Its been a while since I updated the Running Excel sheet I keep on myself, and in doing so today I noticed the list of goal times I wanted to achieve this year tucked in the corner of the spreadsheet (set back in January). I have highlighted my personal bests for each distance below, each of which fall [significantly] short of the times I had set as goal.
| Goal | PB | |
| 5K | 00:19:00 | 00:21:29 |
| 10K | 00:40:00 | 00:43:52 |
| Half | 01:30:00 | 01:40:32 |
As you can see, I'm a nice bit away from each of my goals for each distance. The reason I set goals is to help me figure out what I want and what is achievable. For example, I can now see that to achieve a 19 minute 5K requires a pace of 3:48/km, at the moment my fastest 5K has been at a 4:18/km however I did clock 2 x 3:45/kms on that run (according to my Nike+ App).
As it stands, my runs for 2014 look as follow (with the PBs highlighted in green):
| Race | Distance | Date | Time |
| Tuam 8K | 8 | 19/01/2014 | 00:35:55 |
| Maree 8K | 8 | 09/02/2014 | 00:36:59 |
| Gort 8K | 8 | 16/02/2014 | 00:37:35 |
| Kinvara Rock & Road Half Marathon | 21.1 | 01/03/2014 | 01:41:48 |
| Pakie Ryan 10K | 10 | 15/03/2014 | 00:44:27 |
| Eamon Moloney 10K | 10 | 30/03/2014 | 00:43:52 |
| Connemarathon | 42.2 | 06/04/2014 | 03:51:00 |
| Athenry - Galway 5K Series | 5 | 29/04/2014 | 00:21:37 |
| Great Limerick Run | 21.1 | 04/05/2014 | 01:40:32 |
| Loughrea - Galway 5K Series | 5 | 06/05/2014 | 00:21:31 |
| Claregalway - Galway 5K Series | 5 | 20/05/2014 | 00:21:46 |
| Galway City - Galway 5K Series | 5 | 27/05/2014 | 00:21:29 |
| Tuam - Galway 5K Series | 5 | 03/06/2014 | 00:21:39 |
| Tonabrucky Challenge | 6 | 07/06/2014 | 00:27:50 |
| The School Run | 5 | 08/06/2014 | 00:22:28 |
| Galway Simon 10K | 10 | 22/06/2014 | 00:47:09 |
| Renville Park 5K | 5 | 25/06/2014 | 00:23:00 |
| Rock & Roll Half Marathon | 21.1 | 04/08/2014 | 01:50:01 |
Its hard to evaluate where I should set my goals for the remainder of the year as June & July have been slow so its hard to know where I should set my bar. That being said, having a goal has always helped motivate me and help keep me focused. I read somewhere before that not having a goal is like running up and down a field but never scoring.
For that reason, I am adjusting my goal times slightly for the remainder of the year as a goal also has to be realistic and achievable. The "easy" goal would be one you know with fair confidence you will achieve without significant effort, so I could set the goal of just beating each of the PBs I set earlier this year however that doesn't scare me enough to keep me motivated. I like a challenge and for that reason I have set my adjusted goals to:
| Adj Goal | PB | |
| 5K | 00:20:00 | 00:21:29 |
| 10K | 00:41:00 | 00:43:52 |
| Half | 01:35:00 | 01:40:32 |
Having these goals will also keep me focused as the evenings get shorter and the weather gets worse. They keep me running. I also plan on running a timed half marathon each month for the rest of the year to keep my distance running up. If anyone knows any good Half in October, November or December, let me know as I am looking to sign up :)
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