a topic.

I was scrolling through some old blog post and noticed a common topic: Goals. I write a lot about goals. I realized on many occasions I ignore my own advice and talk … err write … about my goals.

Last December, in a post that started with a quote from Triple H, I said I wanted to set “Big Audacious Goals” in 2017 and that my biggest “Big Audacious Goal” was to be better. In January, I said my goal was to get more sleep. In my very next post, I said my goal for the Sugarloaf Marathon was to run relaxed. In the post after that, I essentially said my goal was to PR at the Mid Winter Classic.

I eased off on the goal setting until after I blew up at the Sugarloaf Marathon, where my goals was to run 3:47. It wasn’t long after that meltdown that I set my next goal, which was to “Redesign. Rebuild. Reclaim.” Shortly after that, on an especially hot early summer day in spring, I said my goal for the summer was to have fun. Soon after that, I once again told myself to stop talking about goals. After few weeks after that, I set a bunch of goals for myself for 2018.

I didn’t write about any more goals until I started physical therapy after tearing up my right knee. After the first day of PT I wrote that my goal for 2018 was to be able to run, not race, the MDI Marathon in Oct. 2018.

That’s a lot of talk about goals for someone who said he wasn’t going to talk about goals (it’s also a lot of hyperlinks, my email is about to go crazy).

I think I will always set goals and probably always talk about them. However, for right now, as far as 2018 is concerned, I really need to not set any goals or even think about any races. All those goals I set in the first week of September — run a 50K trail race, do a sprint triathlon and get within 30 seconds of my 5k PR — I’m not even considering any of them.

Yeah, I’m writing all of those goals off. I’m tentatively sticking to the “run MDI” goal, but if I’m smart (haha, now that’s funny) I’ll even put that on the back burner. If I’m smart (haha, it’s still funny) I’ll have one goal for 2018:

To be able to run.

OK, let’s make it two goals:

1) to be able to run.

2) to be able to run without significant pain in every step.

That sounds like the best goal I’ve ever set for myself.

Instead of focusing on running this race, or racing that distance, or PR’ing like crazy, just being able to run would be nice. It has been a month since I’ve gone for a jog. It was a painful, slow jog that left me feeling defeated. If I ever write the story of my 2017 year in running, that will be the title, “Feeling defeated.” It hasn’t been a great year in terms of results or reaching goals. So I think the best thing to come out of my knee injuries and my stint on the disabled list would be if I take my foot off the throttle and just get healthy again. Get to a place where I can run pain free and enjoy the experience.

It’s been a while since I’ve enjoyed running and part of that is the pressure I put on myself to reach goals. Another part of that is I just haven’t been healthy this year, not physically and not mentally. I’ve been overwhelmed and distracted by a lot of things this year, including training and injuries. Sometimes I get into a funk and just don’t want to. There has been a lot of “just don’t want to” this year, especially the last month since tearing up my knee.

So I’ll avoid a setting a long list of goals. I won’t set any “Big Audacious Goals.” I won’t set any little ones either. I’ll get back to setting “Big Audacious Goals” and training my ass off sooner or later, and I’ll be better for it. I understand that is going to have to wait a little while, and I’m at the point where I’m totally OK with that.

My goal for 2018 is to JUST FUCKING RUN and JUST FUCKING ENJOY IT.