Book in the Making

One of the things I enjoy doing is helping people. I have helped test a program www.gowagon.com, written documentation for www.buckeyeoutdoors.com (although that is still in progress) and edit two books for my friend and running coach Dean. So when Dean sent me a chapter of his new book, I happily read it. One of the awesome things about seeing a book through the process is the morphs the book takes from the initial idea to the end result.

Usually most stories about someone starting to read a book is they curl up on the couch, next to the fireplace with their cat cuddling next to them. Living in Phoenix with a broken A/C on a day that's to hit 105 doesn't lend to that level of comfort and coziness.

Opening up the document I see that its 15 pages...ugh. Why when I read a book do I like short chapters, even if its the best book in the world. Guess that's a carry over from college days and doing homework.

The chapter is about goal setting.....hmmm. Certainly an area I can improve in. It goes through the list of why (yeah, yeah, know all about those), why not to (hey if I don't create a goal I can't fail at it, right?) Hey, its talking about not sitting on my butt eating that donut (little does Dean know that I have a card for a donut a day from Krispy Kreme) and wait, it says don't go to the scrapbooking store and get fancy paper (is that comment directed towards me? One can never have too much scrapbooking supplies.)

I like this idea and had tried it since I liked it. "A trick I learned long ago was to have a key word that reminded me of my goal. I wrote it on a small colored piece of paper and put it in my wallet next to the dollar bills. Every time I went to purchase anything anytime, I would see that paper. Several times a day I reinforced my goal. What makes this so practical is that in very short order, I would only have to see glimpses of that piece of paper and I would immediately think of my goal. I didn’t have to take a “goal setting worksheet” out of a file in my desk and read through it to remind myself of what I wanted to achieve. It was instant. It was repetitive. It was cheap. It was private. " The problem with it, is its not fool proof an I'm a skeptic. I had did that, was working towards my goal and yet got injured so there went my goal. Yes, I know that I will try again but what did I do to attract the injury when I had did everything I was supposed to? Or thought I was supposed to? How do I know what I missed?

Dean's comment to keep a goal private is something I'll try next time. I told people that I was training to qualify and now I have to deal with the questions of when's my race or how's my training going and I have to deal with my own disappointment each time I answer them.

One thing about reading about goals is I feel I should set them (again).

Here's my new goal following the goal setting steps outlined.

Goal: Run a Boston Qualifying marathon in 2009 with a 3:50 or less time.

Subgoal:

1. Run NO MORE than 5 days a week
2. Run one long run, one speed work and one tempo run a week
3. Reduce red meat, refined sugar (ohhh, that doesn't mean I give up my chai tea does it?)
4. Include strenghtening exercises 4-5 days a week.

So I set them, now what? Each day I need to work closer to the goals. Dean asks the question..."What one thing have you done today to get closer to your goals?" When I'm running on a regular basis the answer...I went for a run is too dull, too standard, is it really working towards my goal. If you're working towards a goal aren't you supposed to feel extraordinaire in someway?

So I've begun my journey working towards my goal to qualify. 4 miles today and now I need to focus on what I'm doing and not the fact that I was suppose to be tapering for my marathon right now. I ran 4 miles, with almost no discomfort and that is more than I was able to do a week ago. Tomorrow, I'll do something to work towards my goal.